Tuesday afternoon was a first for Dasha Nekrasova and Anna Khachiyan of Red Scare podcast infamy. The embittered provocateurs manifested their dreams of becoming runway models when they walked in Rachel Comey’s Spring 2019 show, which took place at the Marlborough Contemporary gallery.
“Next year, I will be in high demand at Fashion Week,” predicted Nekrasova in an episode of the podcast from September 13, 2018, titled “Fashion Victims Anonymous,” which aired during last season’s shows. “I can feel it.”
Back then, Nekrasova was flush with excitement and eaten up with envy on the heels of her first Fashion Week, after attending Gauntlett Cheng’s runway show on Canal Street.
The experience was an eye-opening one. “I had a moment at the after-party when I was watching these beautiful and perfect models, who were drunk and coked-up out of their minds and everyone was admiring them,” Nekrasova recalls. “They were like, partying and dancing and lying down on the floor with their thin legs, and I was like, Wow, my life’s okay, but I would literally trade it all — the podcast, Adam, my status as a socialist icon… — I would trade it all to be an extremely hot and relevant model for five seconds. I think that’s probably the best feeling a human being can have. It’s probably heavenly to be desired and frail.”
Khachiyan agreed. “I’m with you, Dasha,” she said. Adding: “I think it’s only a matter of time before fashion people take note of us. You look like a Russian schoolgirl and I look like a Chechen urchin who sells MDMA by the subway tracks.”
Apparently, all it takes is around seven months for a Russian schoolgirl and a Chechen urchin to get noticed in this town. Comey told the Cut she’d listened to Red Scare, and Nekrasova also mentioned in September that the brand sent her a pair of heels. So how did it feel to live the dream? “It was everything I wanted,” Nekrasova said backstage afterward. “People put lotion on me.” Plus, there’s “the rush of not eating.”
As for her nerves, Nekrasova had none because she’s “done theater” before. She didn’t want to overthink it, especially not her walk. “It’s really easy,” she said. “You just un-focus your gaze.”
Both were grateful to be in the same room as Susan Sarandon “and her politics.” However, Khachiyan had a slightly different experience than Nekrasova. When asked how she felt about modeling she said, completely deadpan, that the experience was both “demeaning and demoralizing.” Then she laughed in her signature dry tone and said, “No, it was a lot of fun.”
