Ronald Epps was working a janitor shift at a Whole Foods in Plymouth, Pennsylvania, when the scout King Hinton approached him about a photoshoot. He was twenty.

A semifinalist run on America’s Next Top Model Cycle 20 followed shortly after, and the visibility from the show put him in front of agencies in New York and London. The Philadelphia origin and the unlikely entry gave him a story the industry took to immediately.

The career shaped itself around his physique. At 6 foot 1½ with a muscular athletic frame, his proportions fit the American market, and the work ran through the houses prepared to dress a body like his.

Balmain cast him for the fall-winter 2016 campaign shot in tearful black and white. Calvin Klein, River Island, and Ralph Lauren followed, with Montblanc placing him in the Library Spirit campaign. Editorial pages at V, i-D, Hercules, GQ Style Germany, and Flaunt ran alongside the campaign list. He’s became one of the leading Black models American fashion casts.