Walton is sitting here in front of me in a Paris studio to talk about her latest role as the spokesmodel for the shoe brand Superga. She looks — there is no other word for it — like a kid, albeit a stylish one, in a loose T-shirt and black basketball shorts. She turns 19 next week and has been modelling for six years.
The casting director James Scully says Walton stands out at a time when modelling is about playing it safe. He describes a handful of the greatest editorial girls working today, freaky looking and alien-like, including Walton and Boling: “They stand out in a sea of prepubescent, blonde white girls. Binx has been in every show I’ve cast since I met her [in 2013]. The first was Tom Ford and now she has the campaign. I love a girl with personality — and she has it. She has a unique look, amazing personal style. The minute people meet her, they want her. That girl’s got longevity.” She also has a funny name, which helps. Her brothers thought she looked like the Star Wars character Jar Jar Binks: “Of course, I hated it then. Now it’s good.”
Born in California, Walton moved to Hawaii with her family as a baby and to Knoxville, Tennessee, when she was six, after her parents split up. Her jazz-musician father is a remote figure in her life. “My mom is very cool, a free spirit and my best friend. Mom taught me very well to have my opinion and say what I wanted to say.” Walton has African-American, Indian, Irish, Dutch, German and Eastern Asian heritage, but the mixed-race beauty that has made her such a standout in fashion was less of an asset at high school. At a predominantly white school, her dark skin got her racist flak, so she moved to a less academic but predominantly black school, where, sod’s law, she wasn’t black or street enough. “I wasn’t very tough. I was like ‘Hiyaaaar,’ ” she says, waving her hand like an enthusiastic nerd.
The kids at school called her an Oreo (black on the outside, white on the inside), but she handled it. Soon she came home talking and posturing with a lot more street attitude, which she puts on for me now. It was a front that helped when, aged 16, she landed her first big catwalk show: Marc Jacobs AW13. “It was crazy, 50 girls and just so many people, so much press, and Marc Jacobs there directing the whole thing.”