Precious Lee: A Fashion Force to be Reckoned With
The fashion industry is notorious for primarily showing unrealistic beauty standards and lacking diversity within their model castings. While that may discourage many people from pursuing a modeling career, Precious Lee is showing the world nothing is impossible.
Source: Fashionnotography
Born on September 13, 1989, in Atlanta, Georgia, Precious Lee lived a fairly normal 90s childhood. Her father was a cosmetologist, and her mother was an educator and model, which inspired Lee to find interest in fashion, hair, and makeup. Although her parents were employed in fields closely related to modeling, she chose to major in mass media arts at Clark Atlanta University and had dreams of becoming a lawyer.
When Precious was 18 years old, a friend of hers wanted to attend an open call and asked her to join. As a supportive friend, she tagged along with no intentions of being involved. To her surprise, the casting directors loved her look and offered her a contract.
While she was extremely excited about the opportunity, Lee decided to continue attending college and just slowly dabble in modeling. As Lee explained to Evening Standard, she was one of the only plus sized models in Atlanta at the time, therefore an overwhelming number of opportunities began rolling in. Once she realized that she not only enjoyed modeling, but it allowed her to help so many women that looked like her, Lee moved to New York after graduation and started working full-time for Ford Models.
Source: HuffPost— Precious Lee starring in #PlusIsEqual campaign
In 2015, Lee signed to IMG Models and got her breakthrough job— a Lane Bryant campaign called #PlusIsEqual. The campaign was received extremely well and featured in an ad in a September issue of Vogue. This officially made Precious the first ever black curve model to appear in the American version of fashions holy grail publication.
Not long after, Lee was seen strutting her beauty down the runways for multiple brands, specifically Christian Siriano, who she became the face for until 2021.
Although her story may seem like everything simply fell into place for her, Precious faced many obstacles along the way. Despite getting work, the industry was still not accepting of her size and race.
In an interview with Elle, Lee said, “To say I’m a full-time model after spending thousands of dollars on college. That is a huge risk. Especially being a size 12, 14, having dark skin, not coming from nepotism. There were so many different things that were aligned for me to have a struggle.” She continued to recall an experience where casting directors thought Precious was mixed race because she was ‘so pretty’. When she said she was African American, the meeting ended.
Unfortunately, that was not the only instance where she was ostracized for being herself. However, Lee decided to stand tall and overcome the double standards in the industry. She continued to be persistent with getting jobs while staying true to herself.
“Be as fearless as possible… Don’t let anyone minimize your dreams.”
Now, in 2022, it is obvious that her strategy for success worked. Lee has made history as the first black curve model to walk the runways of Versace, Fendi, Balmain, Moschino, Savage X Fenty, and so many more. Not to mention, she was also the first ever international face to appear on the cover on Vogue Netherlands. Lee has several awards, like making the BoF 500 list and being awarded Breakthrough Model from The Daily Front Row. She was also nominated for Model of the Year Award by models.com in 2021.
While she continues to make strides down runways and empower women all over the world, supermodel Precious Lee sets an example for anyone who may face judgement for being themselves.