Amelia Gray Hamlin has just landed in New York, the city she’s currently calling home, and there’s a tantalizing whisper of autumn in the air. “Fall is definitely my favorite time to dress. I love a layer.” Fitting, then, that she was layered to the nines for this shoot, flaunting the crème de la crème of Saint Laurent’s dynamic fall 2025 collection. We see leather on leather, a cropped bomber jacket paired with an embossed croc-print pencil skirt. And on the softer side, a silk slip dress, elevated with a (faux) fur coat. “It’s chic to layer — but it’s an art form,” explains Hamlin. This season’s finishing touch proves to be the new Icarino bag, a baby-sized version of Saint Laurent’s iconic Icare, which has inevitably become an it-girl staple.
Whereas some models are just paid to look good wearing clothes, Hamlin is a voracious student of fashion with a long-time affinity for the masculin féminin Saint Laurent vibe. “The roots and the bones of the house have stayed the same since the beginning. The dichotomy of masculinity and femininity is so beautiful and interesting.” Still riding off the high of June’s Saint Laurent spring/summer ‘26 menswear show in Paris, Hamlin recalls being struck by the looks presented under Anthony Vaccarello, the house’s creative director. Hamlin herself was wearing a suit, which is about as Saint Laurent as it gets, dating back to the brand’s genesis when Yves shook the 1960s Parisian couture crowd with his line of suiting for women. “I went up to Anthony at the show and was like, ‘I’ve never felt more of a woman than I do tonight in this suit.’ It was a really powerful feeling for me, feeling so confident and so feminine — yet I was in a completely masculine look.”
Saint Laurent is all about this juxtaposition, not only softening classic menswear staples with femme tailoring, but contrasting material and prints, where plaid and ruffles meet sleek leather and sensual silk. That Hamlin feels so spiritually connected to a collection defined by duality could in part be thanks to her astrological sun sign which is, you guessed it, Gemini. “I’m not necessarily the most Gemini, though,” says Hamlin with a knowing tone, noting that she’s balanced out by Aquarius (rising) and Pisces (moon).
Regardless of where Hamlin sits on the star charts, she moves through life with a keen curiosity that has opened up the universe for her. Born and raised in the blissed out sunshine of Beverly Hills, she understood that a move across the country would be necessary for her modeling career. “If I wasn’t doing what I’m doing, I’d probably still be in LA,” she admits with a laugh, pointing to the Angeleno habit of wearing athleisure as the ultimate sartorial cue that life is more relaxed on the West Coast. Instead, Hamlin opted for Saint Laurent’s fierce Vendome slingback pumps, matching the city’s energy: “New York will chew you up and spit you out, but it’s taught me so much.”
Hamlin initially moved to New York for college, but quickly realized that a traditional four-year education wasn’t a fit. “I’ve known that I wanted to model since I was five years old. I went through a lot of back and forth with my family – school is very important to us — but, simultaneously, this opportunity is once in a lifetime. It’s here now. I also realized that I can learn all around the world. As long as you’re dedicated to learning and retaining information, it will happen. I’m really grateful that I decided to take the leap. I’m a big believer in ‘if you want something, you have to give 100% of yourself to it.’” Well, her many jobs will reveal that the leap was worth it.
The model credits much of her success to how she was brought up, inheriting a genuine love of fashion from her mother, Lisa Rinna, of television fame. “My mom was always obsessed with the big fashion houses, so I grew up getting educated on all of that. She’s obsessed with fashion films, always getting me to watch and dive deeper. Fashion, for me, is art. It’s art that you can wear. People like to buy cars, people like to buy [art], I like to buy fashion. I’m working on an archive for myself that I can one day pass down to my children.”
Throughout our discussion, Hamlin’s many references to her mother, sister (Delilah Belle Hamlin), dad, and brother let me know that family is central to her value system. And yet she’s managed to carve a lane for herself. “I love my mom’s ability to have no fear in what people think and what people say, and she’s just this open book, and that’s so beautiful,” she says. “But I’ve learned the hard way that privacy is a privilege. It’s hard in today’s day and age with social media — you have to share your life to an extent — but it’s a dance. What’s mine is mine, and I want to protect that.”
What Hamlin does share, however, has helped her amass a following of over two million fans drawn to her candidness and unapologetic sense of style. “I’m really honest and open. I remember being a fifteen-year-old girl without having role models to look up to — they were almost too perfect. I want to be raw and share that I’m not that.”
Conjuring this fifteen-year-old version of herself, Hamlin admits that when she needs solace or a break from the runways, she goes right back to her childhood bedroom. “It’s so important to stay grounded. That’s my number one priority. I live this very fast life, I have these incredible opportunities. But who I am, who my soul is… I try to protect her at all costs. At the end of the day, none of this matters if you don’t have friends and family.”
As Hamlin pours her soul out, I can’t help but circle back to the qualities essential to the clothing she’s wearing: soft, yet tough. Vastly wearable, but entirely personal. “I’m definitely tough and soft. For me and my style, I never commit to one facade or one genre. I’m realizing, through my past four years in the industry, Saint Laurent is the brand I resonate with the most.”
There’s also just the sheer fact that, as a model, you have to be both beautiful and palatable to a wide array of people, but also resilient and thick-skinned, prepared for the rejection that inevitably arises in the audition process (or the fickle approval of the public eye). Hamlin pushes back.
“You learn that rejection doesn’t actually exist — it’s just redirection. I don’t ever feel rejected because, when I don’t get something, I know that it wasn’t ever mine. You can’t rush life and divine timing.” Here, she shouts out her team, which is made up of a group of very spiritual people. “It’s funny. In the beginning, you cry if you don’t land a job, and you feel like it’s a personal attack. But then, you realize that you actually end up getting a better opportunity because you didn’t get that one thing. And that continues to happen over and over and over. Once you just have faith that everything is working out in your favor, it’s a beautiful thing. You don’t have to be famous to think this way. It’s just life. Everything I’ve never gotten has wound up for the best.”
Discover the Saint Laurent fall 2025 collection.
Source: W Magazine
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