“This girl really carries the weight of online shopping on her shoulders,” the tweet said, which was created last month by the Instagram account @bravohistorian. The image: a pretty blonde model in a cutout dress, subtly smiling at the camera. If you’ve shopped online during the last decade, you probably laughed because of course you’ve seen that girl. In fact, that’s probably how you know her—as “that girl.” How strange that she’s arguably the most successful e-commerce model working today and yet so few people know her name. It’s Ludi Delfino, by the way.
I ask her whether she’s seen the meme. She has, and some TikToks too, which also playfully underscore her everywhere-ness. “I was dying,” she tells me over Zoom from her home in Los Angeles days after I DM’d her asking whether she’d be willing to talk about the unique niche she’s carved for herself—ubiquitous anonymity—in an industry that’s currently all about leveling up and up and up until you become a household name. I read her some of the comments, including one that said, “This girl shows up as one of my recognized friends in my iPhoto People & Places because I’ve screen-shotted her outfits so much.” Another: “She shows up on my IG and FB feed more than my kids.”
Delfino has been a model for 17 years, a career that was spurred by her mother, who put her in modeling classes in her native Brazil when she was young. This led to getting an agent and trying her hand at runway modeling during the shows in Europe. She had the good sense to realize early that the runway might have prestige, but—at least before the rise of Insta-models—it also required women to have a very specific look that does not include being conventionally pretty or even particularly proportional. “Not having a super ‘fashion’ look obviously didn’t get me too far when I was younger,” Delfino says. “I was never the fashion-looking girl.”
And then there’s Revolve, the multibrand online marketplace that woos a very specific millennial and Generation Z consumer with its mix of trend-driven clothes and accessories, established and emerging designers, unrelenting use of influencer marketing, and price points that are generally higher than fast fashion but—with many prices hovering in the $200 to $300 range—might not be completely prohibitive for the young woman looking to dabble in cutouts or embrace ruffles. Delfino has become the de facto face of the site, though not by design.
According to the model, the partnership started around 12 years ago when she went in for a casting. Revolve, as a destination, wasn’t as pervasive as it is now, but Delfino said it had a strong leader in Michael Mente, the site’s cofounder, and seemed like a cool gig. Ten years later, she’s shooting anywhere between 100 and 150 looks for Revolve on a weekly or monthly basis, and has been given the nickname “the Revolve girl” by in-the-know online shoppers.
“[We] have over 800 brands, with daily new releases, so it’s important for the models we work with to keep pace with a fairly rapid shooting schedule,” says Lauren Yerkes, Revolve’s chief merchandising officer. “Ludi is the utmost professional in this sense. The Revolve girl knows her so well, she’s become an extension of our brand.”
The fact that most people who see her online probably don’t know her name doesn’t particularly bother her, as Delfino is in it for the work. And make no mistake—it’s work. She tells me that she shot consistently and safely all through COVID’s height, often driving an hour each way to jobs, most of which require her standing for eight or nine hours at a clip. But it’s not all anonymity. Delfino admits she does get recognized when she’s out and about. “It’s kind of crazy because my husband and I will go out and he’ll be like, ‘That girl just said, “She’s the Revolve model,”’” she tells me. “It’s funny because he used to joke that I’m the most recognized—not famous—model.”
She doesn’t care that much about the perception that e-commerce modeling isn’t as cool as flitting around the globe for Fashion Week or shooting with top photographers. “Well, I guess I’m not that cool,” she says. “But then again, I’m busy, I’m always working, I’ll take it. It’s hard work, but I’m used to it, and I really don’t mind it.”
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The lifespan of an e-commerce model is also a plus—she’s been doing it for over a decade, and Delfino says she could see herself sticking with it for another five years at least. She recently became a health coach and signed up to get her personal-training certification. She also became a U.S. citizen last year.
