Lily Brant, 21, has made her runway debut for Alaïa at Paris Fashion Week, stepping into the same house that launched her mother Stephanie Seymour’s career four decades ago.
The Ford Models signee walked the label’s Saturday show in the French capital, continuing a family bond with the late Azzedine Alaïa that stretched back to her childhood. Brant spent family dinners at the designer’s house as a kid and later interned at the house for two summers as a teen, splitting her time between PR and the atelier.
“He was always just the sweetest presence and had such a kind soul,” she told Vogue. “He would always give me hugs, and he treated me like family.”
Seymour, 58, was a longtime muse to Alaïa, whom she called “Papa.” The designer died in 2017 at age 82. He gave Seymour her start in the 1980s when, out of 20 go-sees she attended as a teen in Paris, he was the only one to book her.
Her first walk for him was hardly smooth. Seymour said later she spent the entire show muttering, “I can’t believe I’m doing this.” Alaïa found the footage hilarious and made her a house regular anyway, even lobbying friends like Kenzo to hire her when they expressed doubts.
“But who cares? She has the best butt!” Seymour told Interview magazine in 2009, recalling the designer’s defense of her.
Alaïa’s role in Seymour’s life extended beyond fashion. He designed her gown for her 1995 wedding to Peter Brant and walked her down the aisle at the ceremony.
Brant came to her own debut better prepared than her mother had. Back at college in St. Louis, where she studies film and business, she practiced on a treadmill in heels at Seymour’s suggestion. The shoes were often borrowed from her mother’s closet.
Seymour also passed along an imaginative catwalk trick. “She said sometimes when she would walk, she would channel whatever would help her feel confident,” Brant told Vogue. “She would sometimes pretend she was a gazelle prancing around, or a mermaid. She was like, ‘You can be whatever you want to be.'”
The Brant family has endured public tragedy. Seymour and Peter Brant share son Peter Brant Jr., 32, and lost their son Harry Brant to an accidental overdose in 2021 at age 24. Seymour has an older son, Dylan Andrews, 36, from her first marriage to Tommy Andrews.
Brant was hardly the only celebrity offspring making waves in Paris this season. Gwyneth Paltrow’s daughter Apple Martin debuted at Chloé, John Travolta’s daughter Ella Bleu Travolta walked Miu Miu, and Heidi Klum brought daughter Lou Samuel to Vivienne Westwood’s front row.
Seymour’s relationship with Alaïa remained one of the defining partnerships of her modeling career until his death. The designer’s confidence in her as a teenager — and his willingness to advocate for her with other houses — established the foundation that now supports her daughter’s own entry into the industry.
Brant’s debut marks a new chapter for the family’s connection to the house, one that began with a teenager’s nervous first walk and a designer who saw something others didn’t.
Alaïa’s next Paris presentation is scheduled for the upcoming ready-to-wear season.