In Conversation with Dover Street Market, Arina Maksimova on Why It Was Never Just About Height

From working backstage in Asia to Vogue, how the first petite top model built her career from scratch

Among the sea of models lined up for measurements and headshots at casting calls, ten years ago, when she first arrived in Asia without a contract, Arina Maksimova would follow models signed to agencies to castings, shoots, and runway shows. She would wait until people on set were done, look for the staff, and offer help wherever it was needed.

“Once it was all finished, I would start collecting contacts,” she says. “At first, it meant approaching anyone I could find after each project. Later, once I started getting small backstage jobs, it became easier. Every person I met there, be it photographers, producers, casting directors, I would write down their names, emails, and numbers.”

Without an agency, this became Maksimova’s only way to build connections. “I spent several years in Asia doing what I now call ‘every possible gig behind the scenes,’ she shares. “I wasn’t signed, I didn’t have a defined role, and there was no clear path.”

Instead of preparing for castings herself, Maksimova was steaming clothes, delivering pull-outs across the city, and handling paperwork. “Even finding a single piece for one shot could take not hours, but days, and even back then, Dover Street Market was able to offer a solution to almost any request.”

This perspective would later shape the way she works today. What began as a way of simply staying close to the industry eventually opened the door to a broader creative role. “Years later, as I began to gain recognition as a model and the Petite Models Movement started to grow, I also began developing my own production and casting work. It’s important for me not to depend on a single role and not tie everything I do to my personal brand.”

For Maksimova, this work means more than building platforms for future talent. It is also part of a larger shift in how shorter women are seen, both within fashion and outside of it. Now back in Asia, the experience felt like a full-circle moment. This time, she returned not only as a model but also as part of the team shaping the production behind the shoot.

Now back in Asia, the experience felt like a full-circle moment. This time, she returned not only as a model and producer, but also as a stylist for the shoot, coordinating the visual direction in collaboration with Dover Street Market. Maksimova shares that spaces like this offer a carefully curated selection that brings together pieces from different designers in one place, making it easier to build a cohesive visual narrative. “It also becomes a practical approach to production, especially when time is limited, removing the need to search across the city and allowing everything to be sourced within a single environment”.

“Imagine a world where, back then, the industry had decided that sample sizes should be made for women around 160 cm tall. The entire conversation today would sound completely different. Height doesn’t define how clothes look on a person; the way they are made does,” Maksimova expounds. She continues,

“If a garment only works on taller women, it’s not the body that should be questioned; it’s the design. Change the parameters of the sample size, and the same clothes would look just as good on shorter women, while taller ones wouldn’t even fit into them. It’s a matter of construction and proportion, not an untouchable canon.”