A V A H A R I R I • K I A

“𝙸’𝚖 𝚍𝚘𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚊𝚞𝚜𝚎 𝙸 𝚠𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝚝𝚘 𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚎 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚋𝚎𝚊𝚞𝚝𝚒𝚏𝚞𝚕, 𝙸 𝚠𝚊𝚗𝚝 𝚝𝚘 𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚎 𝚊𝚛𝚝.” Safe to say possessing an unimpeachable thesis, let alone wielding one, is fairly atypical for a model. Models model after all, their truths are self-evident. For Ava Hariri-Kia, once upon a time the very idea of modeling was fanciful, a rarefied pursuit unattainable to but a select few and certainly not to a young woman with a size 14 dress. Accepting high fashion as it was was never on the cards for Ava, she sees things differently. Her every move in high fashion calls bullshit on the very foundations on which this industry is premised. Hers is not a rhetorical battle, it’s aesthetic, and one she’s quietly winning. In 2020 Ava inked her first modeling contract with Next Management in the midst of lockdown, not long after having landed a page in that year’s September issue of Vogue with a portrait by Ethan James Green. She’s the daughter of Iranian emigrants, a native New Yorker, and fiercely Persian. Although advocacy comes naturally, embodiment is her preferred register, and these days her modeling couldn’t be more resonant than it is. To understand how Ava got her start, one must meet her family, which is precisely where this film begins. One beautiful autumn Sunday we caught up with Ava, her mother Gisue, father Bahman, and sister Iman at Persian restaurant Persepolis on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Over chaii چایی , a picture of Ava in emerges in its full, life-affirming brillianc