By Tim Groen

“Shaving didn’t become the norm in the Western world until the 1920’s”, Will Lewis says, to make the point that “obviously the suit was predominantly worn by men with beards.” We’re discussing the somewhat square and ethnocentric reaction to his presence in a certain popular American catalog. “…Full beards on men in fashion shows just make us giggle,” Cathy Horyn recently wrote in The New York Times, another reference to a Will Lewis appearance; this time on the Jean Paul Gaultier runway. With the sixties and seventies far behind us, you’d expect that Westerners think nothing of unshaven and bearded men. But as more men throw away their razors for ever (yea!), the more conservative reactions pop up. “Nothing’s changed since the sixties”, as Will observes.
Either way, Will has nothing to worry about; the look pays off. You’ve seen him on the covers and pages of Vogue, GQ, Sportswear International, The New York Times. In campaigns for CK1, Diesel and AllSaints, and if you’re an editor you’ve seen him on the runway, too. This is just a fraction of what this Upper West Side, New York-native has been up to over the last years. If the best shoots bring out a mix of street-smart/counterculture/goofball in Will—it’s because that’s all in him. Truth in packaging.

TG: Happy to spend some time at home in New York?
WL: Truth is, I spend most of my time here, but it’s just that it can feel intense when I’m traveling.
Modeling traveling is a funny kind of traveling; you’re flown in, you’re sheltered, you work, you’re flown out. You’re not really going to see friends, and chill, or go to museums. What’s cool about it is that they give you this list of random addresses you have to go to, and you end up seeing things you’d never have come across in any other context. But for obvious reasons it’s almost exclusively city-focused. Let me give you an example of a recent itinerary: London, Milan, New York, San Francisco, New York, Milan, Paris, Milan, Paris, Milan, Paris, Milan, Paris, Milan, Montreal. At the end of a session like that you really need to take break, and do something to not make you feel like the dirt of thirty cities is embedded in your pores.

TG: And that’s when the nature-loving backpacker in you comes to life again?
WL: Yeah, in that case I actually did hitch hike back to New York from Montreal, even though I could have gone to Barcelona for a job. I just had to get to the countryside, be in Vermont. Exhale.

TG: So how did you end up doing this, to begin with?
WL: Oh, I knew I was going to be a supermodel when I was six years old and doing pageants! (laughs) I was already practicing my runway walk!
No, the real story is that when I was backpacking around, hitch-hiking across America for about four years. And at one point I was passing through home, New York, and ended up hanging out at Coney Island High on St. Marks Place. That’s where casting director Barbara Pfister—who is now a good friend—approached me because she was doing some street casting for L’uomo Vogue and what have you. But I left New York, and a couple of days later when I checked my voicemail-all I had was a voicemail service—Barbara had left me like, twenty messages asking me to call her. When I did it was already too late, of course. We finally spoke again, a little later, and she told me there was someone who wanted to book me for an exclusive, a runway show. I didn’t even know what that meant; a runway show. She said, “Well, it probably means around $10K”. And my gut-instinct told me to say no, because I figured that anything that pays like that would totally control me. It would mean—or so I thought—that I wouldn’t get to do what I wanted to do with my life! Because for ten thousand dollars, you’re gonna turn down whatever you wanted to do before that!

TG: Whoa, that’s a pretty serious stance for a hitchhiker. But obviously the story didn’t end there.
WL: Well, Barbara had told me to sign on with all these agencies, but instead I continued hiking around, and settled in Oregon for a while. But you know what? After a few years Oregon gets kind of boring. Which inspired me to change course and try Italy. With my long hair and long Santa Claus style beard—not white, obviously—I went to castings, after all, and the Italians were all like: (puts on Italian accent) “Do notta shayva, do notta comba or treema, do notheenga!”
Which sounded easy enough, so gradually I eased into it, and started taking the work more and more seriously.
Ever since, my career has been characterized by a slow and steady upward turn.
In terms of the exposure of the jobs I’m doing, the level of photographers I work with, the amount of money that I make. It’s just gotten better every year.

TG: Who Is the Bearded Hippie in the September J. Crew Catalog? Did you ever in a million years anticipate that mini media-bonanza?
WL: First of all, I though it would be a million years before I would even be considered for a J. Crew catalog!
I had the same reaction the media had, so if anyone thinks they were the first one to be surprised; they’re not! I laughed first; I was in disbelief when my booker was totally serious. And flash forward to: there I am, in print.
I actually do a lot of commercial jobs in suits, it’s just that it’s the rocker-biker-outlaw images get more press.

TG: Are you going to pull a Brad Kroenig any time in the future, get rid of all the hair?
WL: Who’s that? I know it’s a little unusual for this industry, but I probably won’t pick up a magazine unless I know I’m in it and I want to check the job out. And if I’m in something, chances are I’ll just go to my own pages. So I’m not really up to snuff on all the latest fashion news. I don’t own a television either. Now that there’s a little something called the internet, it’s so easy to find your own news. I think it’s important for people to seek out what independent sources are saying, remain involved in grassroots politics, engage in a discourse with people you don’t agree with, you know? We need to stay pro-active, because nothing’s changed since the sixties.

Three things I learned from Will Lewis (which I might start using as party conversation topics) :

1) Overweight Chimpanzees
Studies revealed that chimpanzee babies born from obese chimp moms, display a significantly heightened fear level when dealing with normal tasks, to the point that it slows their learning process. Even when the chimp babies are not overweight themselves. A study observed two groups of chimp babies; one from healthy-weight moms, and one group from intentionally overfed moms.

2) The Cultural Cold War
During the McCarthy-era, the CIA covertly (how else?) handed out checks to scores of (international) artists and authors, including George Orwell, Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, Gloria Steinem, and Jackson Pollock. The objective was to “encourage” the intellectual community to steer their peers away way from the lure of Communism.
There’s a book on the subject, The Cultural Cold War, by Frances Stonor Saunders. Used copies are practically free on Amazon, so get it and be a reader.
>The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters<

3) Bacterial Nanowires
Bacterial life-forms create metal nano-wires, through these wires they transmit energy to each other and basically “communicate” to sustain their community.
This means bacteria beat us to the invention of the internet by, say, 3.5 billion years!
>Here’s an article about it on NanoWerk.com<

Links:
Will is represented by >Red Model Management<
>“Whiskers, Kittens”, Cathy Horyn’s NYT post about Will and others sporting beards on the runway.
>My portrait of Brad Fisher, another model who appeared in J Crew catalog.