<h1 class="left">If you’re a regular browser of high fashion Twitter, you will find certain runway clips that will forever be ingrained in the online universe. A grainy clip of Yasmeen Ghauri walking for Azzedine Alaïa or Naomi Campbell for Versace, have become mainstays of fashion lore floating on the internet. But what makes a runway walk good? Is it the quick-gated stomp debuted by model Leon Dame at Maison Margiela a few seasons back, or the old-school biting swing of the hips, a blueprint of 90s supermodel Shalom Harlow that catapulted her into the runway hall of fame? According to Ryan Chappell, movement director for the mega brands at fashion weeks, there’s more to these stylized walks than putting one leg in front of the other just a little differently.</h1>
<h1 class="centre">“It's not just about putting on a pair of heels and strutting down, you need to give people a toolbox to be able to understand how they can work with their body to be able to adapt themselves to different walks and ways of being,” says Chappell. To some extent, his work is a cathartic acting workshop for models who take on a new identity that he has built. It’s the contrast between Balenciaga and H&M, which was beautifully exemplified in a scene from The Triangle of Sadness (2022). And of course, the wider community has come to recognize the gait at Balenciaga—the urgent stomping that says get off my sidewalk. Chappell agrees.</h1>
<h1 class="centre">“What I think is really great, is that they're [Balenciaga] not pretending to be anything but what they are. They've never whitewashed it and gone ‘Buy our clothes because we're gonna save the world.’ They're almost critiquing what the world is like while offering clothes to survive in this world, and there's such a power in that statement.”</h1>
<h1 class="right">Chappell is in Paris as we get on a call, prepping for the Ganni S/S 25 show, where his job entails transforming models into modern witches while keeping the ethos of the joyous Ganni girl still alive. The result? A suburban coven that descends down the runway. These are girls who dabble in witchcraft and are exploring their femininity through frills with equal confidence.</h1>
<h1 class="centre">Working on this behind-the-scenes magic, Chappell casts himself in the light of a supporting role in the fashion show dynamic. While he may not be the main star of the event or the one taking the final bow, his input comes as a crucial step in building the climax of showtime. With a background in choreography and a brief stint dabbling in menswear, he began exploring this niche juxtaposition of movement in fashion which gives a new outlet for what fashion imagemaking can mean. “People sometimes approach the job purely from a dance background or from a movement background. But fashion imagery is not about dance, and it's not just about movement. It's an element of it. And you have to understand that you're selling a product and you're ultimately selling the clothes or the idea. So you have to complement that, not overtake it.”</h1>
<h1 class="left">To spectators who have consumed shows from the sidelines, there are obvious examples of walks that remain ingrained in our memories and internet archives. Drama and theatrically remains paramount to this experience. John Galliano’s storylines for his stint at Dior would demonstrate that. So would his famed S/S 24 collection for Maison Margiela. And then there have been younger brands giving their own spin to the runway. For Avavav’s viral S/S 23 collection, models skittered and splattered head-first onto the runway like spilled coffee. However, Chappell’s job does not end at finding the gimmick that fits the bill. It’s a key branding exercise that will perhaps leave more of an impression on a fashion houses’s followers than the campaigns itself.</h1>
<h1 class="centre">In 2023, when Peter Hawkings took over as creative director at Tom Ford, Chappell recalls the subtleties that would signify this change of guard for Hawkings’ debut show. “You would see the girls at Tom Ford walk with their hands in their pockets, and we decided to change that up a bit. We decided to let the boys walk with the hands in their pockets, to not be sassy with the hips,” he explains, calling this tailoring of the walks a nuanced negotiation.</h1>
<h1 class="centre">And it certainly was. Here, an inconspicuous shift of the arm from the pocket to the hip, which like hidden seams of your silk bar jacket might not be visible to the eye, is what Tom Ford’s new, more sophisticated branding required. For the new blueprint at the brand, it was to be a subtle shift. “It’s about making certain tweaks without it being obvious. If you don't see the difference, it means that it's done well, and that's actually one of the hardest things to do.”</h1>
<h1 class="centre">For the A/W 24 McQueen show under Sean McGirr, Chappell introduces a thumping march that the discerning eye would see as the “new walk.” “Some people didn't really enjoy that, but I had several people in the industry that I really respect come up to me and say, ‘Wow, all the models were really walking. You could feel that they were really committed to it, they were in their shoes and there was a power in this new army,’ and I thought great, they felt it,” he recalls.</h1>
<h1 class="centre">Chappell finds greater satisfaction in the pursuit of crafting walks that play with changing identities and the personalities that would be zipped up in them rather than one Instagrammable moment. And so, his body of work often oscillates between the realm of subtlety and theatricality. “Everything is about hype in the world we live in. Everything needs to grab our attention because it's all about visual attention. You always need to be stimulated, so nothing really lands,” replies Chappell. “But when you get to experience somebody walking with power, you think about wanting to be that person. It goes deeper than just looking hot or cool at that moment.” The ultimate goal for Chappell is to be able to articulate a gait that makes the spectator and the model feel empowered by themselves and via the flirty dress and boots or the tweed jacket they’re strutting down the runway in.</h1>
<h1 class="centre">Think of it as fashion puppetry—when Chappell pulls the strings, the limbs of the models he works with move in synchronicity. While it may sound like a task that just involves giving clear directions, sometimes it means turning into a therapist for the talent in front of the lens to work on their inhibitions that intrinsically impact the final interpretation of a certain mood. “I like my job,” he muses, “I manipulate people. But the thing is, we think manipulation is always done from a bad intention, but in this field, manipulation creates magic.”</h1>
