By Karissa Mitchell ·Updated March 20, 2026 < /> Getting your Trinity Audio player ready… Annie Tagoe speaks with the calm certainty of someone who has earned her peace the hard way. Not the kind of peace that arrives quietly or all at once, but the kind that has been negotiated over time, through injury, doubt, comparison, resentment, and the long, echoing silence that settles in when everything that once defined you is suddenly placed on pause.
Photographer: Malike Sidibe @malikesidibe Stylist: Josephine Herfst @j.herfst “I’ve come to accept who I am,” she says. It sounds simple when she says it now, almost casual. But for years, acceptance felt distant, theoretical, something other people arrived at, not her.
As a professional track athlete, Tagoe has spent much of her life inside a sport that is at once hyper-visible and deeply isolating. Track looks communal from the outside, teams warming up together, bodies lined side by side, but it is an individual sport in its purest form. Everyone wears the same uniform. Everyone is training for the same outcome. And yet every body is quietly compared, evaluated, ranked.Speed is measured. Strength is visible. Bodies become data points.
“I struggled with my identity for a long time,” Tagoe says. “I struggled with the color of my skin. I struggled with how I looked, with feeling like I was never quite enough.” In a sport where bodies are currency and comparison is constant, it’s easy to lose yourself. Tagoe remembers looking around at her competitors, wishing she were slimmer, taller, built differently. The sport trains you to compete relentlessly, but it doesn’t always teach you how to belong.
For a long time, she didn’t feel like she did.
That feeling followed her beyond the track. When sponsorships and deals didn’t come easily, she internalized the rejection. She wondered whether her height, her skin tone, her difference were liabilities rather than assets. At 5’4”, she didn’t resemble the industry’s narrow ideals, whether in sport or fashion. And for a while, she believed that must mean something was wrong with her.What she didn’t realize yet was that the very things she tried to minimize would become her power.
Photographer: Malike Sidibe @malikesidibe Stylist: Josephine Herfst @j.herfst Between 2020 and 2022, Tagoe raced just 17 times. Injuries stacked on top of injuries. Surgeries interrupted seasons. Momentum evaporated. “My body just wasn’t reacting to the talent I had been given,” she says. “And I was so confused by that. I kept asking myself, why would I be given this gift if I couldn’t actually produce with it?” The question haunted her.
There were moments when resentment took over. Track is not a sport that guarantees financial security, and when the losses outweigh the wins, physically, emotionally, professionally, it becomes harder to justify staying. After her second surgery, she reached a breaking point.
“I remember thinking, I’m done with this sport,” she says. “I can’t keep doing this. There are so many downs, and not nearly enough highs.”
And yet, something kept pulling her back.
She still can’t quite explain what it was. Maybe stubbornness. Maybe love. Maybe instinct. Whatever it was, it followed her across the Atlantic when she moved from the UK to Houston, Texas, to train under Coach Anderson. The first year was difficult, homesickness tugged her back again and again, but the second year changed everything.She made the team. She went to the World Championships. She won bronze in the arena.
“I genuinely thought my body was finished,” she says. “I thought I needed to find something else to do with my life. And then suddenly, this happened.” The turnaround felt surreal. And just as quickly, the cycle returned, more injuries, more setbacks, more pauses she didn’t ask for. But something inside her had shifted. Instead of fighting her body, she began listening to it.
Now, nearing the later stages of her athletic career, Tagoe speaks about track with a softness that wasn’t there before. “I’m enjoying it again,” she says. “I’m actually having fun with it again. Training feels good. It feels lighter.” That joy didn’t come from pushing harder, it came from loosening her grip. Moving to America gave her something she didn’t know she needed, freedom. Control. Space. She manages her own care. She advocates for her body. She decides when to rest and when to push. That autonomy fundamentally changed her understanding of strength.
“I used to think strength was only physical,” she says. “But when my body started breaking down, I realized that being strong is actually much more mental. And the more mentally strong I became, the more physically strong I felt.” Mental strength, for Tagoe, is about self-talk. It’s about choosing belief when doubt is louder. It’s about knowing that if someone tells her she can’t do something, she will do it, not out of spite, but out of self-trust.
