Something is different about Fernanda Ly, something that could have damaged her career ten years ago: She’s blonde. Before going platinum, Ly caught the modeling industry’s attention with an edgy pink coif. What began as an act of teenage rebellion soon became her coquette signature look. “Does this mean I can never change it?” Ly asked her booker at Priscillas Model Management. With one word, Ly’s value was ascribed to a single feature: “Yes.” Ly was sentenced to a life in pink.

But Ly has never been a rule-follower. Hailing from Sydney, Australia, she is the daughter of ethnically Chinese immigrants who moved from Vietnam in 1986. The 27-year-old model now lives in New York “by accident,” having arrived eight years ago on vacation, which happened to fall during New York Fashion Week casting. Here, she caught her first break—a Louis Vuitton show. She then served as a brand ambassador for five seasons, a feat she recognizes is “pretty much unheard of.”

Her indisputable success has earned the fashion industry’s trust and, with that, the right to abandon her blush-colored calling card. “I was tired of that image,” she says of her transition from pink to blonde. “Since changing my hair I have felt like a new person.” Ly’s transformation represents more than a departure from her former hallmark, it symbolizes her growing sense of autonomy in a business that often treats models as “merchandise or product.”

When her career began, Ly was hesitant to stand up for herself. “I didn’t want to be the difficult model,” she says. Over time, she learned to embrace self-advocacy. During the height of the #MeToo movement, Ly contributed to a modeling exposé, sharing an account of a stylist who touched her inappropriately. Ly bravely published her full name: “Most people chose to stay anonymous. Putting your name onto something legitimizes it.”

Ly is currently working to adopt this level of self-assurance in other pursuits. Outside of work, Ly is a talented clay sculptor and the creator of FERNTUBE, a YouTube channel dishing out an equal dose of fairycore and candid career stories. “As a model, I feel good enough. With my art, it’s different,” she says. She often fights the impulse to destroy finished projects, but is sure her “confidence will build with time.” Ly prefers to live in the now rather than dwell on an unknown future. When asked about post-modeling plans, she laughs, “There’s a life after modeling?”

This story appears in the pages of V145: now available for purchase!

Photography Bryce Anderson

Fashion Xander Ang

Makeup Mariel Barrera

Hair Ward Stegerhoek (Home Agency)

Manicure Rita Remark (Bryan Bantry)

Set design Ava Villafañe

On-set producer Mara Weinstein

Digital technician Reece Nelson

Lighting director William Takahashi

Photo assistant Ryan Carter

Stylist assistants Marli Giedt, Natalie Cohen

Makeup assistant Jenn Green

Hair assistant Brian Casey

Location Shio Studio