See Like Me

Saty & Pratha shoot seven peach-fuzzed boys for the new issue of Open Lab magazine, an NYC based biannual. Styled by TJ Gustave in what I consider wardrobe staples, they lounge around providing snippets to Virginia Jackson-Reed. Featuring our very own (well, not really) Joe Collier (we’re proud, okay?) among other fresh spuds like Nicklas Kingo, Simonas Pham and Jack Lankford, this story is getting me all babysitter’s club excited. In other news, it’s my birthday tomorrow, so early birthday gift to me.

Jack Lankford
Age: 20
Hometown: Kansas City, Missouri

If you learn nothing else from/about Jack, know that: Kansas City is, “the best place to get away from, the worst place to go to,” his million dollar ideas include converting an apartment building into a vertically integrated urban farm, and a “lawnmower helicopter”, and that her fully intends to “change the world”.

Nicklas Kingo
Age: 22
Hometown: Copenhagen, Denmark

Nicklas is still adjusting to the ups and downs of modeling. He describes “comedowns” and “empty” feelings after big shows like Louis Vuitton (which was streamed live worldwide). He’s boarding a plane in a few hours, and it seems he’s counting the minutes-he tells me he’s craving shawarmas, missing his mum. Though, protest as he may, he secretly loves being on the road: “I know two weeks later, I’ll wanna get out again.”

Joe Collier
Age: 20
Hometown: Manchester, England

Joe’s not one for plans-it’s not really how they do things in Manchester. So when asked if he has a “five-year plan” he assures me, “Not even a five day plan.” After all, the golfer-turned-model never would have imagined a catwalk career, or that he’d be asked to shoot a “model diary” during the coming runway season in Milan and Paris. “The modeling thing came out of the blue. The best things are opportunities that present themselves”.

Simonas Pham
Age: 20
Hometown: Vilnius, Lithuania

When Simonas tagged along with a friend to a casting, he had no idea that he’d end up getting signed. And despite modeling temporarily derailing his studies, his intentions are to “finish [his] studies and become a lawyer.”

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With every new season comes new beginnings. True to that, the new Menswear Fashion Week F/W ‘13 has brought us a ton of new faces to look out for. Here is a list of our top boys who have manged to steal the season.

Almantas Petkunas As predicted, this Lithuatian bloke made a brilliant entrance this season. He debuted in London, opening for the controversial J.W. Anderson show. This was then followed by other blue chip shows in Milan and Paris such as Jil Sander, Burberry, Louis Vuitton and Dries van Noten. We told you he was going to be big.

Botond Cseke With his hypnotic eyes and sharp angular features, this Hungarian was surely able to catch the attention of tons of casting directors. With a total of 11 shows including opening for John Galliano and closing for John Lawrence Sullivan and Christian Lacroix, impressive might even be an understatement.

Conor Doherty After winning the Elite Model Look, good things had been coming Conor’s way. He had a total of 12 shows which includes top fashion houses Burberry, Valentino and Dries van Noten. With his adorable boy next door look, what’s there not to love?

Justin Sterling Good timing is key to success. After starting in the industry for a year, Justin finally got his break as he made an outstanding debut for the season. Opening for Kris van Assche and bagging a total of 13 shows, he is a living proof that good things come to those who wait.

Sung Jin Park Coming from a solid debut season in New York, with a Marc by Marc exclusive tucked safely under his belt, his first menswear season did not fail to impress. He finished the season with 10 shows including closing for Miharayasuhiro.

With London fashion week transpiring Monday, we collectively went through our favourite new faces that will be sure to leave footprints on many a runway. This isn’t a countdown, but rather, a haughty (see: hottie) prediction. We haven’t been this excited since cryogenic Tupac was unfroze for the Coachella show. Our eyes will be glued to the runway, if only to see these boys stomp up a storm. Casting directors? Take note. Readers hereabouts? Drool.

Vic van der Well @ FORD
Angular in appearance, this Dutch newcomer has already done a stint on the Lanvin S/S 2013 catwalk with a Parisian season already under his belt. A slew of editorials later and we think Vic is finally ready to blossom.

