Even before she told Sherri Shepherd about trading emails with Anna Wintour, we knew supermodel Anok Yai was the real deal. Now we’re even more convinced after hearing her tell a badass story about the lengths legendary fashion designer and photographer Karl Lagerfeld went through to get her to one of his shoots.
In an interview with Harper’s Bazaar, the model who was discovered at Howard University’s homecoming shared a story about a disastrous travel day that had a happy ending. Yai said she ran into some roadblocks while traveling from New York to Paris for a Fendi campaign shoot, including getting shut out of an oversold flight and missing a connection at the airport in London.
But what happened next sounds like something that would only happen in a James Bond movie: Yai’s agent told her to get into a helicopter, which whisked her away to a waiting motorcycle.
“I land in the middle of Paris and then I get onto a motorcycle,” she said. “I drive straight to the set.”
At the end of what she believed to be a 12-hour travel day, Yai said Lagerfeld shot the entire campaign in 15 minutes.
“And then he’s like, ‘good job, here’s a bag,’” she said.
The Harper’s Bazaar video has received over 220,000 likes on TikTok and lots of love from fans of Yai who manages to look absolutely stunning in a denim blouse and a drop dead gorgeously glowing beat to match.
“I can’t hear what she’s saying because her skin is absolutely stunning,” wrote someone.
Another commenter added that any amount of money Lagerfeld had to pay to get Yai to set was well worth it.
“Pause the video at any given point and see why they paid for the helicopter. Perfect shots,” wrote someone.