I Love A Success Story - Nathan Westling

Nathan Westling is one of the most high-profile transgender male models in the industry.

Introducing Nathan Westling

CNN by Allyssia Alleyne

Nathan Westling

When I ask Nathan Westling what he sees in the mirror, he describes "a masculine version of my old self." His red hair is shorn short, his voice has deepened and his face seems more angular, despite the fact he's about 20 pounds heavier than he was six months ago. ("But it looks good," the 22-year-old insists, laughing. "I'm growing into my young adult male body.")

He hasn't sprouted any facial hair, to his mild disappointment, but otherwise Westling looks like just another Santa Monica skater boy -- albeit one with an otherworldly beauty about him.

Until recently, it seemed like you couldn't open a major fashion magazine without seeing Westling's dark eyes staring out at you from behind his signature cascading curls. Since making his high fashion debut on the Marc Jacobs runway in 2013, when he was still going by the name Natalie, Westling had ascended to the upper ranks of the industry, fronting ad campaigns for the likes of Louis Vuitton, Versace, Prada, Chanel, Dior and Alexander McQueen, and appearing in Vogue's American, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, French and Russian editions.

But by last April, his priorities had shifted from his career to himself. After a decade spent receiving therapy and medication for depression, anxiety and anger issues, he finally decided to address what he'd always known to be the underlying problem. To do so, he decamped from his base in New York to Los Angeles to begin transitioning from life as Natalie to life as Nathan.

Read more here.

However, out trans male models remain rare in fashion, and when Westling returns to the industry, he'll instantly become the most high-profile trans man working at the top tier. He and his agents have already been in touch with past major clients, and he says the responses have been universally supportive. A week before our interview, Westling was shot for the cover of a major fashion magazine (no, he won't tell me which one), and while he declines going into detail, he says the designers he's worked closest with have promised to stand by him.