June 2026
Mois 20xx
Hajir Butt
Charmaine Gooden
Jacob Marion
Highlights
Beginning of article
Kimberly Huie’s career is marked by full-circle moments et creative sparks that draw her back to the places, people and opportunities that shaped her. Whether dazzling audiences with her acting on stage and screen, or modelling on runways and photo sets, Huie’s talents have taken her far. From Toronto to Paris to New York, Huie has crafted a career of passions, chasing her dreams and aspirations wherever they lead.
Jeunesse et Carrière
Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Huie remembers glimpses of her time there: the warmth of a tropical island, the salty sweetness of the air and the taste of strawberry ice cream. When Huie was five, her family left Jamaica, landing in Toronto and eventually settling in Scarborough, Ontario.
Huie’s love for the arts started at a young age through flamboyant expressions and performances. From age 11, she would watch Sunday matinees on television with her mother and reenact grandiose scenes from 1940s films like Philadelphia Story et Witness for the Prosecution, mimicking the performances of Marlene Dietrich and Katherine Hepburn. Noticing her passion, her mother enrolled her in an after-school theatre program. “That was the beginning of this creative path,” says Huie.
During her junior high school year at Albert Campbell Collegiate Institute, Huie was scouted by Team One, a modelling agency that came to the school offering a free modelling course. The whole school seemed to audition, including Huie, who got scouted.
Growing up, she often felt “awkward and gangly,” and not “very graceful.” Huie, who was 5-foot-10 and the tallest girl at school, was called “sticks” because of her straight, skinny legs. As it happens, those features helped her get chosen for the course. “What made me feel self-conscious was precisely what made me right for modelling,” she notes.
At Team One, Huie was taught how to pose and do makeup by other models, but it was the runway shows that really spoke to her. Sashaying down a runway required a performance that married theatre with fashion. Her first runway jobs were mall fashion shows at places like the Sheridan Centre in Mississauga, where she modelled clothing from the mall’s retailers.
After the course, Huie signed with Kristen Models in the early 1980s while still in high school. She remembers being exempt from final exams when she was booked to model for a major swimwear brand, Cole of California. The job was being shot on location in the Bahamas, which was a “big deal,” Huie says. She moved on to model for Bookings for some time before landing at Judy Welch Agency.
When Huie signed with Judy Welch in the mid-1980s, she felt she had arrived at the place she was meant to be. She had walked by the agency on her way to Team One’s courses all those years ago. “I was passing the place that was going to be my favourite model home,” reminisces Huie. The agency was once out of Welch’s own home. “When you walked through the door, everybody was all part of this agency… We were a family.” In an industry where competitiveness runs deep, Huie stresses the importance of being in an agency where models feel supported.
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From age 11, Huie would watch Sunday matinees on television with her mother and reenact grandiose scenes from 1940s films like Philadelphia Story et Witness for the Prosecution, mimicking the performances of Marlene Dietrich and Katherine Hepburn.
Around age 18, Welch sent Huie to Paris, France. “It was a part of my coming of age, becoming a woman, and it gave me a different life experience. It was pretty phenomenal for this little girl out of Jamaica,” Huie reflects.
It was a “colossal achievement” when she was booked for a United Colours of Benetton campaign in Paris. Huie’s diverse background, Jamaican, Scottish, Chinese and English, made her confident about the booking. “I am Benetton. This is me. You guys see it, right?” she remembers thinking. When she booked it, she was “over the moon.”
There were half a dozen models on set that day, whom Huie describes as lovely. During the shoot, Huie had a “personality clash” with Oliverio Toscani, the photographer and a controversial figure in the advertising industry. “Toscani kept telling me to stand straight, which I was already doing, but what he wanted was for me to straighten my legs. I was so confused,” she recalls, thinking, “Why are you shouting? I can’t fix it if I don’t understand [what you’re asking].”
Despite the misdirections, Huie says it was a joy to be a part of an iconic advertising campaign. Seeing her ad in different Benetton stores was a proud moment for her and her family. To her surprise, her father even had the ad at home in a spare room. He had asked the store staff if he could have it when the campaign was over.
In a fashion capital like Paris, Huie met icons including Tunisian couture designer Azzedine Alaïa. “[Alaïa] was absolutely sweet. He’s this tiny guy with his little doggies,” she recalls fondly. Because of Huie’s larger bustline, she wasn’t considered versatile for certain shows. “He would say, “I don’t know what I can do with you, Miss Boobs,” Huie laughs, imitating Alaïa’s Tunisian accent. “He wasn’t being weird or anything… He thought it was beautiful,” she clarifies.