<h1 class="full">If you’re a regular browser of high fashion Twitter, you will find certain runway clips that will forever be ingrained in the online universe. A grainy clip of Yasmeen Ghauri walking for Azzedine Alaïa or Naomi Campbell for Versace, have become mainstays of fashion lore floating on the internet. But what makes a runway walk good? Is it the quick-gated stomp debuted by model Leon Dame at Maison Margiela a few seasons back, or the old-school biting swing of the hips, a blueprint of 90s supermodel Shalom Harlow that catapulted her into the runway hall of fame? According to Ryan Chappell, movement director for the mega brands at fashion weeks, there’s more to these stylized walks than putting one leg in front of the other just a little differently.</h1>
<h1 class="full">“It's not just about putting on a pair of heels and strutting down, you need to give people a toolbox to be able to understand how they can work with their body to be able to adapt themselves to different walks and ways of being,” says Chappell. To some extent, his work is a cathartic acting workshop for models who take on a new identity that he has built. It’s the contrast between Balenciaga and H&M, which was beautifully exemplified in a scene from The Triangle of Sadness (2022). And of course, the wider community has come to recognize the gait at Balenciaga—the urgent stomping that says get off my sidewalk. Chappell agrees.</h1>
<h1 class="full">“What I think is really great, is that they're [Balenciaga] not pretending to be anything but what they are. They've never whitewashed it and gone ‘Buy our clothes because we're gonna save the world.’ They're almost critiquing what the world is like while offering clothes to survive in this world, and there's such a power in that statement.”</h1>
<h1 class="full">Chappell is in Paris as we get on a call, prepping for the Ganni S/S 25 show, where his job entails transforming models into modern witches while keeping the ethos of the joyous Ganni girl still alive. The result? A suburban coven that descends down the runway. These are girls who dabble in witchcraft and are exploring their femininity through frills with equal confidence.</h1>
<h1 class="full">Working on this behind-the-scenes magic, Chappell casts himself in the light of a supporting role in the fashion show dynamic. While he may not be the main star of the event or the one taking the final bow, his input comes as a crucial step in building the climax of showtime. With a background in choreography and a brief stint dabbling in menswear, he began exploring this niche juxtaposition of movement in fashion which gives a new outlet for what fashion imagemaking can mean. “People sometimes approach the job purely from a dance background or from a movement background. But fashion imagery is not about dance, and it's not just about movement. It's an element of it. And you have to understand that you're selling a product and you're ultimately selling the clothes or the idea. So you have to complement that, not overtake it.”</h1>
<h1 class="full">To spectators who have consumed shows from the sidelines, there are obvious examples of walks that remain ingrained in our memories and internet archives. Drama and theatrically remains paramount to this experience. John Galliano’s storylines for his stint at Dior would demonstrate that. So would his famed S/S 24 collection for Maison Margiela. And then there have been younger brands giving their own spin to the runway. For Avavav’s viral S/S 23 collection, models skittered and splattered head-first onto the runway like spilled coffee. However, Chappell’s job does not end at finding the gimmick that fits the bill. It’s a key branding exercise that will perhaps leave more of an impression on a fashion houses’s followers than the campaigns itself.</h1>
<h1 class="full">In 2023, when Peter Hawkings took over as creative director at Tom Ford, Chappell recalls the subtleties that would signify this change of guard for Hawkings’ debut show. “You would see the girls at Tom Ford walk with their hands in their pockets, and we decided to change that up a bit. We decided to let the boys walk with the hands in their pockets, to not be sassy with the hips,” he explains, calling this tailoring of the walks a nuanced negotiation.</h1>
<h1 class="full">And it certainly was. Here, an inconspicuous shift of the arm from the pocket to the hip, which like hidden seams of your silk bar jacket might not be visible to the eye, is what Tom Ford’s new, more sophisticated branding required. For the new blueprint at the brand, it was to be a subtle shift. “It’s about making certain tweaks without it being obvious. If you don't see the difference, it means that it's done well, and that's actually one of the hardest things to do.”</h1>
<h1 class="full">For the A/W 24 McQueen show under Sean McGirr, Chappell introduces a thumping march that the discerning eye would see as the “new walk.” “Some people didn't really enjoy that, but I had several people in the industry that I really respect come up to me and say, ‘Wow, all the models were really walking. You could feel that they were really committed to it, they were in their shoes and there was a power in this new army,’ and I thought great, they felt it,” he recalls.</h1>
<h1 class="full">Chappell finds greater satisfaction in the pursuit of crafting walks that play with changing identities and the personalities that would be zipped up in them rather than one Instagrammable moment. And so, his body of work often oscillates between the realm of subtlety and theatricality. “Everything is about hype in the world we live in. Everything needs to grab our attention because it's all about visual attention. You always need to be stimulated, so nothing really lands,” replies Chappell. “But when you get to experience somebody walking with power, you think about wanting to be that person. It goes deeper than just looking hot or cool at that moment.” The ultimate goal for Chappell is to be able to articulate a gait that makes the spectator and the model feel empowered by themselves and via the flirty dress and boots or the tweed jacket they’re strutting down the runway in.</h1>
<h1 class="full">Think of it as fashion puppetry—when Chappell pulls the strings, the limbs of the models he works with move in synchronicity. While it may sound like a task that just involves giving clear directions, sometimes it means turning into a therapist for the talent in front of the lens to work on their inhibitions that intrinsically impact the final interpretation of a certain mood. “I like my job,” he muses, “I manipulate people. But the thing is, we think manipulation is always done from a bad intention, but in this field, manipulation creates magic.”</h1>