From Runway to River 

How Eliza Spilsbury Moves Between Fashion and Elite Rowing 

Before the runway, there was the river.

That thought stayed with me as I watched Eliza Spilsbury move through an early Sunday morning photo shoot at Robious Landing Park in Richmond, Virginia. The morning was quiet, the water was calm, and photographer Nick Taylor was capturing image after image of a woman who seemed completely at home in front of the camera and equally at home near the water.

Our newest A.P. Styles intern, Langston McCurdy, joined us for the early morning shoot, and together we watched Eliza move between the boathouse, the dock, the water, and the boat with a natural confidence that made the entire experience feel less like a traditional fashion shoot and more like a glimpse into the different worlds that have shaped her. There were moments of movement. Moments of stillness. Moments where she looked completely modelesque, as I jokingly described her during the shoot, and then moments when the athlete in her became impossible to miss.

What I did not fully understand when I first met Eliza was just how accomplished that athlete had been.

Eliza may now be recognized in Richmond’s fashion community for her work as a model, including appearances connected to RVA Fashion Week and Virginia Swim Week, but long before stepping onto a runway, she built an impressive competitive rowing career that took her to national and international levels of the sport.

Her résumé on the water is a reminder that there is often much more behind the image we see.

Eliza competed as part of the United States Junior National Team program and earned a silver medal in the eight at the 2012 World Rowing Junior Championships before winning gold in the four at the 2013 World Rowing Junior Championships. She later continued her career as a member of the University of Virginia Women’s Rowing program, competing among some of the strongest collegiate crews in the country. During her time at Virginia, she was part of highly competitive varsity crews, including boats that competed at the NCAA Championships. She was also part of an ACC Championship Varsity Eight that earned recognition as the ACC Crew of the Year.

Photography by Nicholas Taylor

That is a level of athletic discipline that does not simply disappear when someone changes careers or discovers another creative path.

Perhaps that is why seeing Eliza model near the water made so much sense.

Rowing and fashion may appear to belong to completely different worlds, but watching her during the shoot made me think about how much they actually have in common. Both require an awareness of the body. Both require discipline. Both depend on movement, posture, precision, repetition, and confidence.

A rower learns to move in rhythm with a team, understand timing, and develop strength through repetition. A model learns to understand the camera, create shape, communicate without speaking, and use movement to tell a visual story. In Eliza’s case, those worlds seem to meet naturally.

Her athletic background brings a different kind of presence to the camera. There is strength in her posture, confidence in her movement, and an ease around the water that cannot be manufactured for a photo shoot. We did not have to create a story around a model pretending to be connected to rowing. We were photographing a woman returning to an environment that had already played a major role in shaping her life.

That authenticity became part of the beauty of the images.

And then, of course, there is fashion.

Even rowing has its own visual language. Eliza shared several brands connected to the sport, including JL Racing, Boathouse, Strokeside, and 776BC, brands that represent the technical side of athletic apparel and the identity that comes with being part of a rowing team or competitive program.

Photography by Nicholas Taylor

That connection between clothing and identity is something fashion understands very well. Uniforms are created for performance, but they also communicate belonging. A team color, a logo, the fit of a racing uniform, and the way an athlete moves while wearing it all become part of the larger visual identity of the sport.

For someone like Eliza, fashion does not replace athletics. It becomes another form of expression.

Today, she continues moving through fashion while remaining connected to the aquatic world that has been part of her life for years. She has built a presence as a model while carrying with her the experiences of an athlete who competed at an elite level.

That combination is what made this story so interesting to me.

When people see a model on a runway, they may see the finished image. The confidence. The beauty. The pose. The walk.

What they may not see is everything that came before it. The early mornings. The training. The competition. The discipline. The years spent learning what the body can do.

Watching Eliza during our shoot was a reminder that people are rarely defined by just one thing. A woman can be athletic and feminine. Competitive and creative. Strong and fashion-forward. She can perform on the water and then step in front of a camera with an entirely different kind of presence.

She does not have to choose one identity over the other.

For Eliza Spilsbury, the runway and the river are simply two different places where movement tells the story.

And that Sunday morning, the story unfolded through the fog.

As Eliza moved across the water in her boat, surrounded by the soft haze that had settled over the river, the images felt almost cinematic. There was something beautiful about watching the model disappear and reappear through the fog, while knowing that this was not simply a setting created for fashion.

Photography by Nicholas Taylor

This was her world.

The runway reveals one side of Eliza Spilsbury.

The river reveals another.

And somewhere between movement, water, fashion, strength, and the fog that surrounded her that morning, both worlds came together in one frame.