Perfecting Your Runway Walk at Fashion Summer Camp
We’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is all those episodes of America’s Next Top Model you’ve spent hours watching over your life probably taught you a few things about fashion and posing. The bad news is, they didn’t teach you how to do the right runway walk.
Unless you (or your child, if you’re the parent) are six-ish feet tall in elementary/middle school, the walking tips on that show won’t work for you. You have different proportions than those glam-amazons – and that’s good! The modeling world is becoming a lot more diverse, though it’s far from perfect.
Fashion summer camp is the time to learn how to make the perfect runway walk for your body. Unless you can time travel, there’s no use in learning a walk for your future body. What are the components of the perfect runway walk? It’s a lot more about attitude than you think. Learn our tips below.
1. Have Good Posture
You’ve heard people say it (maybe to you) before, but do you know what it means to sit up straight?
So many people, even young people, have terrible posture. It comes from having to sit still in one place all day (school) and from tired muscles in your back.
Sitting (or standing) up straight is more than making sure your spine is straight up and down. It also involves pulling your shoulder blades back, pushing your chest out (just a little bit), and holding your chin high.
Once you’ve got those three things down, lift your torso up so that you feel like you’re getting taller. You can’t make yourself grow, but you can appear that way by “thinking tall,” as silly as that seems.
Good posture may feel a little uncomfortable (likely because you’re not used to it), but it should never hurt. If it’s hurting, relax your muscles a little bit and see if that helps. If it doesn’t, talk to an adult about the issue and decide if you should see a doctor.
2. Don’t Swing Your Hips
A lot of people exaggerate their hips when they’re copying a runway walk – it’s a rookie mistake.
They’re trying to mimic what happens naturally when the body is walking with good posture, or trying to make themselves look like they’re curvier than they are.
With the kind of posture we talked about above, your hips should sway just the right amount when you walk. At fashion summer camp, you have plenty of time to practice a natural walk.
As long as you’re standing up straight and walking like you’re on a balance beam (one foot tightly in front of the other), you shouldn’t need to pay any attention to your hips.
3. Let Your Arms Swing
The arm swing is another thing people over-think and over-do when they’re walking on the runway. A runway walk is essentially just a well-postured, brisk walk, so there’s no need to do anything crazy with your arms.
Let them swing naturally as you walk down the runway, then use your America’s Next Top Model skills to pose at the end.
4. Practice Your Pivot
The final physical thing you need to practice when it comes to your walk is how you transition from your end-of-the-runway pose to walking back. The easiest way to do it is to pick a pose where one foot is naturally in front of the other, and pivot on your back foot.
This takes practice and may change based on the pose and setup of the runway. You’ll get the hang of it! It just takes practice.
5. Perfect Your Blank Stare
Have you ever noticed that the models aren’t trying to make eye contact with people around the runway when they walk? It’s because connecting with people isn’t their job – showing off the clothes is.
Most models will pick a spot at the back of the room and stare at that. You never want to look down when you’re walking, as looking down tends to tilt your chin down.
Looking down also makes you look unsure of yourself, which you’re not. You’re a confident runway-stomping model!
6. Believe You’re Doing a Good Job
So many things in life depend more on how you think about them rather than how you actually do them. If two people had the exact same runway walk, but one had confidence in it, and the others didn’t, you’d automatically like the walk with confidence better.
When asked why you wouldn’t be able to put your finger on what they did differently, the only difference is attitude, which you can’t see.
Being confident in your runway walk doesn’t mean you think or expect it to be perfect – just that it’s the best walk, you can do. If you’re doing your best, it will show!
Practice, Practice, Practice At Fashion Summer Camp!
You can’t get good at something without practicing over and over in different situations. Nor can you work on your other fashion-related interests and gain more skills by just watching those ANTM reruns.
So, where can you get practice and learn more skills? At Pali Adventures Fashion Summer Camp, of course!
It’s a super fun place where you’ll spend a week creating your own clothes and putting on a fashion show where you can model them, and more.
Sound good? Click here to enroll now.