Emira D’Spain is redefining what modern beauty—and modern fame—look like. For Marie Claire, the New York–based model, beauty creator, and rising reality TV star opens up about the journey that took her from viral “Get Ready With Me” videos on TikTok to becoming the first Black transgender woman to model for Victoria’s Secret.
Born in the UAE and raised in Dallas, the NYU graduate and former PAPER Magazine Beauty Director has built a powerful digital and cultural presence, collaborating with brands such as NARS, Fenty Beauty, Google, UGG, and Anastasia Beverly Hills while starring on Bravo’s Next Gen NYC.
With a signature mix of glamour, honesty, and sharp editorial instinct, D’Spain is shaping the future of beauty—and doing it entirely on her own terms.
1. Your presence feels deliberate rather than performative. When did you realize that restraint could be a form of power?
I think I realized restraint was powerful when I stopped feeling like I had to prove myself! Early on, especially online, there’s this pressure to constantly show, constantly respond, constantly be “on.” And I did that for a while. But over time, I realized the moments that actually carried weight were the ones I chose carefully.
Restraint, for me, isn’t about being quiet, it’s about being intentional. I love being visible. I love beauty, glam, drama. But I don’t feel the need to give access to everything anymore. There’s something powerful about knowing you don’t have to perform confidence…you can just have it!
2. In an industry driven by speed and constant visibility, how do you decide when to be seen — and when to hold back?
Being on the internet, and now on television, teaches you very quickly that visibility can get ahead of you. There were moments early in my career where I felt like I had to capitalize on every spike, every headline, every opinion. And that pace isn’t sustainable and also sucks the fun out of it.
Now,I think about visibility the way I think about branding. Not every moment deserves amplification. Not every emotion deserves an audience. I ask myself: does this build the long-term story I’m trying to tell, or is this just noise?
Sometimes holding back isn’t about mystery, it’s about protection. Protecting my energy, protecting the people in my life, protecting the version of myself that’s still growing up. I’ve learned that if you give the world everything in real time, you don’t leave room to grow privately.
3. Your content feels effortless, yet your career has been carefully constructed. How much discipline sits behind that ease?
Oh a lot more than people think!
I care deeply about how things land, visually, emotionally, culturally. Even when something looks spontaneous, there’s intention behind it. I think about lighting. I think about tone. I think about how a moment fits into the bigger story of my brand. It can be exhausting to make things look easy but I really do think it makes it fun.
I don’t believe in accidental careers. Especially not in beauty. The “effortless” feeling actually comes from repetition and refinement. I’ve spent years studying what works, what feels authentic to me, and what elevates the space instead of just filling it. I either want to educate, entertain or inspire and ideally do all three.
Discipline is what allows ease to exist. When you know who you are and what you’re building, you don’t have to overdo it. The structure is already there, you’re just moving within it.
4. How have moving between different cultures and cities shaped the way you understand who you are today?
Being born in Dubai, growing up in Dallas, living in Paris, and now building my life in New York, each place shaped a different layer of me.
Dubai gave me scale. There’s something about being born in a city that feels futuristic and ambitious that makes you think big from the beginning. My parents are both very well traveled and that shaped my understanding of the world and appreciation for so many cultures. Dallas grounded me. It taught me discipline, work ethic, and how to stand out without losing yourself. I spent a majority of my formative years in Dallas and it really shaped me the most. Paris changed how I saw beauty, in others and in myself. This was the first time I was living on my own and I came into myself while living there.
And New York sharpened me. It forced me to be decisive, self-sufficient, and very clear about who I am. My drive and ambition came from being at NYU and working so hard in school which then translated to my professional life.
Moving between cultures also makes you aware of perception. You learn that identity isn’t fixed, it’s contextual. I had to figure out what parts of me were core and what parts were adaptive. That process made me more intentional. I don’t feel like I belong to just one place.
5. Visibility can open doors, but it can also blur boundaries. How do you protect your sense of self amid so much exposure?
I feel really lucky because my audience has always been respectful. There’s a mutual understanding there. They’ve grown with me, and I think they can sense when something is for them and when something is just mine.
Visibility does blur boundaries if you let it, but I’ve learned that you have to define those boundaries yourself first. I don’t share in real time when something is still fragile. I don’t open up parts of my life that I’m still figuring out. That space is important. It allows me to evolve without outside noise shaping the process.
I think protection doesn’t always look like secrecy, sometimes it just looks like timing. My audience gets a lot of me. But they don’t get everything. And the fact that they respect that makes me even more intentional about what I do share, and makes me want to share more.
6. You move between fashion, digital culture, and reality TV with ease. Do you ever worry about being misunderstood across those spaces?
I’d be lying if I said I never think about being misunderstood. When you exist in these spaces, people like to put you in a box depending on where they met you. If they saw me on TV first, they might think I’m just that. If they found me through beauty, they might think I’m only that.
But I don’t actually change across those spaces. I don’t code-switch. I don’t become an “online version” of myself or a “TV version” of myself. I’m the same person in all of it and focus on being myself.
What I’ve learned is that you can’t obsess over being perfectly understood. You just have to be consistent. Over time, people see the through-line. And the through-line is me!
7. What does authenticity mean to you now — and how has that definition evolved as your influence has grown?
Authenticity, for me, has always meant honesty. It’s about keeping things real in the way I speak, the way I react, the way I show up. I’ve never been interested in creating a polished persona that’s completely detached from who I actually am.
As my influence has grown, the biggest shift hasn’t been who I am, it’s how intentional I am about protecting that. Early on, authenticity felt like sharing everything. Now it feels more like alignment. If something doesn’t feel true to me, I don’t force it…even if it would perform well.
I’ve always been pretty grounded. I don’t let the numbers or the attention change how I move in my real life. The people around me knew me before any of this, and they’d tell you I’m the same. Influence can amplify you, but it shouldn’t rewrite you. For me, authenticity is staying steady while everything around you grows.
8. When you strip everything back — the image, the audience, the expectations — what does success look like to you today?
When you strip everything back, success, to me, is being genuinely happy with the life I’ve built.
It’s waking up excited about what I’m creating. It’s feeling proud of the work I put into something, not just the reaction it gets. And it’s going to bed knowing that, in some way, I added something positive, whether that’s making someone feel seen, inspired, or just a little more confident.
For a long time, success can look like numbers, visibility, milestones. But those things don’t mean much if you don’t feel aligned with them.
9. If power for you is quiet and precise, how do you know when it’s time to claim it?
I know it’s time to claim it when I’m not asking for permission anymore, even internally. When something feels earned, when I’ve refined it, when I can stand in it without overexplaining… that’s the moment. I don’t like forcing visibility. I like owning it.
There’s a difference between being loud and being undeniable. When I feel undeniable… that’s when I step in my power.
Model: Emira D’Spain
Photographer: Ruben Chamorro
Photo Assistant: Avery Santa
Stylist: Fred Kim
Styling Assistant: Maimuna Diallo
Hair: Kendall Williams
Makeup: Emira D’spain
Fashion credits:
Stylist: Fred Kim @_fredkim
Stylist Assistant: Maimuna Diallo @maiimuna.a
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