Last night, while scrolling on my social media feeds through blue wave celebration meme after blue wave celebration meme, one user reposted a video of Iowa Governor-Elect Rob Sand with a caption along the lines of, “can’t believe he used to model in the early 2000s.”
A quick Google search confirmed that this random morsel of information was indeed true. While he was in college at Brown University, high fashion became a successful side hustle. Sand was not just a model in the “recruited at your local mall, pose for some commerce catalogues and maybe snag a national Gap ad” kind of way, but in a “fly to Milan and walk for the hottest designers” kind of way.
There’s not too much information about this time in his life, and according to a New York Times profile in 2019; it’s not a period he often publicly revisits. In 2022, he told Newsweek he actually missed a 2004 caucusing opportunity in his hometown of Decorah, Iowa, because he was in Milan. Over the course of his career, he walked the runways for Prada, multiple times, the cult Japanese label Number (N)ine, and Giuliano Fujiwara. He also appeared in editorial magazine spreads including AnOther Magazine’s fall 2002 young punk spread titled “Adolescents.”
These days, Sand’s quarter-zips and button-down shirts are a bit more gubernatorial than what’s seen on the runways in Paris and Milan—his midwestern flair is certainly miles from the likes of Haider Ackermann’s Tom Ford. However, should he ever choose to return to high-fashion dressing, no one does a uniform like Prada.
