J. Alexander (model) - Early Life

Early Life

Alexander was born in South Bronx to Julius and Mary Jenkins and cites his mother as the first person to introduce him to fashion.

As a teenager he turned to modeling when he met the president of Elite Model Management, Monique Pillard. Pillard was so impressed with his look that she signed him to her agency, and he walked for designer Jean Paul Gaultier in New York City. J.Alexander is openly gay. Alexander met Tyra Banks backstage at a runway show, and he began to give her walking lessons. Banks coined Alexander's title Queen of the Catwalk.

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