MODEL & TIKTOKER KIT PRICE TALKS ABOUT BREAKING DOWN THE BARRIERS OF THE MODELLING INDUSTRY

Kit Price played lots of characters in school, where he studied drama, but now his main role is as a stern-faced, strong-stepped model who closed Daniel Lee’s debut Burberry show. But he is not just a model. Extending his many trades to social media, Kit’s TikTok is an outlet for him to post all about his behind-the-scenes modelling life cuts, funny life experiences and showing off his new hairstyles, which change more often than the seasons. Today, we caught up with Kit to talk about his move to the UK, his Louis Vuitton campaigns and his Paris Fashion Week experience.

Hey! Can you introduce yourself to our readers?

Hey! My name is Kit Price. I grew up in Malaysia. I was quite sporty and into performing arts throughout school, and then came over to the UK just over two and a half years ago for university. I gave that a crack through Covid, but struggled with online learning and having to do a creative in-person course over a computer and so decided to take a gamble and move onto a different chapter in my life. Luckily for me, modelling just fell into place. Now I model and do a bit of content creation on the side, after moving from Manchester, where I was studying drama and film at university, to London.

Did you get culture shock moving from Malaysia to the UK?

Yeah it was quite a shock to the system. It’s a very different culture and the difference in climate is comical. Even the food. Nobody told me that salt and pepper would be the extent of seasoning for the foreseeable future.

On your TikTok you post a whole load of content from Love Island impersonations to BTS footage from runway shows. How do you come up with content and decide what to post?

It can be quite rogue at times. One minute I’m hopping on trends, just keeping up with the times. Other times I’m trying to put my own twist on it, whether that’s with humour or trying to give a better insight into the modelling industry. But ideas come to me at the most random times. I could literally be lying in bed at 1AM and just get into a flow of ideas. It works best when I’m not really forcing it. It normally takes me off guard a little bit. It’s about finding a nice balance nowadays. I want to kind of keep my personality and humour up as much as possible while creating content I’m proud of. My brain has become pretty good at understanding what does well, because I spent so many years growing up watching other content creators. But yeah, you’re right, the content changes quite a bit and is quite random. I just try and have as much fun with it as possible and hopefully my followers enjoy it too.

With modelling, how did you get into that? Were you scouted?

I actually started getting scouted a bunch after the second lockdown, when we were eventually allowed out of our caves. I didn’t take it too seriously to begin with. I was like, “Oh, that’s cool, but I don’t really think it’s for me”. But when I was scouted for the fourth time I was like, “Okay, maybe I should look into this a little bit further”. I just gave it a crack and thought what was the worst that could happen? I ended up meeting with an agency that took me on board. I spent about a year in what they call development and in February 2022, I made my debut at London Fashion Week.

Your hair has become a huge part of your identity, at least on social media, having fully shaved it all off a year ago now. Why did you decide to do it?

It was actually my agency’s idea at the time to shave my head. I was very sceptical to begin with, because I’ve always been really funny about my hair. I had the old Justin Bieber cut when I was younger because for some reason I was funny about my ears, so my hair was always covering them. When they told me to shave it, I was like “Umm, let me give that some thought and get back to you”. In the end I came round and decided to shave it off. They were very happy with how it looked, so I was happy obviously. A few months later I pitched them about going blonde and they were on board, so I went blonde and I started realising how much fun I can have with it.

Is your agency quite lenient with appearance changes?

Every agency will advise you and point you in the right direction. But at the end of the day, it’s your body and they hopefully, in my case definitely, respect that and let you be free to do whatever you want (within reason of course). They just appreciate a heads up, if I’m suddenly going to go and get a sleeve of tattoos they would probably appreciate a warning.

You do go quite crazy with your hair – whether dying it pink or with a friend’s help to create that floral look. Where do you get hairspiration from?

A few times I’ve dyed my hair like crazy patterns or colours have been for clients. I went red for the Burberry show, and I recently went blue for an Armani campaign. When I’m doing it on my own, it’s me and my mate just brainstorming, scrolling through Pinterest. I’m also thinking about what’s appropriate for the timing. So I did love hearts for Valentine’s Day, which took off. Now that summer’s approaching I’ll be looking to do more summer-y inspired styles.

You mentioned Burberry, which you closed for during Daniel Lee’s debut for FW23. What was that experience like?

It was pretty unbelievable. I genuinely didn’t believe I was closing until I was physically on that runway. I was surrounded by some top models, who have done some incredible work. I was just looking around wondering who was pulling my leg. I got to have the pleasure of watching the whole collection come together. I’d been working with Burberry for four or five months leading up to the show so it was very cool being a part of the final production.

Last fashion week was your Paris debut. How does Paris Fashion Week differ from other fashion weeks?

They are relatively similar. The casting process is pretty much the same. But Paris is a different beast. You’re competing with thousands of boys who have flown in from all around the world, desperate to find themselves just one job that can propel their career. It’s a crazy experience. There’s lots of cool people around and it’s a very cool city, but the stress of working as a model is intense. You age about a year in the space of two weeks.

Being a model is a challenging career path that’s based almost purely on your looks. Have you ever had a day where you weren’t feeling yourself but still had to work? How did you cope?

All the time. As an outsider looking in at all these attractive models, you’d never imagine that any of them struggle with insecurities or body dysmorphia. I’m lucky enough not to struggle too much with it. It does obviously happen though, and it’s tricky not comparing yourself to a lot of other people. You’re almost in a little bubble, it’s impossible not to do so. For me, I’ve never been more confident in my appearance or my body but also never been more conscious of the way I look. At the end of the day, you have to remind yourself that you were given this job for a reason. You’re going to get rejected all the time, it doesn’t suddenly mean you’re not attractive or you’re ugly, it’s just that you weren’t what the client wanted for this particular project and you move on and get on with your day.

On a more joyful note, what was your favourite campaign to shoot or runway to walk?

I shot a Louis Vuitton campaign in Budapest which was a crazy experience. It was my first big job. I hadn’t really done much before that so I was just chucked straight into the deep end. It gave me a glimpse of what my career could look like, which sparked this fuel inside of me and set up a pretty ridiculous benchmark but a benchmark nonetheless. It was also off the back of a lot of heavy rejection leading up to it, which made it all the more sweeter. It was what I needed early on in my career, so it’s stuck with me.

Do you have any funny BTS stories of a shoot or runway show that went horribly wrong or was completely unexpected?

It’s actually funny to look back on, but at the time I was severely stressed. It was one of the biggest jobs I’ve landed in my career. We were shooting in Paris in some fields and I was entertaining myself between shots. I have this silly party trick where I spit my chewing gum out and then I kick it back up and catch it in my mouth right? Pretty cool when it goes to plan. I made sure I had quite a bit of space and I thought I was in the clear. I gave one of the models a little nudge and said “Hey, watch this”. And then kicked my gum straight into one of the stylists’ hair. Initially she thought I had done it on purpose and was pretty unimpressed but we had been getting along brilliantly for the whole shoot and I was hugely apologetic, so she forgave me in the end. It’s safe to say I have not touched chewing gum on set since though.

Are there any shows or brands you want to work with you haven’t yet had the chance? What are some other life or career goals you want to achieve?

In terms of brands to work with, I’m still early on in my career and the list goes on. I want to check off every big designer out there before I take on any other kind of challenge or change of direction in my career. While I’m doing that, the goal is to just keep growing my platform on social media, because I think that will always help in the career choice I take. I want to be a jack of all trades. The goal is and has always been acting, so I want to brush up on my skills while I continue to model.