How model Jill Kortleve became the highlight of the autumn/winter 2020 runways

Jill Kortleve can’t pick a favourite show from the autumn/winter 2020 season. She walked in several, and many held special significance. When the Dutch model stepped onto the Fendi catwalk in Milan, it marked the first time in its history that plus-size models had been cast in a show. In Paris, she had a look-how-far-I’ve-come moment at Alexander McQueen, two years after making her runway debut for the house as a virtual unknown. Then Kortleve closed out her whirlwind season with another landmark moment at Chanel – perhaps the most anticipated show on the schedule – where she became the first curve model to walk for the house since Crystal Renn a full decade before.

“Honestly, it is as good as impossible to single out one show,” Kortleve, 26, tells British Vogue. “Especially since I don’t have the ‘standard’ runway size. Every show that showed me and my body feels like a highlight to me.” That said, she admits walking for Chanel was a dream she never thought she’d realise, so when she finally did join Gigi Hadid, Kaia Gerber and Mona Tougaard for their nonchalant stroll along Virginie Viard’s Paris promenade earlier this month, “the main feeling was joy”.

“I feel very lucky to get these opportunities,” says Kortleve, who is hoping her own success this season gives rise to a much bigger industry shift when it comes to inclusive casting. “With houses like Chanel, Fendi and Valentino showing curves again on the runway, that could be a great influence for other brands.” Change is good, she says, it just needs to happen faster. “This season you saw me and Paloma [Elsesser, who also walked in the Fendi show], but I really, really hope next season I will share the runway with more models [of] different sizes. We’re showing that it is possible, and the audience is letting the industry know that they want to see that, so now it just needs to happen.”

Change seems to be unfolding a little more rapidly in Kortleve’s personal life – she recently moved to New York to capitalise on her exploding profile. Still, no yellow cabs for this Netherlander, who prefers to navigate Bushwick on her VanMoof electric bike. It seems to be a typically low-key move from the sultry beauty, whose post-show rituals include “good food” and naps, and whose Instagram feed features as many shots of her in her Champion sweats as in Mugler, Molly Goddard or Michael Kors – along with Pink’s Hot Dogs appreciation posts and Seinfeld memes. She jokes that she’d like to get married in her Valentino runway look, so what if it was black leather? It’s worth noting, also, that her enviably fulsome brows fit perfectly into the gaps left vacant when another spirited model, Cara Delevingne, bid farewell to the catwalk.

“Growing up I was never that focused on fashion,” says Kortleve, who was born in Heerlen, in the southeast of the Netherlands, and lived in Amsterdam before being signed by MiLK and making the move to Manhattan. “I bought a Vogue every once in a while, but it was never a big thing in my life. That’s why I always think it’s funny that I ended up working in fashion, now that I do love it and I’m fully committed.” If she wasn’t modelling, she’d be back in Amsterdam, she says, “working full-time at my old job, or maybe [I would have] gone back to college.” Kortleve still isn’t ruling out a return to education in the future, although the chances of her being free to bury her nose in books any time soon seem slim.

What’s next on her career bucket list after ticking off Chanel? Kortleve wants to keep being a positive force in the shift towards a more diverse and representative fashion industry. “I would love to see more and more brands branching out in their size range sample wise, so girls and boys like me can be considered for any job,” she says. “Being the right fit for a brand is not about your size.”

This story previously appeared on Vogue.co.uk