“It felt like a dam had broken inside me”: Danish model Nina Marker on navigating the industry with autism

I’d been burned out since Milan. I couldn’t communicate to my agents the way I felt, the increasing inner voice screaming, “I can’t do this”. They insisted, because they didn’t know. I insisted because I knew there was no other way.

As soon as I realised I couldn’t go to school, which meant I couldn’t go to university, which guaranteed I wouldn’t get a good job, I knew that there was no other way. There was only this opportunity, and if I failed, I would fade into obscurity and die in some tiny apartment that smelled like stale air and cigarettes.

As I went from one show to the next, Paris blurring into varying shades of rain-soaked cobblestones, I felt myself slipping away. My scalp hurt from the pulling, my skin hurt from the scrubbing, and my feet were in tatters, a mix of blisters and scars, leaving blood stains in my shoes. A pin drop could’ve turned me into a car crash.

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Valentino was the last show that day. The next day, McQueen. The next day, Chanel. And then? Who knew. After weeks of travelling and not sleeping, it seemed endless; working from five in the morning until the middle of the night, phone calls pulling me from the rest I so sorely needed. It hurt when people touched me, my ability to zone out and turn off had evaporated in the chaos of the last days of fashion week.



As I was rushed into the backstage at Valentino, a chaperone from the agency in tow, four women run to me and grab me roughly, pulling my hair and my nails and my face, speaking rapidly in French.

It felt like a dam had broken inside me as I screamed at them not to touch me, tears instantly leaking from my eyes. They jumped in surprise, both confused and deeply offended (in that way only French people can be) by my outburst. And then, my nervous system froze.