Although Khrystyana is known for living in New York, and rose to prominence on America’s Next Top Model, she spent the first part of her life across the world in North East Siberia and Ukraine...

Isolated from the rest of civilisation by poor transport links and harsh terrain, the nearest big city in her hometown was days away. Her early 5 years was dominated by heavy snow and frigid temperatures, until her family moved to a small town in Ukraine later in her childhood.

This was the first of several changes in environment that Khrystyana has undergone in her life. Now in Ukraine, she was surrounded by lively farm animals and a wholesome village culture. However. Her family was still very poor and relied on their own gardening to stay fed. While in Ukraine, Khrystyana was being raised by her single mother and grandmother. Today she credits her mother’s resilience as an inspiration to them. Even back then her mom was a role model, starting her own business at a time when it was still very difficult for women to be respected as entrepreneurs. Despite the difficulties, Khrystyana’s mother made it work, growing a tiny market stall into a successful shop renting movies, selling first AV equipment in town , mobile phones, and computers.

At 11 years old Khrystyana was helping with the business every day after school, something she credits with building her drive and solid work ethic. Through the shop, she fell in love with using technology and the internet to connect with people and form new friendships. Her early teenage years were spent online in the pre-social media age of chat rooms and message boards. She remembers with amusement that one of her online nicknames back then was TNT, but that explosive and loud online personality was the opposite of what people saw of her in person. At school Khrystyana struggled to find her voice and was characterised as a very shy and timid person. Despite this, through online communication she grew a love of the English language, which set her on an early career path to where she is today.

At 16, Khrystyana continued her education at college, Open International University of human Development “Ukraina”, but in her spare time joined a huge international matchmaking firm as an interpreter and a matchmaker. Due to her typing skills and knack for online communication, she was able to build up her own franchise, connecting people from her home in Ukraine to people around the world. Photographing her local clients herself, Khrystyana learnt to appreciate photography and modelling as a skill. Without any teaching or pointers, she picked up tricks and techniques simply by helping the women she was working with look their best.

Despite her success in business at such a young age, Khrystyana recalls that she lacked social skills, still only knowing how to connect to people digitally and through the safety of the internet. She was still far from becoming the confident and expressive person she is today.

Through her business, she eventually persuaded her mother to become one of her clients. This led to her mother finding a boyfriend, who after making trips out to see her, eventually became her mother’s husband after 2 years in a long distance relationship. This is how Khrystyana moved to the United States, as the family moved to Hawaii to start over together.

Arriving in Hawaii from Ukraine was a huge culture shock for a girl who’d grown up in Eastern Europe. A strong willed but vulnerable teenager, the prevalence of American mainstream beauty standards in United States damaged Khrystyana’s already fragile body image. Her mother was Khrystyana’s idol for her strength and resourcefulness, while Khrystyana lacked that same outspoken nature and ambition.

When Khrstyana’s mother moved to Texas, Khrystyana herself moved to California. It was here that she was discovered by a modelling agency. Despite being scouted, she was still struggling with her own body image and certainly didn’t see what the agency saw in her. Due to her body size and restrictive industry standards she struggled to book jobs, being told that her hip size was beyond the limit for models.

While in California, she had been studying acting. Her modelling career was not working and at the time she believed acting was where she would flourish. This led to a move to New York, where she continued to study all forms of acting, including comedy. To survive she worked any background job she could find, taking jobs as extras in movies, TV shows, and even on SNL. This also led to stand-in roles for stars like Adele and Nicole Kidman during rehearsals for big budget performances.

At this point she managed to get signed by a new modelling agency, this time as a plus size model. This forced her to face what size she was, but it still led to only a handful of jobs. She was considered an inbetween model, too big for traditional straight size jobs, but not a big enough size for plus size jobs.

Until now Khrystyana had been trying hard to cultivate a certain image on social media, but with her growing self-acceptance and new outlook on life, she decided to post something raw and honest. Once she did, the image exploded outside of her small online following and reached people around the world. Over the next few weeks she rapidly gained new followers and support from those who had struggled in the same way that she had. Speaking with them about body image and confidence, it helped her grow her activism and beliefs to extend beyond body image to one of universal acceptance. She realised she wanted to start a conversation about inclusivity and the true diversity of beauty.

Her new attitude towards life led to her being scouted by Michelle Mock, the casting director for America’s Next Top Model. Michelle asked Khrystyana to audition by modelling a bikini somewhere unusual. With that prompt, she thought to do so in the most crowded place she could think of: Times Square. This was the first time her activism drew attention from mainstream media, being featured on Yahoo! News.

A few months later, Khrystyana got together with 6 other people to put on a small demonstration in the heart of Times Square. She called it Beauty Revised, basing the event around the idea that beauty standards needed to be revised to become more inclusive. Those who took part fell across different spectrums of identity, a gay man, a trans woman, petite models, curvy models, and more. This was the first deliberate activism and laid the groundwork for what she would do next.

Before America’s Next Top Model aired, Khrystyana organised the first official Real Catwalk event. At the time it was the biggest thing she had ever done. Over 30 women walked with Khrystyana in a demonstration in New York to celebrate diverse bodies and protest the narrow and limited standards of the fashion industry. Although it was very stressful to organise, and not everything went to plan, the event worked. It garnered media attention and many of the photos went viral.

Despite the success of the Real Catwalk, Khrystyana knew it wasn’t enough. She was hungry to do better. While the event had been positive, it was skewed towards women’s issues, simply by virtue of who had answered her requests to join in. It didn’t include the diversity and representation that she wanted the event to embody.

In the summer of 2018 Khrstyana moved to London. America’s Next Top Model had just aired, which drastically boosted her profile and media attention on her actions. She was ready to take her career to the next level. While in England she organised a small body positive meetup in a nearby park. This was something she often did when traveling (and continues to do to this day) vocally opening the group to people of all ages, genders, disabilities, and races, inviting everybody to come and talk about their insecurities and difficulties in a safe space.

The event turned out to be extraordinarily fulfilling, with everybody there connecting through their vulnerabilities and supporting each other unconditionally. After the meetup, Khrystyana made the spontaneous choice to organise another Real Catwalk here in London, and to ensure that it was as diverse as possible.

Two weeks later, 140 people gathered in Trafalgar Square for the second Real Catwalk event. Models included people with various disabilities, gender identities, sexualities, ages, races, illnesses, and sizes. All the models were there to represent who they were and show the true diversity of real beauty. The event wasn’t about Khrystyana, or any individual who took part, it was about the message as a whole, which everybody worked together to build. It was the perfect example of what the Real Catwalk was supposed to be, and still stands as where the real ethos and message of the event was established and solidified.

One of the triumphs of The Real Catwalk was the way in which it formed new friendships, and allowed people to meet other communities. It’s not only a safe space to be accepted, it’s somewhere to learn too. Models and attendees were able to meet people outside of their everyday social circle, such as disabled and trans models.

In its wake several spin-off events were inspired around the world. Khrystyana always maintained that the brand was bigger than her and anyone was welcome to use it for their own events, as long as they stick to the core message of true diversity, love, and unity, built by everyday people working together to inspire others.

When Khrystyana returned home to New York, she planned another Real Catwalk event. This time the event was the biggest yet, with 240 people. As well as locals, models flew in from different states and even different countries to take part. Just like London, it was organised on Instagram, but this time they had help from some brands. For instance, Pacifica and Adore Me sent over makeup to help everyone prepare on the day. However, the event remained entirely free, and no money was exchanged from any sponsors, attendees, or models.