What’s Maggie Rizer Been Up To?

by Eddie Roche

Maggie Rizer

Last month we happily welcomed Maggie Rizer back to the runway when she walked in the Michael Kors show for the first time in (gasp!) a decade. She also graced the cover of Vogue Japan‘s September issue, shot by Luigi & Iango in their ‘Perfect Icons’ issue alongside Carolyn Murphy and Karen Elson, to name a few. Rizer has penned a pice for Vogue.com where she explains why she left the business when she did and what the experience of dipping her toes back in the fashion waters has been like. “After more than a decade in the business, in 2004, a combination of personal and family developments led me to reevaluate my life,” she writes. “It’s a cliché often repeated about fashion, but it’s an easy world to get lost in—a place where fantasy and reality, superficiality and truth collide in confusing ways: Was I the all-American girl I grew up as, or was I the famous model I’d never imagined being.” Once in campaigns for Calvin Klein and MaxMara and shot by Steven Meisel and Richard Avedon, she went on to get married, focused on a more “grounded” life, and had two boys. Eventually she started to get the itch for her old job and as luck would have it, the industry was wanting her back. “Coming back, I felt that I’d never left,” she explains. “And I couldn’t have imagined a warmer welcoming. I sometimes check the pictures to see if my skin looks bad or if I look old, but only because I want to make sure the picture is perfect. (Luckily for me, retouching has come a long way.)” How’s she dealing with the work and family combo? She writes that her friend [Elle’s] Alex Gonzalez came backstage after Kors with some handy advice for her: “Find your balance.”  Now 36, Rizer has defined who she is: “I no longer question who I am as I did years ago, because now it is very clear to me: I’m a mother. A mother who happens to love fashion. Seems completely normal to me.” Read the full essay on Vogue.com

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