Marton Dorfler @ WHY NOT
This October-born Libra has the balanced features that booked him the Balenciaga campaign. Now all we have to do is sit back and wait. Hailing from Hungary, land of hard-to-pronounce-names, he was scouted on the street doing capoeira moves. With a unique look destined for editorials, we just hope he can do a roundabout on the catwalk.

Almantas Petkunas @ SUCCESS
Bastiaan van Gaalen is the Kevin Bacon of the modelling world. Every model seems to somehow resemble him (though none can touch him). So his is the scale against which we measure most talent. This Lithuanian looker takes a page out of the BvG volume with his high forehead and strong jawline. He’s fresh out the runway, as they say, and we think he’ll be a great addition to any catwalk this season.

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The world didn’t end, but it’s about to. Nick Heymann, the Jil Sander prince, the German wunderkind scouted by a school friend Louisa, does the Gangnam Style dance exclusively for See Like Me. Fitting, since the video’s inception into billionth-view territory. Nick loves Oreos, Christmas pillows, and loathes creepy dates and moving boxes. He is lensed by Veronika Faustmann, to whom we owe ein bier…

Perfect for whistling at other arresting models, Nic Johnson has a lockdown on his party trick. Brit Brit’s Toxic is his specialty—the only song she won a Grammy for, FYI. Sam Moukhaiber, Canada’s resident A-list photographer, shoots Nic in all his wit and self-deprecating charm exclusively for your eyes only. Kidding, share this with all your friends. Nic Johnson is repped by Mode Models.

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Thore came to my attention more or less when I made this post. So while being not the newest Deutscher (pronounced doucher…actually, I don’t know) on the block, he’s still pretty fresh on the international scene. Thore spends his free time tossing around a large hammer (we wish). He also has a brother, Eric, at the same agency, TIAD. Shot by Leon Reindl, Thore tells us a bit about Peter Pan shadow stalkers, being scouted by a friend of Eva Goedl, and body surfing on the coast of France.

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We had a chance to ask Jordan Burman @ Select about his favourite chat-up lines in an exclusive photoshoot by Marek Chorzepa. Scouted on Oxford Street, the charming lad is quite soft spoken. Maybe after a few strong drinks… Jordan moonlights as a DJ with aspirations of a permanent spot on the Ibiza roster. Wearing the likes of Prada, Raf Simons x Fred Perry, NIKE, and Frank Turner, Jordan turns pensive. Styling and video by Joonatan Allandi. Make-up and hair by Daisy Harris d’Andel. Full credits below.

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Sam Muir thugs it out in an exclusive editorial by Zachary Handley, styled by Anna Santangelo. Sam plays up the /chav/ stereotype of the streetwear sporting, oppressive bracket mostly found in the now defunct USSR. According to Wikipedia, chavvy means youth, and there is also apparently a derogatory term for females, too: chavette. No exclusion here. For full credits see below.

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The Danes are coming, and after a fresh spring bathe you can bet they’re rearing to get to the top of the pack. Alex Staudal, new face at Mix Model Management, gave us a little talking to in an exclusive interview and photoshoot by Zak Krevitt. Mix is a brand new agency headed by Wayne Sterling, who we profiled last month. Alex warns us about shallow diving, why he’s not into blind dates, and how he’s keeping it real…

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That was a play on the film name Meet Joe Black (1998), except here NY Models new face Joe Collier takes to the streets wearing Comme des Garçons, Patrik Ervell, COMUNE, Richard Chai, and Band of Outsiders. Styled by Drew Van Diest and lensed by Ryan Kibler, we’re seeing streetwear come back in a big way. See full credits for each look below.

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You know that scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey where we float through time in a steady stream of technicolour? Well, sprinkle in brands like Damir Doma, Jil Sander, and Yohji Yamamoto and you’ve got the new LN-CC campaign. Taking cues from Kubrik, photographer Rory van Millingen lenses the A/W offering in a giant grey honeycomb. Reminds me of the Y-3 S/S 2013 show with another dazzling honeycomb wall. Maybe honeycomb is trending.