That self-trust carried her beyond sport and into fashion. Tagoe didn’t set out to become a model. Like many things in her life, it unfolded organically. A freelance shoot led to a conversation. A conversation led to representation. Within her first month signed, she landed an editorial with Vogue Italia. The momentum surprised even her.
At first, imposter syndrome followed her into fashion rooms too. She saw herself as an athlete among “real” models, women whose faces and bodies felt more familiar to fashion’s gaze. She questioned why she was there.
“I kept thinking, why am I in this room?” she says. “These girls have done incredible things in this industry. And then there’s me, an athlete.” Then the evidence became undeniable. “I was doing the same shoots. I was being invited into the same spaces,” she says. “And at some point, I realized, I belong here too.” That realization changed how she entered rooms. Where she once tried to arrive quietly, hoping not to be noticed, she now shows up fully. She doesn’t shrink. She doesn’t apologize.
Photographer: Malike Sidibe @malikesidibe Stylist: Josephine Herfst @j.herfst This past year (2025), London Fashion Week cemented that shift. Being invited, again and again, made it clear she wasn’t an exception or a novelty. She was part of the landscape. Paris is next. New York is on her horizon.
What makes Tagoe compelling in fashion isn’t just her athleticism, it’s her contrast. Off the track and off Instagram, she lives a quietly creative life. She spends evenings decorating her apartment, scrolling Pinterest for inspiration. She sews. She reads poetry. She makes pottery. She watches the same comfort shows on repeat, Girlfriends, A Different World, My Wife and Kids, with music always playing in the background.
“I’m honestly so boring,” she laughs. “I’m like a grandma.”
Her beauty rituals are disciplined but intimate. She exfoliates twice a day, every day. She would never sleep in makeup. Her wardrobe tells its own story, skirts only, she hates jeans, stacks of shoes, and an impressive Doc Martens collection, 17 pairs and counting. A trench coat is her ultimate fashion staple, timeless, grounding, elevating.
Recently, she signed a new contract with Honor Active, a sportswear brand that reflects the life she’s built, where athleticism and fashion coexist rather than compete. It’s a moment she’s deeply proud of, not just because of the deal, but because of what it affirms.
“I don’t feel like I have to choose anymore,” she says. “I don’t have to be just one thing. I can do both.” That philosophy extends into her dreams, too. Beyond medals and magazines, Tagoe wants something unexpected, her own puzzle business. She loves puzzles, the patience they require, the quiet satisfaction of watching pieces come together. It feels like a fitting metaphor.
As she looks ahead, her focus is less about proving herself and more about protecting herself. She’s learning to say no. To stop overextending. To put herself first without guilt.
“I’ve always been a yes person,” she says. “I’ve always put everyone else first. But now I’m learning that it’s okay to be a little selfish.” It’s a different energy from the woman who once wondered why she was in the room at all. Now, she knows she’s earned her place, on the track, in fashion, and within herself.
Annie Tagoe is rooted, steady, and staying.
Credits: Talent: Annie Tagoe @annietagoe Photographer: Malike Sidibe @malikesidibe Stylist: Josephine Herfst @j.herfst Blue dress look: Blue dress: Jannah Erdtracht @jannaherdtracht Crystal mesh skirt: The Zeina @the.zeina Shoes: Stylist’s own Jewelry: Miansai @miansai Red and white look: Top: The Zeina @the.zeina Shoes: Thijs de Jong @tyvesdejong Jewelry: Miansai @miansai Tights: Stylist’s own Skirt over trousers look 1 white top / red top: White top: The Zeina @the.zeina Red top: Daveed Baptiste @daveedbaptiste Skirt: Aimee Veenhof @aimeeveenhof Trousers: Daveed Baptiste @daveedbaptiste Jewelry: Miansai @miansai Big black dress: Black dress: Aimee Veenhof @aimeeveenhof Tights: Stylist’s own Shoes: Thijs de Jong @tyvesdejong Necklace & earrings: Stylist’s own Bracelet & rings: Miansai @miansai
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