Conversations with Chad Payne

Today we’d like to introduce you to Chad Payne.

Hi Chad, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I’m an international fashion model. Seven years of work between South Africa and Europe so far, with the LA chapter starting now.

Editorials with photographers like Michael Oliver Love and Steve Marais. Cover work for L’Effronté in Paris and Vangardist in Vienna. Tearsheets in Sunday Times STYLE and CAP 74024 Milan. The full first season of Netflix’s Model, where I placed Top 5. Runways at South African Fashion Week for Wanda Lephoto, Gavin Rajah, and Atto Tetteh. Mother agency Twenty Model Management in Cape Town since 2021. Indastria in Milan since 2023.

The path behind those credits is simpler than it sounds. I grew up in Ballito, a small coastal town on the east coast of South Africa. I went to Stellenbosch University to study Visual Communication Design, and modeling found me there in 2018. What I didn’t expect was how naturally the design side of my studies would feed into the work. The visual instincts carried over. The way you compose an image is the same whether you’re behind the camera or in front of it. That’s what kept me in it.

Now I’m landing in Los Angeles. That’s the next room. Same craft, new market.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Smooth would be the wrong word. But I wouldn’t call it a struggle in the way the question usually means.

The real challenge has been geography. South Africa isn’t on the established fashion route. New York, London, Paris, Milan are connected to each other. South Africa sits outside that. Building an international career from Cape Town meant a lot of flying, a lot of weeks lived between continents, and the discipline of showing up to a Milan season after a 14-hour transit and being on form the next morning. That’s a structural challenge, not an industry one.

COVID 2020 was the other big one. The whole industry paused. I’d been building momentum, and that year took something from everyone. What got me through wasn’t grit. It was my agencies and the people back home who held the line until the work came back.

The rest has been the work, season by season. Showing up. Building with photographers and designers who keep coming back. None of it has been smooth in the sense of easy. But none of it has felt like a fight, either.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’ve worked as an international model across Europe and South Africa, and now I’m entering the United States market. Most of what I do is editorial and campaign work that has something more going on than just selling products. Shoots where the photographer, the stylist, the designer, and I are all building toward the same image, not just executing a brief. That’s the work I love. I’ve worked across various types of productions and I’m excited to begin this next chapter in LA.

I’m most proud of my work in Sunday Times STYLE, commercial success for top international brands, and my ability to set myself apart. I know what clients want, and I know what production companies want on set. I’m also proud of my work with Steve Marais’s Heavy Feral magazine, Blue on Blue, shot in 2024. I’m there as a creative partner, reading the room, adjusting when the photographer adjusts. There is a flow that is required between a photographer and the subject matter. The L’Effronté cover in Paris with Sasha Olsen from 2019 is an example of that.

More recently, Sphères in France with Cyril Zannettacci in 2025. Atto Tetteh’s lookbook back home, and Gavin Rajah’s runway shows. What sets me apart, I think, is how I’m building relationships with clients, production houses, and photographers. They keep calling me back. That’s how you know the work is landing. Photographers and designers in this industry talk. When someone wants to work with you again, that’s the strongest credit you can have. Presence is key in this industry.

If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
If I had to pick one, I’d say it’s adaptability.

I might be in Cape Town for a campaign on Monday, fitting in Joburg on Wednesday, and on a plane to Milan for shoot the following week, and all of that can be confirmed days, if not hours, before the shoot. A model who can land in any of those rooms ready to work, without needing a re-brief on the job, is the one who gets the next call. That requires adaptability, patience, and discipline.

It’s not just about being flexible. It’s about reading the room you’ve walked into and meeting it on its terms before anyone has to ask. Editorial energy is different from commercial energy. Editorial is storytelling, whereas a commercial is fast and unforgivable if you don’t adapt to it. Italian crews work differently from South African crews. You have to know that going in.

That’s been the difference for me. Not technical skill so much as the ability to land and be useful in any room I haven’t been in before. Now that I’m landing in LA, that’s exactly what’s getting tested.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chadjohnpayne_/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChadJohnPayne
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chad-payne-a2803b25a/

Image Credits
Serhii Vasyliev
David Velez
South Africa Fashion Week
Jacopo Peloso
Michael Oliver Love
Gavin Rajah
Guy Kleinhaus