By the way, have you taken a tour of the store yet? It’s a space odyssey all on its own. Shop A/W 12 now and get free worldwide shipping at LN-CC.

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MIX Model Management recently opened its boutique doors after Neal Hamil, former head of Elite Model Management for all of North America, convinced one Wayne Sterling—cofounder of models.com—that this would be a good idea. Thus, a reputable agency became the birth-child of two figureheads in the industry, and this time, they were going to do it right. Wayne Sterling took the time out of his day to give me an exclusive interview about this new endeavour, and revealed some insight behind doors that are too often closed and yelled behind. Images courtesy MIX.

Trey Taylor: So you’ll be pretty busy come the end of August?

Wayne Sterling: Yeah, exactly. The world is on vacation but it’s like 14-16 hour days here already. 

TT: Well, I guess that’s what you take on with a new agency.

WS: Exactly. It’s fine. It’s a challenge, but I like that.

TT: I know you had a bit of apprehension when Neal [Hamil] kept asking you to start this agency with him. I was wondering if you could tell the story of how he approached you with the idea for MIX.

WS: The idea was around for almost the entire time I’ve known Neal, which is 10 years, because he was running Ford. That’s when he first made the offer, which I very quickly declined because in my mind, I thought, “I don’t think I would make a very good agent.” Then when he went over to Elite as the director of North America he repeated the offer, and I processed it and I was just—you know, that’s not my gift. But the turn around for me was last summer when we were having lunch and specifically he said, “I’m looking to buy a small agency. A small pre-existing agency in New York, and then just reimage it and revamp it and turn it into a really amazing boutique.” For some reason I found myself saying hey! Okay, now that I would partner with you on. I think the resistance, in my mind, was the idea of being in this big machine of this big pre-existing brand and I think subliminally, what Neil [Hamill] was saying the third time around was that it would be a new brand; or it would be a rebranding of something small and that was a lot more exciting to me.

TT: Where did he get the idea from? Do you know what his motives were with this? 

WS: I couldn’t speak entirely for Neal but insofar as I know him, this is in his blood stream. I joke and we always say, “You’re a modelling industry blue body.” He’s been doing it for 30 years in some form or the other. So he’s just like one of those people who lives it: eats, sleeps, breathes… He stepped off the plate for about three years and we would talk weekly and I would update him about what was going on in the industry and the market and what clients were doing. It’s his lifelong passion, definitely. 

TT: Can you explain a bit what you were doing before taking on the idea of Mix?

WS: I was editorial director of models.com which is a company I cofounded with Stephan Moskovic. That was eleven and a half years ago. You have to realize at the time when models.com went up, ‘dot-com’ was almost like a dirty word, meaning relative to print publishing—which was the prestige arena—working at a dot-com you were this unfashionable tech geek. So it’s sort of ironic. Basically, the Internet revolutionized the way we perceive and consume and process fashion and it wasn’t planned; it was just being in the right place at the right time. I left the print world somewhere around 2000-2001 and I remember everyone telling me I was an idiot for switching over to the Internet. I just had a sense that—you know what? It’s a new medium and a new medium that has endless possibilities. I’m very lucky. I’m very proud of everything models.com achieved, almost beyond my expectations.

Over the course of that ten or eleven years I also did a lot of consultancies. I still work a lot in Japan. I have a column in a Japanese magazine. I’ve done casting consultancies for cosmetics companies there. I have The Imagist, of course. That’s pretty much been the framework for the past ten years. 

TT: In regards to becoming an agent, what were you nervous about? I know you had a bit of apprehension at the start.

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Photographer Yann Faucher got down to business with Select’s new face Sam Sud for an exclusive interview and photoshoot for See Like Me. The “top bloke” is newly 17 years old, and was scouted outside of Boots (that’s the UK equivalent of Rite-Aid FYI). Since, he’s shot for Dazed Digital, USED and Sleek magazine, and he’s creating quite the tidal wave. I mean, how can you resist such boyish charm?

