She practised her walk, too. For someone whose energetic stomp through Lagos helped introduce her to much of the internet, nerves still arrived when the Chanel runway beckoned. “I wanted to make sure that nothing goes wrong. I don’t stumble on my feet.” More experienced models—including Bhavitha Mandava and Anok Yai—helped settle them, reminding Ojuromi to stay calm, let loose and, most importantly, remember that she deserved to be there. By the time she stepped onto the runway, the advice had sunk in. “I was having fun,” she says. “I was like, ‘Yeah, I deserve to be here, of course!’”
Backstage, the emotions caught up with her again. When Ojuromi started crying, the people around her closed ranks, reassuring her and helping her pull herself together before she walked. “You got this girl, don’t stress,” she remembers being told. She had a quick glam defo. “Of course it didn’t look like I was crying because, diva,” she jokes.
And inevitably, her thoughts return to Lagos. Ojuromi remembers sitting on her couch there, watching a Chanel show, and wondering whether she and her friends could create one of their own. And so they did, and so now, she’s walked in the real thing.
Her message home? “You can dream, you can believe in something, and it can just work out,” she says. “You can dream yourself into a life that is possible even if nobody else gets it.” From Lagos to the Grand Palais, Ojuromi is fairly compelling proof of the concept. Follow along as she takes Vogue behind the scenes of her turn at Chanel spring 2027 below.
