Some people pick a lane. Ava Pearlman builds her own road.
She is a model, a stylist, a fashion designer, a documentary filmmaker, and a curator of vintage cinema. On paper, that sounds like someone who couldn’t make up their mind. In reality, it sounds exactly like someone who made up several minds all of them exceptionally well.
Ava Pearlman is not a name that fits neatly into one category, and that’s precisely what makes her worth knowing about.
Who Is Ava Pearlman?
Ava Pearlman is a New York City-based model, stylist, and creative director whose work spans some of the most recognisable brands and publications in fashion. She is also the founder of the womenswear label All The Rage and a self-described aspiring documentary filmmaker with a sharp eye for both culture and craft.
She stands 5’7″, lives and works in the West Village in New York City, and has built a career that refuses to stay in one box which, in an industry that loves boxes, is no small thing.
Her profile on Models.com lists an impressive range of editorial and commercial work, and her management at Muse Model Management keeps her firmly in the development circuit of New York’s modelling world.
Ava Pearlman’s Modelling Career
Ava Pearlman’s modelling resume reads like a well-curated playlist varied, deliberate, and consistently high-quality.
She has modelled for Nike and Calvin Klein Underwear on the commercial side. On the editorial front, her work includes features in Purple Magazine, Self Service, Double, Flaunt, Glamour Spain, and InStyle Mexico. These aren’t throwaway credits. Purple Magazine, for instance, is one of the most respected independent fashion titles in the world, known for its intellectual approach to photography and styling.
She has also appeared in campaigns for H&M, Steve Madden, and Victoria’s Secret a range that speaks to her ability to move between luxury editorial and mass-market commercial work without losing her identity in either direction (10 Magazine).
Calvin Klein, in particular, left a mark on her though perhaps not the kind the brand intended. Pearlman has spoken openly about the experience of having her face literally cut out of a Calvin Klein campaign, and what that does to a person’s sense of self. She described the experience as one of many moments in modelling where she felt a deep loss of image the feeling that existing and performing as yourself is somehow never quite enough (Zora).
That kind of honesty is rare in an industry that usually prefers the polished version of the story.
Ava Pearlman as a Stylist: Behind the Lens Matters Too
Modelling is how most people know Ava Pearlman. Styling is where she gets to make the decisions.
Her styling credits are just as impressive as her modelling work. She has styled for Vogue Italia, Zimmermann, and MTV a combination that covers everything from high fashion to popular culture (All The Rage Brand).
She also styled Charlie Puth for his album artwork, picking out vintage pieces that according to Pearlman herself he liked so much he kept wearing them long after the shoot (PI). That’s probably the highest compliment a stylist can receive: when the clothes outlast the job.
Her television work includes styling credits on Project Runway (she is credited in production on IMDb) and the MTV show How Far Is Tattoo Far with Snooki a show that is exactly as chaotic as the title suggests, and presumably a very different kind of styling challenge than Vogue Italia.
All The Rage: The Fashion Brand With a Philosophy
This is where Ava Pearlman’s creative identity really crystallises.
All The Rage is Pearlman’s womenswear line, and it is not your standard fashion brand. The label focuses on evening gowns specifically dresses inspired by 1940s cinema, made to order, with a design philosophy rooted in something far deeper than aesthetics.
The brand’s philosophy revolves around concepts like the collective unconscious, karma, and the fatigue of the modern self-branding age. In an interview with Animal Blood Magazine, Pearlman explained:
“All the Rage responds to the unconscious rage in society… the rage we feel at having to be ourselves but also perform as ourselves, brand ourselves, have these online avatars of ourselves.”
She cites David Lynch and philosopher Rudolf Steiner the inventor of Waldorf schools as intellectual influences on the brand. That is not a combination you hear in most fashion interviews.
The dresses themselves are slinky, romantic, and spiritual, with reviewers describing them as reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland which is honestly one of the most evocative compliments a fashion line could receive.
Pearlman went to school for drawing and painting, earning a BFA in Fine Arts with a minor in Art History. That foundation shapes everything she designs. She is particularly passionate about anatomical life drawing and colour theory, and she has always been drawn to the Impressionist movement specifically the work of Edgar Degas (All The Rage Brand).
She found her way into fashion design through her modelling career working with pattern makers who could finally bring her ideas to life. The brand started made-to-order, and she has been building it with genuine intention ever since (10 Magazine).
Her inspirations are telling: Diana Vreeland, Alexander McQueen, and costume designer Cecil Beaton. These are figures who understood that fashion is performance art that getting dressed is an act, not just a habit. Ava Pearlman lives by that philosophy, not just professionally but visually, in everything she puts out.
The “It Girls” Film Series at Roxy Cinema
If you thought model-stylist-designer was already a full schedule, Ava Pearlman also curates a monthly film series.
At the Roxy Cinema in New York City, she launched the “It Girls” film series a monthly screening programme dedicated to the most iconic women of Hollywood’s Golden Era. Think Audrey Hepburn, Greta Garbo, Judy Garland. The women who defined feminine glamour in the 1930s through the 1960s, and whose poise still hasn’t been matched.
The series launched with a screening of Funny Face the 1957 musical comedy starring Audrey Hepburn as a young model and Fred Astaire as a fashion photographer. Given Pearlman’s own life as a model with a deep love of visual art and cinema, the choice was obvious and perfectly personal (Roxy Cinema New York).
Screen Slate also featured the series, calling it a natural extension of Pearlman’s broader creative identity someone who draws as much inspiration from vintage Hollywood as from the contemporary fashion world.
Documentary Filmmaking: The Grandfather Story
Ava Pearlman is also an aspiring documentary filmmaker, and her first short film was a deeply personal project.
She directed a short documentary about her grandfather, Mordechai Rosenstein a Hebrew calligrapher who spent time with some of the most important Abstract Expressionist artists in American history, including Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, and Franz Kline (All The Rage Brand).
That’s not just a family story. That’s a direct connection to one of the most significant movements in 20th-century art. And for someone who studied fine art and draws stylistic inspiration from the Impressionist movement, it makes complete sense that her first film would live in that world.
It also says something important about Pearlman as a person: she didn’t start her filmmaking career with a fashion documentary or a self-promotional piece. She told her grandfather’s story. That choice reflects a set of values that runs through everything she does.
The Education Behind the Eye
Ava Pearlman took wardrobe-assisting gigs on television productions from the age of 13, while attending an Upper West Side yeshiva in New York City. She credits that early education with shaping her creative thinking and prompting a certain philosophically-minded approach to her work (10 Magazine).
She later completed a BFA in Fine Arts with a minor in Art History. For a working model and stylist, that level of formal arts education is genuinely uncommon and it shows in the depth and intention of her work across every medium she touches.
Her own words from a 10 Magazine profile sum it up well: “Build your life as if it were a work of art.” And also: “Modeling is just another medium.” Both of those sound like maxims from someone who has thought seriously about what creativity actually means.
