To receive the Vogue Business newsletter, sign up here.
Just a month ago, “Tube Girl” didn’t exist. Now, she’s not only on the front row at fashion week, but she’s also walking the catwalk. Sabrina Bahsoon, a 22-year-old law graduate, became an accidental star after posting erratic videos on TikTok of her dancing in cool-girl outfits on the London Tube. She now counts more than 580,000 followers on the platform and has become a point of fixation for luxury brands this fashion month, as runway shows become a playground for not just influencers but even obscure internet personalities.
After walking Mac Cosmetics’s “The Face Show” event during London Fashion Week, which was attended by stars including Nicole Scherzinger, Bree Runway and Charli XCX, Bahsoon has arrived for her first Paris Fashion Week. She has already been spotted at Balmain and Courreges, and yesterday evening, walked the runway for Christian Cowan, whose show featured a performance by his partner, singer Sam Smith. On Friday, Bahsoon plans to attend Alessandra Rich, and on Sunday, she will start working with a luxury fashion house to promote its fashion and beauty lines. She will also attend the brand’s show that day.
“‘Tube Girl’ started out as me having fun and dancing while I was on the way to my friends’ house. I filmed myself and really liked how it came out, so I just kept going from there,” Bahsoon tells Vogue Business. “I think it resonates because it shows people that you don’t need to care about your surroundings or the people around you to have fun and be yourself.”
Bahsoon is among a new wave of quirky personalities who have quickly worked their way up the fashion week ranks after a burst of online stardom. Twenty-three-year-old Madeline Argy, TikTok’s fast-speaking chatterbox princess, first gained notoriety as the then-girlfriend of rapper Central Cee but has since won over fans with her quickfire, intimate and, at times, brash videos on TikTok, where she now counts over 4.8 million followers. Her first paid fashion partnership was with Coach, promoting the brand’s recycled bags. This season, she is attending fashion weeks globally for the first time. She sat front row at Proenza Schouler and Tory Burch in New York before flying to see the Prada, Versace, Boss, and GCDS shows in Milan and Saint Laurent in Paris.