Taylor Russell, a Jamaican Canadian actor and star of “Bones and All” and “Waves,” was featured on the catwalk at the opening of fashion designer Loewe’s show during Paris Fashion Week. Russell, 28, told an interviewer from Harper’s Bazaar magazine that she “felt like a little kid” walking down the runway for the Spring 2023 collection of the Loewe brand after having been handpicked by Jonathan Anderson, the creative director. Russell was also s photographed by Juergen Teller in a Loewe campaign.
She opened the Loewe collection wearing a strapless black velvet dress. Anderson selected her after a meeting through their mutual friend, Luca Guadagnino. Anderson said the meeting was the beginning of a special friendship and added that he was proud she agreed to walk in the show. In November 2022, Russell was named a Global Ambassador for Loewe and will appear in its next pre-collection campaign. Described by Vogue magazine as a “bold style renegade,” Russell impressed by being in a “total fashion league of her own.” She appeared on the cover of February 2023 Harper Bazzar Magazine.
Russell spent the time since the press tour for “Bones and All” working on her style. She was noted for wearing an Alexander McQueen biker twinset at the BAFTA Tea Party and a Tom Ford for Gucci fur bolero at the Gotham Awards in 2022 as she experimented with textures and shape. She was a good fit for Anderson’s “reductionist” aesthetic, which combined sensuality with “something quite hard.”
Russell described her work in acting as the “opposite” of running away as it exposes the truth of things, that “it illuminates something.” In addition to her starring role in “Waves” and “Bones and All,” Russell was featured in “Escape Room.” She noted the “beauty” of cities in North America like Toronto and New York City that she feels have “connected” her to her Jamaican heritage through food and dining options and other cultural features.
Taylor Russell McKenzie was born in 1994 in Vancouver, British Columbia, and raised in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal. She displayed her artistic side early on and originally wanted a career in ballet, while later considering becoming a painter. She took her first acting class at the age of 18 and realized that this was what she wanted to do. In pursuit of her acting career, she would drive to Los Angeles for auditions and return home to work when the money ran out, working until she had saved enough to audition once more. This situation continued for four years before she was chosen for her first major television role.
Russell, whose father is Jamaican, emphasized the island culture of Toronto where the family dined on Caribbean food and enjoyed a “very intact” community. She said things were similar when she moved to New York City. She told the interviewer, “Thank God. I’m on the train in Harlem with my people and I can find the food that makes me feel connected to my roots.” She called the neighbor “so vital” and “lifeblood.”
Photo – Lowes/Taylor Russell
