The model, known for his signature waist-long hair, went on to work with fashion photographers such as Steven Meisel and Bruce Weber and walk runways for designers such as Anna Sui and John Varvatos.
But for Nyima, modeling was always more of a side gig.
“I’m really into carpentry,” he told W magazine in 2017. “I would consider myself more a woodworker, honestly, than a model. When people ask me what I do, it almost slips my mind to even bring it up. But, I guess I am a model. [Though] I definitely don’t picture myself in my brain as a model. I picture myself more as a nine-to-five. That’s what I do more on a regular basis.”
As a child of a supermodel, Nyima traveled a lot growing up. “Once I was 15 and started growing my hair out, I got sent to boarding school and I got really into skiing and extreme sports for a few years,” he told W. “I lived in Utah for two years. Coming from the East Coast, that was just amazing.”