When Alex Consani sat down with Dazed magazine alongside activist Vivian Wilson, she said the quiet part out loud: people in fashion had directly told her to stop posting about Palestine, and some of her friends who ignored that advice hadn’t worked for months. Instead of pulling back, Consani made clear that human lives ranked higher than runway seasons — a stance that puts her alongside a small but growing group of models willing to absorb real professional damage for Palestinian advocacy.
What the Fashion Industry Told Her — and What She Said Back
The industry’s pressure didn’t come as formal warnings or written clauses. It came as friendly advice, quiet suggestions, the kind of thing said between industry contacts with a knowing look. Consani described it plainly: “When I was speaking about the shit happening in Palestine, there were a lot of people in fashion who were like, ‘Maybe don’t say that.'” The fact that she could watch the consequences land on friends — months without bookings — and still choose to speak is what gives the statement its weight.
Her reasoning was direct. “For me, it’s a moral belief. I’m not scared to speak about what I believe in, especially when it comes to human lives.” She also pushed back on the luxury industry’s version of neutrality, questioning why a platform built specifically on public visibility should come with a rule of political silence: “We were given a platform to speak, so why not take it, no?” As a transgender woman who has had to defend her own existence within an industry that still treats transness as edgy casting rather than reality, Consani added that she’d already long since stopped measuring every word: “Our identities are already something that we have to fight for, and you kind of just have to say ‘fuck it’ and speak about what you believe in.”
The interview appeared in Dazed at a moment when the term “Z-Too” — coined by journalists to describe the wave of blacklisting and doxxing that hit models, editors, and stylists who posted Palestinian solidarity content — had already become an open secret in the industry. Consani naming it directly, from a position of genuine commercial value to the brands involved, is what separated her comments from the usual background noise. Much like Bella Hadid’s years of Palestinian advocacy, Consani was betting that some things are more important than the next booking.
The Other Models Who Refused to Stay Quiet
Bella Hadid remains the most prominent figure in this conversation. As a Palestinian-American — her father, Mohamed Hadid, was displaced during the 1948 Nakba — her advocacy has never been abstract. She has marched at protests, funded humanitarian aid for Gaza, and watched major contracts quietly disappear after her public statements. When reports circulated that Dior had replaced her with an Israeli model following her advocacy, she didn’t retract a word.
Gigi Hadid has consistently framed the crisis through a human rights lens rather than a purely political one, distinguishing between antisemitism and opposition to occupation in statements that drew both support and industry blowback. In a move that forced luxury spaces to indirectly engage with the cause, she donated 100% of her fashion week earnings to organizations providing relief in both Ukraine and Palestine.
Then there’s Jura, a musician and model who took the statement off Instagram and onto the runway itself. During Copenhagen Fashion Week, walking for the Finnish brand Marimekko, she pulled a Palestinian flag from her pocket mid-runway. The flag read “ACT NOW AGAINST GENOCIDE.” Her explanation afterward was simple: what happens to Palestine is everyone’s future, and models have physical platforms — literal stages — that exist to be used.
- models who spoke out on Palestine
