Always Now: Yura Romaniuk interviewed by Pierre A. M’Pelé for Perfect Issue 10.
Yura Romaniuk for Perfect Issue 10
Photographer: Rafael Pavarotti
Fashion Editor: Katie Grand
Interview: Pierre A. M’Pelé
His bushy eyebrows and nonchalant attitude are not to be missed. You know his face and his walk. He was the modelling sensation of 2025, going strong into 2026. But who is he?
Yura Romaniuk was scouted at 19 years old on Instagram. A year later, he launched his runway career with a Miu Miu exclusive for the brand’s spring/summer 2023 show in Paris. Then he walked for Zegna the following season. These two early bookings helped establish his range. He doesn’t fit in a box; he resists easy definition. Since then, he’s appeared in major fashion campaigns: five for Miu Miu and one for Gucci. He’s walked over 60 shows including Marc Jacobs, Acne Studios, Moschino, Max Mara and Saint Laurent. His appearance, and the fact that he has appeared on the catwalk and fashion magazine covers wearing dresses, have prompted some to question whether he is agender, nonbinary or transgender. To clarify, Yura identifies as a cis man.
Four days after his Chanel debut in New York City, Yura has returned to Porto, Portugal, where he resides, far from the sometimes sordid epicentre of fashion. I log into the call, and here he is, smiling, in the most model-off-duty look possible: white T-shirt, scruffy ponytail, no make-up, and holding a glass of white wine. Bogdan Romanovic, the agent who discovered him – and who relentlessly surfs the web for new faces from his native country of Ukraine and the surrounding regions – is also on the call, acting as an occasional translator rather than a disruptor.
Yura is from the small and quiet coastal town of Kherson in Ukraine. He was born to a builder father and a market-seller mother who accepted his idiosyncrasies – ‘I love my parents so much, and the most important thing I had growing up was their love’ – so he felt free to express himself from a young age. ‘When I was four or five, I’d put my mum’s make-up and heels on. She didn’t really like this. Then I started painting on our house’s walls. She hated that. So she signed me up for an after-school art programme.’ He learned sketching, painting and crafting, which brought him more joy than his regular curriculum. ‘I hated school so much,’ he says, ‘I hated studying and reading. I was so bad at school. I just didn’t care about it.’ His insouciance, and his indifference toward academic studies, made him a target for bullies. ‘My schoolmates would mock me because I never did my homework or assignments.’ Art was the only subject he deemed elevating, and the art of being a flaneur too. ‘I liked two things: making art and doing nothing,’ he says. Luckily, his father always encouraged his natural affinity for creativity and even taught him how to paint with watercolours, although he decided that wasn’t his medium: ‘I prefer to work with oil and acrylic on canvas because it’s easier to just scoop it out and start over if you make a mistake.’ His older brother, a martial arts national champion who excelled in judo aikido, and taekwondo, was just as protective of him, and they’d play video games together on the family computer.
After high school, Yura enrolled to study fashion design at Kherson National Technical University, despite his mother’s disapproval. ‘She told me that I’d better be off studying for a real job or becoming a sailor. Could you imagine?’ Sometime during his studies, and unbeknown to his family, Yura got ill and couldn’t attend classes. ‘I skipped half a year of studying. But my tutors told me they saw something special in me, and they wanted me to keep studying.’ Then Russia invaded Ukraine; Kherson was one of the first cities to fall, and Yura was forced to flee. He moved to the Netherlands where he lived for two years, and graduated online. ‘I never wanted to leave Ukraine, because I had everything I needed there, but the war changed that.’
As a fashion design student, he’d occasionally model for his peers’ projects, and that’s how he was noticed by Bogdan, on a mutual friend’s IG story. He got signed to Balls Models, but he didn’t think it’d lead to anything serious, until he found himself in the same room as Miuccia Prada. ‘I met Miss Prada on 1 October 2022, and I thought, “oh shit, she’s the boss of this building,” and I felt a little intimidated because I realised how important and serious it was.’
Yura, still fresh and unspoiled by the industry, showed up to that casting call in one of his own creations. ‘I was wearing these heavy denim trousers from my collection – they’re made with six pairs of jeans and weigh about seven kilograms. Mrs Prada looked at me up and down and she seemed distracted by my outfit. Then they asked me to walk, took a couple of portraits, and told me I was in.’ This was the beginning of a special relationship between Yura and Miu Miu. ‘I’ve done every show since then. They are like family to me now. They are so kind to me.’
In anticipation of the first runway show of his career, Bogdan taught Yura how to walk – in streets and parks and parking lots – wearing high heels. Propelled into the wild world of Fashion Week, he met industry icons he had only ever seen on social media, and some he had never even heard of, but who made sure he felt like he belonged. He also cites models Bella Hadid and Alex Consani, both of whom he admires, as being kind and supportive.
On his relationship with his own body and how it’s perceived, Yura is unequivocal, even though he understands how perplexing it can be for some people. He’s been asked inappropriate, intrusive questions about his identity. ‘Why would I transition? I really like myself, and I wouldn’t change a thing, because I’m happy with the way I am. My identity is unchanged, whether I model womenswear or menswear.’ People have tended to misgender Yura, referring to him as she/her or they/them. ‘My pronouns are he/him,’ he confirms. ‘Some people suggested I change my pronouns, but why would I do that? And others can’t get it right no matter how many times I tell them. But I don’t really care about it.’
Yura’s ambiguity is nevertheless real: he is currently featured on both the men’s and women’s top 50 lists on models.com, the first model to have achieved such a fit. ‘I’m proud of it, especially being on the men’s list, because I primarily work in womenswear. But I also don’t understand the separation – there should only be one list.’ He says he enjoys modelling womenswear more, as it allows him to ‘show more emotions and be extra in a sexy outfit’.
Yura’s career has taken off, but he’s also conscious of the precariousness and instability associated with modelling. It brings in enough money for him to sustain himself, and he’s also involved in an unexpected side job, buying and reselling skins and armaments to players of the online combat game Counter-Strike. He’s also hoping to launch his fashion label, 10thousandYURAs – a play on €10,000, the day rate one of his international agents applied to his bookings – for which he will design, handmake and sell ten thousand upcycled one-off pieces before shutting it forever. Despite fashion’s glitz and glam, Yura has remained the artsy, spontaneous, funny person he’s always been. And when asked about how people back home perceive his success, he says that friends and childhood acquaintances are impressed by his path. It’s a classic story: teenage bullies often become adult cheerleaders.
‘Do you realise how big you’re becoming? How do you deal with it?’ I ask Yura toward the end of our call. ‘I know I’m getting more recognisable, and I wake up every morning reading comments from strangers under my posts, and some are positive,’ he says. ‘But there are also many mean ones, and those are usually my favourites.’
His wine glass now empty, Yura, who has laughed and giggled throughout our two-hour conversation, is still energetic and bubbly. ‘Wouldn’t it be phenomenal if you won Model of the Year in both the men and women categories?’ I ask, to which he shrugs and smiles: ‘It’d be great, but I’d still be put in boxes.’
