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WHEN PRECIOUS LEE was in the eighth grade, she advocated for Native Americans against President Andrew Jackson in a mock trial—and she can still tell you what she was wearing that day: “I had on a Calvin Klein cord riding pant with a matching raw wool blazer, and I was so adamant in my opening argument—I took it so seriously!” she says. You can still see that fierce girl in the woman Lee has become: A trailblazing curve model, she remains a serious fighter for racial equity and justice even as she flaunts a personal style she describes as eclectic and eccentric: “grunge one day, heels the next.”
Lee is telling me this in a Zoom chat a few days after the historic presidential election—“I can’t stop celebrating!” she declares. Behind her on the screen, I can see the cable news on mute, which is funny because I have it on too. I also notice, before her face flashes up, her Zoom name: “Your Majesty.”
From the beginning, nobody put Your Majesty in a corner. As a teenager in an Atlanta school, she recalls, “I was the chunky cheerleader. They said, ‘You’re the base.’ I said, ‘Nooo! I’m going to be the front of the pyramid.’ I did the split! You couldn’t contain my energy.” When she began modeling at the age of 18, she was propelled by the same spirit. “There was hardly anyone who looked like me doing the kinds of jobs I wanted to do. It was always: If you’re big and Black, you could be the lingerie girl, the swim girl.” But Lee wanted to be the high-fashion girl, the girl who got the serious campaigns, the girl who deserved every accolade that thinner, whiter models received. Early on, she took courage from the curve model Crystal Renn: “I saw her doing Dolce & Gabbana and Jean Paul Gaultier, and I was like, You know what? I’m going to do that too.”
Lee’s ascent in the modeling world coincided with a larger cultural reevaluation about what we consider beautiful and how we view women, and their bodies, on catwalks and in life. She worked her way up from the catalog shoots she aced while she was still in college, where she studied communications, to the runways of New York Fashion Week shows like Christian Siriano and Tommy Hilfiger. Refusing to be typecast, Lee held out for jobs that didn’t traditionally go to models who looked like her. Which made her eventual victories even sweeter: When Lee walked in the spring 2021 Versace show, she described it as a dreamlike triumph, something almost miraculous. She had worshipped the brand for as long as she could remember—she used to swipe her dad’s Versace shirts and wear them to school—and the line for her has always been both aspirational and inspirational. “Gold is my favorite color!” she says, laughing. She still gets choked up talking about the show. “When I walked down that runway, I felt 20 feet tall; I felt like my boobs were ginormous and that I had so much power.” She had become, at least for those few minutes, what she had always longed to see on a catwalk. “I felt like I was walking for so many people.”
Donatella Versace recognized Lee’s authority immediately. “She has the right attitude for Versace: She is confident; she wears the clothes in a unique way,” she explains. “She exudes happiness and a joy that is contagious, and it was a real pleasure working with her. This is not even about being inclusive—it is about the fact that I want my fashion and the world of Versace to be able to talk to everyone. Sometimes it is surprising to even have to say these things out loud. In 2021, it should not even be a topic of conversation anymore. And yet....”
Lee had planned to be a lawyer, but it dawned on her that by being a curve model she might reach a broader audience, empower young girls, and set an example. “I realized modeling offered a larger platform than law school to help people,” she says. Asked if, growing up, she had any of the paralyzing insecurities so many young women experience—worrying that they are too big, too small, too this, too that—she draws a blank, describing her school-age self as “a huge mix of scholar/nerd/complete creative” and saying that her family provided “an open, free environment.”
They were certainly a stylish lot: “My older sister was a straight-size model—we look alike, only she had a 34-inch hip—my mother always embraced beauty and feminine energy, my father had a hair salon, my grandmother had a boutique in the salon. She was so chic—she would wear Chanel suits with Reeboks.” For our Zoom, Lee has wrapped her head in a silk Chanel scarf that once belonged to her grandmother: “I try to keep her close to me.”
Lee flew back to Atlanta to vote in the presidential election, and she tells me proudly that Fulton County, where she cast her ballot, is the place that helped put Biden over the top in Georgia. Growing up there, though, like so many other young women, she craved the mythical bright lights of Manhattan. When she was a kid, she used to sneak-watch Sex and the City in between Mom’s bed checks, and she identified with Samantha, not for that character’s libertine abandon but rather because “she was the one with big ideas—the mover and shaker!” So, after modeling part-time during college, Lee moved to New York, deciding she would give it one year, promising herself, “If it’s not epic, then I’m going to law school.”
That temporary tryout has now lasted almost a decade and did indeed turn out to be epic. In that time, the fashion industry, and the wider world, has made space for women like Lee, who demand to be taken seriously, to be truly seen. “This year is about uplifting the collective, the betterment of people as a whole,” Lee declares. “Black women just won this election! Black women influence everything! And Black women have always loved their bodies.” This love, this acceptance, is what Lee says she wants her life to be all about. “We can’t go back!”
In this story:
Hair, Jawara
Makeup, Lauren Parsons