African American designer Patrick Kelly was another fashion legend who left an impression on Huie. While his shows were over for the season when she met him, she remembers how he held both her hands, gave her two little Black baby dolls, and said, “You take these with you because I know you’re gonna make a lot of money.” The dolls were Kelly’s signature accessory, which he would gift to clients and friends.
After their meeting, Huie was elated. “I just remember feeling like I had been blessed.” She was excited that they might get to collaborate. “But by the next season, he was not with us anymore,” she says. Kelly passed away from AIDS related complications in 1990, at the age of 35.
Mode et Diversité
When Huie started modelling, she would straighten her hair with chemical relaxers to fit in with industry preferences and stylists’ inability to style textured hair. During her time at Bookings Modelling Agency, she wanted to take pictures with her natural hair after seeing multicultural models in Elle magazine. “It was all mine, full and curly, luscious, natural curls,” Huie laughs. However, her enthusiasm wasn’t reciprocated. “It was a fight for me to go with the curls,” she admits.
This wouldn’t be the only time Huie experienced pushback for her race. While in Paris, Huie was sent on a go-see by her agency. When she got there, she could tell she wasn’t what they expected from their disappointed expressions. “She is too dark,” the bookers said in French amongst themselves. They had mistaken Huie for another, more white-presenting Jamaican model with the same name.
After that, modelling began to lose its appeal. She decided to pursue a film career but believed she couldn’t be a model and an actor at the same time. Huie felt there was judgement from the film industry that questioned the dedication of a model-turned–actor. “When I was 20, it felt like I couldn’t do both. I thought, ‘I have to quit modelling and focus on acting,’” she says. In what felt like an abrupt change, Huie moved from photoshoots to film sets.
In 1992, Huie attended Circle in the Square Theatre School in New York City. She starred in Canadian television shows Liberty Street (1995) and G-Spot (2005), and appeared in worldwide hits like Grey’s Anatomy. Huie played Margaret Washington in an episode of Netflix’s limited series Self-Made, about beauty entrepreneur Madam C.J. Walker, a highlight in her acting career. “Getting to play a historical figure who was so important to the empowerment of Black women and how we define beauty was amazing,” Huie says.
Despite leaving the modelling world, she still found a connection to fashion through her acting. Costume designers would style clothes for Huie to wear, helping her understand and define the character she was playing.
Influence et Héritage
Sophia Ellen Lofters, a fellow model now working in film production, immediately bonded with Huie as young women of colour at Judy Welch’s agency. “It’s just natural to feel stronger when you aren’t the only one, rather than doing things alone,” says Lofters. She recalls that Huie was always bubbly, full of energy and “up for tricks.”
Lofters describes the two of them on the runway during a designer’s show, holding hands, skipping and laughing hysterically. In tandem with Huie’s playful side was a sense of professionalism that inspired Lofters. “I’m blown away that in this phase of her life, she continues to set her mind to something… she does the work and just keeps going.”
Huie, who now travels between Toronto and New York, became a certified Pilates instructor before returning to the modelling world when a client invited her to walk a show. In a full-circle moment, she did the runway show, which soon led to a web campaign for a jewelry designer. In 2025, Huie walked in New York Fashion Week for the first time. “At this age, it’s not do or die anymore,” she says. “I just get to enjoy it.”
Being in Paris, a fashion capital, Huie met fashion icons like Tunisian couture designer, Azzedine Alaïa and African American designer Patrick Kelly.
Peggi Lepage, a friend and model she also met during her time at Judy Welch, now represents Huie as her scout and agent. Lepage wants to see more mature models in the market. “I just love all these gray-haired salt-and-peppered beauties. There is still a future for us,” Lepage says. She finds that Huie has a gift that not all models have: “Kimberly always sees the beauty of things.”
In addition to instructing Pilates, Huie is an acting coach, where she says using her years of experience allows her “to guide actors on their creative journey,” an endeavour she takes pride in.
Once “just a little girl from Jamaica,” Huie has grown into an aspiring multi-talented creative, taking on bold endeavours and finding herself in dazzling cities. Now, she is a woman dedicated to every aspect of her craft, whether it be bringing life to roles on screen or taking up the thrill of modelling again. Huie’s career has been one of full-circle moments, reinventions and creative breakthroughs en passions that never faded.
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