A model Tales Soares participating in Sao Paulo’s Fashion Week has died after getting sick on the catwalk.

A statement from organizers said Soares took ill while parading Saturday.

The medical team attended to him on the catwalk and Soares was later taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The statement did not provide more details about 26 years old.

Daily Folha de S. Paulo reported that Soares tripped on his shoelace and fell.

According to the paper, people in the crowd initially thought his fall was part of a performance.

A photo in the newspaper showed the model lying face down on the catwalk while paramedics attended to him.

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The São Paulo Fashion Week is an clothing trade show held semi-annually in São Paulo. It is notable as “Latin America’s pre-eminent fashion event” and it is considered the fifth largest fashion week after in the world behind New York, London, Paris and Milan. It has been controversial in the past because of a “longstanding bias towards white models.” In 2009 quotas were imposed that required that 10 percent of models to be “black or indigenous” as a way to foster equal opportunity.