KIM NOORDA

Described as soulful, elegant, and introspective, Kim Noorda is something like a Dutch Matilda and E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web meets fashion model. With a modest nature and Baroque quality, the Amsterdam native has been one of the more distinctive names in fashion ever since making her debut in 2004.

Kim’s interest into modeling began to peak at the age of 12 years old, when a number of fellow classmates would compliment her on her looks and suggested she should become a model. “Most likely I have been a vain girl from an early age. When I was about twelve years old, a number of classmates started telling me that I should become a model. Since then, I can recall being asked questions about what I did to look as I did.”

With a handful of dirt set him face down
Buried a saint just to sell off the house
Wade through the wastes
Shake off the storm
Gold skin of gods keeping your babies warm
Your customs felt strange and pretty played out
Driving a sword through the heart of your doubts
Saw what you saw and word got around
Ships disappeared in the cumulus cloud

Kim was spotted on the street by model scout Wilma Wakker and began modeling at the age of 15 years old: “I have a model agency in Holland and more or less specialize on taking care of girls that can do an international career.”

In 2004, at the age of 17, Kim Noorda sparked off her career walking her very first show for Karl Lagerfelds’ Chanel, then walking for everyone from Alexander McQueen, Saint Laurent, John Galliano, Miu Miu, Prada, Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, Dior, and Jean Paul Gaultier. Kim even had her very first Vogue editorial in the same year by none other than Steven Meisel!

The following year in 2005 would serve as one of Kim Noorda’s biggest years on the international scene yet as she walked in literally dozens of shows for everyone from Chanel, Givenchy, Yves Saint Laurent, Vera Wang, Burberry, among many others and even opened for Viktor & Rolf. Kim even graced the cover of Vogue Russia February 2005 photographed by Satoshi Saikusa.

“I like it. I don’t mind going to places like New York and Paris and that sort of thing. I’m from Holland, from Amsterdam. It’s much smaller.”

For the next 5 years, Kim would continue her astounding fashion ascent, appearing in upwards to 150 fashion shows, gracing the covers for ELLE, Vogue, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, Flair, Marie Claire, Numéro, and Madame Figaro. Among top model heavyweights of the 2000s like Gemma Ward, Agyness Deyn, Natalia Vodianova, Anja Rubik, Freja Beha Erichsen, Karlie Kloss, and Doutzen Kroes, Kim Noorda was always mentioned in their company.

Even with her career going as strong as ever, in January 2009, Kim Noorda met with then Vogue’s news director, Sally Singer for an intervention for a potential eating disorder. Although Kim didn’t see herself as someone who was suffering from an eating disorder, she nonetheless agreed to the four week outpatient program at the Renfrew Center in New York.

The rat race has run a serpentine path
Free to escape from the bondage of death
Welcomed the change
Sick with the thirst
Drunk off the taste of the blood of the Earth

Throughout the year, Kim kept a journal, detailing her struggles, pains, and ultimately self discovery with body image and how it affected her as a model:

Every season I gained a little weight, and every time it felt like I was doing fewer shows. During the shows the pressure caused me to lose weight, and people complimented me on that. After the shows I gained a bit. When a month or so later I appeared for a job in front of the people who had booked me, the difference between me and my pictures was too great. Nobody said so, but I knew. So I would start eating less. Even now I ask myself, How can you lose weight responsibly? How does one do that?…

Kim ultimately got better and in 2011 at the age of 25, took a break from fashion. In her two years away from being a model, Kim went to school to study chemistry, and even worked at a bar for a couple of months. But even after a few years of living a normal life, the modeling itch was still there for Kim.

Scoured the mine
Called down the well
To find a faraway self
Someone you knew
Someone you’ve got to keep down
To writhe in the depths
Called out your name
Safe from the fires of Hell
But death holds the bell
That hangs on the wind singing for nobody else
Your faraway self

gxxl_5c41e72c-5498-46cc-8d24-72fdac110006 “I told myself I wanted to model again, so I signed with Wilhelmina in the U.S. and I’m back. I just love New York—it’s so much like it is in the movies. There’s such character, and while there is so much wrong with this country, I feel like there is so much freedom here. This time around, there’s more to life now than modeling. Modeling was my whole life Kim-Noorda-Editorial10 when I started—now I know there’s more. That’s a nicer approach I think. The stakes aren’t as high.”

Since returning to fashion, Kim Noorda continues to take a things at her own pace, doing editorials and campaigns for ELLE, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, and L’Officiel while walking in her latest show for Preen by Thornton Bregazzi in 2019.

Kim Noorda is so extraordinary; her tender nature and exceptional character makes her all the more inspiring. She’s been modeling professionally since the age of 15 and in an 2000s era teaming with megastars and fashion icons, she still managed to stand out among Goliaths while being herself without much fanfare.

“I think she’s an extremely elegant, nice, sweet, and very honest girl,” says Wilma Wakker,” and she has a very fresh approach and we found out that people do like that a lot, and she stays very much herself.”

When I look at Kim’s modeling, it’s something reminiscent of the eras of impressionism, Baroque, and Romanticism, being light above the clouds in nature, benevolent, ethereal, fantastical, introspective, and existential. Her images invoke feelings like a timeless children story by Roald Dahl or E.B. White where the protagonists has to face a daunting ordeal and somehow make light of the harsh realities of the world.

Contrary to what most may assume about a top fashion model, Kim’s pretty down-to-earth, tends to keep a low-profile and loves to read, do yoga, and visit museums. “She is a very thoughtful, resourceful person,” says Sally Singer, “a young woman who reads novels by J. M. Coetzee and escapes to museums during Fashion Week.”

It’s quite remarkable how Kim has had the success and longevity she’s had since the mid 2000s when most are lucky to work for a couple of years. I think Kim showed tremendous bravery with her weight issue and being so open when a personal battle like that at the time could have you vilified and blackballed. And even in her personal struggle, she used her experience to make herself better instead of lashing out and condemning people around her.

In a perfect world, Kim would have been one of the biggest models, but like some of the coolest and innovative bands out there who aren’t famous, some equally amazing models can fly under the radar as well. But as someone who’s more accustomed to novels and museums, being some tabloid media darling probably would’ve never suited Kim and it’s wonderful she thought enough of herself to pursue something other than modeling even at the height of her career.

I will return to the rocks and the roots and debris
Free to return to the rocks and the roots and the weeds
I will return to the rocks and the roots and debris
Free to return to the rocks and the roots and the weeds

Like something timeless and truly classic, Kim Noorda’s modeling is uniquely a category of its own. She has such a soulful and introspective aura about her like a blues or soul singer. She’s bigger than life, but doesn’t care about the titles and lights. A Superlove that will have you pondering the time-space continuum, life’s intricacies, and the cosmic ebb and flow of love throughout the universe, Kim Noorda.