“On models: “here’s what I want: somebody who looks as if he belongs in the clothes. Not affected, spike-haired, sideburned, pouty-lipped, or pink cheeked, but a masculine, good looking guy – black, Asian, white, blond, brunet – who can carry a perfectly tailored suit. He’s almost impossible to find. The obsession with youth is one of the reasons so many menswear shows look contrived. The models and the clothes don’t mesh, and the models look uncomfortable. How could they not? When you put a $3,000 pinstripe on an eighteen year old kid, there has to be a disconnect. The ideal model is in his mid-to-late thirties. “For women’s shows, I actually prefer out of town models. In New York, they’re eighteen, nineteen, or twenty, and obsessed with themselves. In San Francisco and Denver, they’re thirty something and have husbands and kids and lives apart from the runway. They’re trim and beautiful, but womanly. They have wisdom in their eyes and the kind of sensuality that comes from self-confidence. And the customers relate to them too. ”
