Amelia Gray has never had a backup plan; it’s always been modeling or bust. She recalls her mother explaining when she was five or six years old, that her friend Cindy Crawford was a supermodel. “In that moment, I was like, I don’t know what ‘supermodel’ means, but I want to be that.” She’s quick to note that, while her recent success may appear meteoric and spontaneous, she’s actually been working since the age of 16 — though she would’ve started even earlier, if her mom hadn’t shot down the idea. 

“I think it’s always confusing when people ask me, ‘How long have you been doing this?’ Technically, I’ve only really been doing this since last September, but I’ve been trying to do this for at least the past seven years. That’s one thing that I feel like a lot of people don’t really know about me unless you were there when I was in middle school telling all my friends, ‘I’m a model. I’m gonna be a model.’” —Amelia Gray

Gray credits her mom (Lisa Rinna, an icon in her own right) with sparking her youthful interest in modeling — but not because Gray wanted to emulate her. “My mom was never wearing makeup, really. She was more of a jeans-and-cowboy-boots type,” Gray says. “I was interested in all kinds of beauty standards at an early age because my mom didn’t conform.”

 “My mom told me I couldn’t [model] until I was 18 and I fought her on it. She was very smart. I would advise everyone not to start [modeling] until they’re 18. I wasn’t ready at 15 at all. I think that confidence comes with the knowledge of who you are as a person.” —Amelia Gray

For Inez & Vinoodh’s V144 shoot, Gray channeled a version of herself she doesn’t often express outside of work — her feminine diva self. “Why do I have to be just one thing?” she wonders. “Why can’t it all be me? Why can’t I do it all?”

This cover story appears in the pages of V144: now available for purchase!

Photography Inez & Vinoodh

Fashion Paul Sinclaire

Makeup Sam Visser (Art Partner)

Hair Jimmy Paul (Susan Price NYC)

Model Amelia Grey (The Lions)

Manicure Deborah Lippmann (Home Agency)

Producer John Nadzi (VLM Productions)

Production manager Michael Gleeson (VLM Productions)

Lighting director Jodokus Driessen (VLM Studio)

Digital technician Marc Kroop (VLM Studio)

Photo assistant Joe Hume (VLM Studio)

Stylist assistants Coco Knudson, Timothy Cheng, Jesse Pickel

Makeup assistants Shimu Takanori, Micka Omura

Hair assistant LaMesha Mosley

Manicure assistants Bojir Hasanov, Joelle Rodriguez

Retouching StereoHorse

Location Pier 59 Studios