Model and artist Ella Snyder on the pivotal role fashion plays when it comes to her identity

I grew up wanting to be a part of the world I’m in now. Assigned male at birth, in Boston, Massachusetts, I didn’t think I would ever have the chance of being a model, gracing the pages of magazines and fronting fashion and beauty campaigns. Nor did I think I would ever have the opportunity to photograph the same exciting projects. Yet here I am, at 22 years of age, having spent four years in New York City and recently relocated to Los Angeles, watching my wildest dreams become reality.

Growing up, fashion was always my escape. I knew I was a girl when I was three years old, but I didn’t get to begin my transition until I was 11, so there was an eight-year period where I had to present as male. I’d run home from school every day and change into girls’ clothing – finally feeling like my true self. During those eight years, I grew two wardrobes – one that I loved and that expressed the real me, and one I put on my body every morning to please the people around me.

As a child, I truly believed some scout from Disney or Nickelodeon would come knocking on my parents’ door and ask to cast me in a major TV show or movie. Sadly, that never happened. As that dream started to fade, I focused my sights on college, or really any other route that would take me to a big city with better clothes and more creative identities. For me, higher education represented an escape from the closed-minded, conformist Boston community I was raised in.

In 2017, I left for New York City to study photography at Parsons School of Design. It was there that, for the first time, I felt surrounded by like-minded, creative individuals, all focused on paving their own path and making their own success. It was there that I really built my modeling career, started booking freelance photography gigs for publications I grew up reading and came into my own, style-wise.

No longer under pressure to conform and, instead, under a new-found pressure to be as different as possible, I sought inspiration from New Yorkers’ impeccable street style, my Parsons classmates (many of whom made their own clothes), vintage stores and Japanese and Korean fashion magazines. That time in my life really marks the biggest shift in my style evolution.

I was raised on America’s Next Top Model, so the first trans person I ever knew of was Isis King, who first appeared on season 11 of the show. I was in third or fourth grade at the time and wanted to be just like her; she instantly became my blueprint. When the time came and I actually started my own modeling career, my experiences were extremely mixed. I could tell I was booked for some jobs solely because of my trans identity. I was a queer token for certain clients. Fortunately, others would truly recognize my individuality and choose to celebrate it.

Some of the most affirming experiences I’ve had in modeling have been with designers such as Givenchy, R13 and Calvin Klein Underwear; brands that continued to support me throughout my transition and made me feel uplifted and seen. They have consistently proved that there is space for me in this industry.

I can only speak for myself when I say that fashion plays a big and important role in the trans experience. For me, fashion has been a constant thread, from my early transition to the solidity I have in my identity now. Fashion has, and always will be, the medium I use to present myself to the world in the way I want to be seen. It’s my most base-level form of self-expression – and yet is one aspect of my life that allows for the most chaos. I consider my closet an ever-growing archive of the clothing that allows me to both be and protect myself.