Oxford University Vogue model works with Victoria Beckham

The 21-year-old student from Birmingham combines her academic work with being an international model.

In less than three years, she has appeared for almost every luxury brand across New York, London, Milan and Paris fashion weeks.

She has worked with Victoria Beckham, met Tyra Banks at a casting, and modelled in front of Sir Elton John.

Ms Parnell told The Times: “I used to avoid saying I was a model at first because it just comes with a baggage of questions and stereotypes. Normally, it’d be my mum who would (say it). But I would just say I’m a student first.”

The undergraduate fits her fashion schedule around Oxford terms, during which the university advises students not to take on a part-time job. She rarely asked for extensions to deadlines.

“I didn’t really want an advantage over my peers. I didn’t want my job to be an excuse,” she said.

Ms Parnell added: “My teachers were also quite strict. They saw me as any other student and I performed as good as anyone in my class so I was my own critic on that front.”

She also described the modelling industry as “extremely pro-education” and in favour of models having “a life on the outside of the job”.

Despite this balancing act and her growing success within the fashion industry, she is set on finishing her degree “and hopefully go on to do perhaps a master’s”.

With her final year approaching, she has decided to take a year’s break from her degree to pursue another modelling season while “racking her brains” for a dissertation subject, potentially related to medieval folk tales.

Ms Parnell grew up in Birmingham, playing Dungeons & Dragons and going to Comic Con conventions every year.

From the age of 14, she started getting noticed by model scouts, at festivals, Comic Con and at Bicester Village designer outlet shopping centre.

At first she wasn’t interested, feeling “lanky” and “a little bit like an alien”, before she eventually called an agent back in August 2023 aged 18.

That September, she made her debut in JW Anderson’s autumn/winter 2023 show at London Fashion Week and by the start of her university term had modelled in Milan and Paris.

Her agency taught her the best modelling techniques for fashion shows.

“It wasn’t even the heels, which I found particularly difficult, it’s more what you do with your arms,” Ms Parnell said.

“Now it just kind of comes naturally, and I kind of zone out.”

She was nearly neither a model nor a student but a basketball player.

Her height – now 5ft 11in, but 5ft 8in by the time she turned 11 – led her to play for the boys’ team at her godfather’s club, attend an academy and prepare to go to the US to play.

Then she decided she wanted to pursue education.

Her parents moved her belongings into Regent’s Park College, as she flew in from Paris halfway through freshers’ week.

Last week Ms Parnell was at Hermès Cruise 2027 in Bel Air, posting selfies with actresses Keke Palmer and Kerry Washington after the show.