Rob Sand has a new job lined up in Des Moines, joining the Blue Wave as Iowa’s new governor-elect. More than two decades ago, however, he was spending his time on European runways, including for Prada.
The Democrat, who defeated Republican Zach Lahn on Tuesday, had a brief but still impressive modeling career while attending Brown University in the early 2000s. Before he graduated from the prestigious school with a BA in political science, he had already walked runways for the likes of Prada, Giuliano Fujiwara and Japanese label Number (N)ine, to name a few. Not bad for a college side gig.
Sand’s runway work included Prada’s spring 2003 menswear collection, presented in Milan in 2002. Designed by Miuccia Prada, who just showed an impressive array of skirts for the Italian luxury label’s spring 2027 collection, the early aughts collection mixed traditional tailoring with some rather unconventional proportions.
Gray suits and belted trenchcoats shared the runway with gold floral brocade trousers, breezy shorts and lightweight T-shirts. There were printed short-sleeve shirts, too, along with leather shoes and ankle boots.
Prada wasn’t the only major fashion name on Sand’s résumé. He also worked the runways for Giuliano Fujiwara and Number (N)ine, the latter founded by Japanese designer Takahiro Miyashita in 1997. His modeling work extended to editorial projects, with credits associated with Arena Homme+, Vogue Italia and AnOther, including a 2002 shoot photographed by Terry Richardson.
Sand, who stands approximately 6 feet, 3 inches tall, started modeling while attending Brown, traveling between the United States and Europe for jobs. The work even interfered with his early political interests.
In January 2004, Sand missed the Iowa Democratic caucuses in his hometown of Decorah, where he had hoped to support presidential candidate Howard Dean. The reason? He was modeling menswear in Milan, of course.
“It had to be one or the other,” Sand recalled in a 2022 interview with Newsweek. “And I chose to go to Europe” — a choice that we presume most undergraduate students would make, given the opportunity.
Sand eventually returned to Iowa, graduating from the University of Iowa College of Law in 2010 before beginning his legal career. He was elected state auditor in 2018 and reelected in 2022. His victory, like many victories during the midterms, was something of a historic one, marking the first time Iowa voters had elected a Democratic governor since 2006.
But Sand isn’t the first American politician with a modeling portfolio.
Former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown spent much of the 1980s working as a model after winning Cosmopolitan magazine’s America’s Sexiest Man contest in 1982. Brown subsequently signed with Wilhelmina and modeled for Jordache, Macy’s and JCPenney, among other brands. His $20,000 Jordache contract even led to a billboard in New York City’s Times Square. Nearly three decades later, he won a special election to the U.S. Senate in 2010.
More recently, Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna worked as a swimsuit model before entering Congress in 2023. In 2014, she appeared in Maxim as one of the magazine’s “Hometown Hotties” semifinalists, wearing a white A-tank and aviator sunglasses as she drove around in a cherry-red Chevy Nova SS.
“At the time, there was this idea that women in the military couldn’t be feminine. I wanted to help shatter the narrative and decided to join the Maxim model competition,” she told Maxim in 2024 of her decision to model a decade earlier. “I had also received permission to do it from the public affairs office at the Pentagon, so it seemed like the military also wanted help breaking the stereotype. I ended up getting into the magazine and still have that issue to this day!”
In another first back in 2024, Luna became the youngest Republican in the House and the first Mexican-American representative from Florida. She appeared in Maxim once again that year, once again modeling a white A-tank underneath army green pants and a windbreaker, an outfit the congresswoman said was from Victoria’s Secret on an Instagram post at the time.
Luna’s modeling work also includes appearances in Sports Illustrated and Liberty Belles, a now-defunct conservative pro-Second Amendment publication that featured women posing in camouflage bikinis with firearms in hand.
And then there was former Colorado Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, who took a slightly different route into fashion advertising.
In 1996, while already serving in the Senate, Campbell participated in Banana Republic‘s spring “Freedom at Work” photographed by Peter Arnell. The Republican posed astride his Harley-Davidson motorcycle at Washington, D.C.’s Jefferson Memorial, sporting a glen plaid jacket, striped shirt and tie with his own leather trousers and motorcycle boots.
The Gap, Banana Republic’s parent company, eventually pulled the ads featuring the Colorado senator after environmentalist and George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, who was not pleased with Campbell’s anti-environmental voting record, threatened to organize a boycott of the brand.
Sand, meanwhile, returned to the spotlight Tuesday night in Des Moines, celebrating his gubernatorial victory in a navy suit and light blue checked shirt, dressing the part.
