Aritro Roy London Fashion Week Sidequest

@MACSM

Sidequested so hard, I ended up on the London Fashion Week runway.

Modelling was nowhere near my mental roadmap for 2026 (even by my wacky standards). But I’ve been recklessly pressing “yes” whenever life flashes a dialogue box, and somehow that sequence of tiny decisions led to standing in rooms I didn’t even know existed and seeing myself pop up around magazines like Vogue, Dazed Magazine, and a few others that still feel mildly surreal.

About two weeks ago, a few friends and I spontaneously made and posted a couple of micro-films; purely on a whim (that rabbit hole deserves its own story).

A day or two later, a scout messaged me on Instagram asking if I wanted to come in for a model casting. I barely registered it, half assuming it was spam or some elaborate scam, but said yes anyway and kept moving. She asked for profile shots and told me to show up at a certain place and time. Worst case scenario would be I get kidnapped and best case is what happened.

I arrived expecting something low-key… instead I walked into a room full of absurdly good-looking people and a gatekeeper asking which agency I was signed with. That’s when I met Kai, the designer I’d be walking for. We clicked immediately, and the look he had planned fit almost uncannily well, like it had been waiting for me before I even knew I’d be there.

A week later I was sent a location and turned up with some hair gel in my bag, still not fully grasping the scale of what was unfolding.
Then it clicked… this was London Fashion Week. Entire dedicated rooms humming with hair, makeup, fittings. 160+ models being orchestrated with the kind of precision that feels closer to a racing pit stop than a backstage. Teams of stylists and artists moving with quiet urgency.

I got a quick one-minute walkthrough of the runway; which wasn’t even a straight line but more like a literal racetrack bending through the space.
I was meant to learn how to walk on the day, but there wasn’t time or space. So the first time I ever walked a runway happened live, under flashing lights, with hundreds upon hundreds of people watching and cameras absolutely everywhere.

Weirdly though, I didn’t feel nervous. Maybe it was the absence of expectation. Maybe I didn’t even know of all the ways I can mess up and therefore couldn’t overthink it. Or maybe it’s the muscle memory from running events, speaking on the fly, being dropped into situations where you just adapt or disappear. There’s a peculiar calm that shows up when you realise you’re simply another moving piece in a much larger choreography.

But my biggest industry-shock was the kindness. From the designer to the crew to the other models, everyone carried this quiet generosity that made the whole experience feel oddly grounded despite the scale.

Whether this becomes a recurring detour or remains a beautiful anomaly… I don’t know.
But it did exemplify something: sometimes life doesn’t ask for a plan, only a willingness to step through the door when it opens.