X-MAN | fiasco editorial

a few weeks ago i did a men's creative shoot with photographer dan lim. our objective was to do something that wasn't too edgy but commercial friendly, with an editorial twist, for our books. i think i was crazy for doing this shoot on the very same weekend i was styling for dress to kill magazine, but because i did this shoot on the very same weekend i was styling for dress to kill magazine i had more clothing options to chose from.

our model was sutherland's xander budnick, one of the sweetest models i've worked with. i do find that male models in general are easy to work with but on top of that xander was very laid back and comfortable in whatever i put him in (like the baseball cap that was a bit too sung or my vintage boy london watch, fitted for my wrist, that he made it fit on his. total trooper! i loved his "make it work" attitude).

we did a total of seven looks that day but i have learned from experience to never shoot your favourite look first. let the first look be a "throwaway" meaning a look you're prepared to part with and edit out. sometimes the model has to warm up a bit in posing and understanding the direction that is being asked of them. this was the case with this shoot. not that xander wasn't skilled, because his posing was on-point, like, j.crew-stylish-commercial-effortless-happy-breezy-you-make-this-look-easy on-point, but it wasn't the direction for this particular shoot. thankfully i had the swipes i collected for reference on my ipad and i described the desired body language and facial expression as emoting a "sexy beast" attitude, like i'm-handsome-i-know-it-as-i-stand/sit/crouch-in-some-nice-threads-looking-like a sexy beast. and xander gave just that. every time i saw a shot on the screen that i liked i would just refer to it (or  to him, rather) as "sexy beast".

and that would be another reason why i enjoyed working with xander that day: he first gave catalogue but he is equally capable of giving editorial and he handled the art direction of the photographer and the stylist that day without ever getting frazzled. the end resulted in an approachable editorial with some edge that got picked up by fiasco. yay!