Meet Fabe Robinson

Today we’d like to introduce you to Fabe Robinson.

Fabe, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Growing up, I’ve been told I should become many things in life but the two things I’ve gotten more often than others were that I should play basketball because I’m tall standing at 6’2″ and grew to this height as only 13 years old. The other career I was told I should pursue was modeling. At first, I told myself no, I don’t want to model. This is truly my older sister’s dream and I don’t want to take that away from her. I want to become an actor.

I grew up in a single-parent household raised by my mother where she pushed education hard on me and to go to the best schools. I was very fortunate enough to gain admission into Cornell University where I majored in Applied Economics & Management and went on to pursue a career in finance on Wall Street. I should’ve known that this wasn’t the career for me but I ended up pursuing it solely because of the money. When I entered Cornell, upperclassmen would share stories about how they make $15-$20k over the summer just interning at a firm or bank on Wall Street and that number sounded very attractive to me so I, of course, pursued that. Once I’ve gotten my first internship at UBS, an investment bank, I was pretty sure that I was not as interested in it as I thought but did it anyway because of the money.

Being that I grew up in a single-parent household in the projects, my goal was to always get more money and move myself and my family out of the “hood” so one can see why I chose to pursue money as opposed to something I was truly passionate about. Once, I graduated from Cornell and gained my first full-time job and moved back to New York City, I then met a lot of creatives in the fashion industry that got me interested in working with creatives in general.

I then met a friend who was an up and coming photographer and he begged me to shoot with him. I would always decline and say no I don’t want to and finally gave in. When I posted those photos to social media, I was met with overwhelmingly great response and that encouraged me to keep going. I then got fired from my job on wall street which encouraged me to move to Los Angeles and just give it a go out here. Luckily, Los Angeles is full of creatives from many different industries and I met many other models who were doing it full-time and gave me an insight into what life may be. From then, I was pretty sure on what it is I wanted to do. I hated working 9-5, 40+ hours a week just to stay alive when I can work several times a month, make much more than I do at a 9-5, and still have time to pursue other passion projects.

I then became serious about modeling and have since hustled and network to have shoot American Apparel and Puma Campaigns on my own all without an agent and featured to be in many music videos, etc. I am still not where I want to be today but I say all of this to say, that it’s a marathon and not a sprint and I’m so much more happier with life then where I was a few years ago.

Has it been a smooth road?
It hasn’t been a smooth road at all. I’ve been modeling since I graduated from college in 2015 and only got signed and represented by a “real” agency in 2019. That also came with many struggles too. Hearing a lot of no’s before I finally got a yes. I still hear many no’s till this day but I refuse to let that stop me because I didn’t come all this way to only get this far.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
I do think the industry is starting to become more inclusive and diverse. We do see more people of color on the runway but there’s still a lot of work to be done. I don’t want these brands to hire us just because it’s popular or cool to do so. Hire us because you truly believe in us and not profit off our blackness or gayness(especially during the pride months).

We don’t want to see any more controversies regarding brands being racist, etc. Hire some more people of color on your teams in C-suite roles to ensure that these types of things don’t happen. Don’t go silent when there’s an issue affect minorities. Be apart of that change. Pay us the same you pay our Caucasian counterparts.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/faberobinson/

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