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I’ve only ever given credit to Sasha “Chameleon” Pivovarova for versatile editorial performance. I would cite Coco but c’mon this video is just a headache. There isn’t even sound and I’m reaching for Tylenol. Aymeline Valade has been around since ‘09 when she debuted at Blumarine. Since then, the French femme has been making the circuits (especially recently) which is why she’s held a solid position as #16 on MDC’s Top 50 and is in the running for a versatility award. She’s like an Adele album, because Adele’s been on Billboard Top 200 for how long? Answer: 72 weeks. That question was meant to be rhetorical but I just had to check. Woah, you know how many weeks longer that is than a certain marriage of a certain celebrity who shall not be named? Needless to say I’m waiting for the Aymeline Valade breakup album to really secure her place in my faves list.

I was watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles today and realized that 80s New York is somewhere I’d like to be. There was just so much to report on, and I could make a damn fine April O’Neil. The streets and the papers and the “Don’t Walk” sign. Just so many different things to look at and so many perfect perches from which to gaze upon. I was debating today whether I should move to London or to New York. My one goal is to live in both for a period of time before I kick the bucket, but in the indubitable words of Cher: “Yiff I could tuuurnn back tiiiime!” If anyone else is debating, there is some pretty good information here. What do you think? Should I huff it in NY like Raphael, or puff it in London like … Dickens?

Male models don’t really get all that much attention, and when they do, it’s unpaid or from a fangirl. Ben Allen is only 16, and has recently opened the Prada show, which in terms of modelling, means you’re destined for at least a whirlwind year of everybody else wanting to book you. You also get to skip the Asian market testing where they send you to Tokyo for months to get your picture taken for strange carrot ads and Suntory Time! Hear the story of his scouting below (spoiler: his friend was caught spitting gobs along Portobello road) and how he’s got all these mood swings and likes to moan. Mr. Allen, ladies and gentlemen.

U+MAG does it again. That cliché pains me but how else do you describe something that is constantly impeccable? There are more to magazines than just pictures, but Art Director Romeu Silveira knows how to make words look anything but dull. It’s Brazil’s finest offering, and you’ll know what I’m talking about once you see that other Brazilian export. View the current issue here.

You know what I haven’t done in for-never? Tell you about a photographer who deserves more attention. Andrew Vowles has that perfect balance between commercial and, for lack of a better word, uncommercial. Sure, as a photographer you need to be able to express all those great ideas you probably don’t have (if only I could fathom the hundreds of e-mail submissions/pitches I get for possible editorials to be shot). But the truth is, mostly nobody wants you to have your own ideas, mainly because you’re hired on as a photographer simply for your signature look. The editors want to know the outcome of a shoot before it even happens, which sort of defeats the purpose of hiring a visual artist to interpret an idea or message. There is a fine line between selling out and being a sellout. Andrew Vowles has managed to keep his cool (i.e. look up phantasmagoria) and is still able to sell it. This, my friends, is the recipe of success. He’s just shot the Christopher Shannon menswear campaign and for publications i-D, B magazine, Dazed & Confused & Clash. See more here.

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How to give no fucks 101: Vogue Germany featuring Kendra Spears, Melissa Stasiuk and Iris van Berne by Knoepfel & Indlekofer. The first step is to dress as though you’re referencing Toucan Sam in a Pulp Fiction sequel. Now, I’ve been to Germany once, and the moment I got there I headed to Burger King. I asked for a paper crown to make me feel more at home. Why? Because I gave no fucks. Usually Vogue does all sorts of nothing for me, but I’ve made an exception for this editorial. It’s completely disconnected story-wise, but no fucks were given in the story department. Step two: angry face. As if somebody already pissed you off, make a face that says, “You wanna fuck wit me?!” Chances are, they won’t want to. Like 98.5%. Lastly, for the final step, find something to prop up against so you look relaxed while giving away not one fuck. It keeps it casual, because nobody gives a fuck about a try-hard.

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