He would rather be hammering
Burlington's Andrew Stetson is the face of Calvin Klein's new fragrance, Euphoria
Jul. 20, 2006. 01:00 AM
BERNADETTE MORRA
FASHION EDITOR
There isn't a carpenter on this Earth who wouldn't trade steel toes with Andrew Stetson.
The Burlington tradesman stars in the fall ad campaign for Calvin Klein's latest men's fragrance, Euphoria.
And that is exactly the expression on Stetson's handsome face, with superbabe Natalia Vodianova snuggled up to him, in a make-believe scene of post-coital bliss.
"Basically, it was Natalia on top of me," chuckled Stetson, in Toronto last week for his agency's summer party. "I was pretty happy with that situation."
Stetson, 26, was discovered by Norwayne Anderson of the NAM agency seven years ago. "I spotted him at a bar and circled him for half an hour so I could see him from every angle," his agent explains. "It was his lips and eyes that got me."
"Norwayne was the third person who had approached me about modelling," Stetson smirks, rolling his baby blues. "I was very skeptical. I always figured there was some ulterior motive. But my friends convinced me to give it a chance."
Next thing Stetson knew, he was on a plane to Milan. "I worked right away, doing editorial and catalogues in New York, Paris and Milan. But I really missed carpentry. I missed building things."
After a year of modelling, the Oakville native returned to Burlington where he launched a home reno business, Stetson Designs Inc.
He did kitchens and bathrooms, a children's store and a restaurant. He was happy.
"But I was getting pressure from friends to go back to modelling. I started to think it might be something I would later regret not trying. So I told Norwayne," he says firmly shaking his index finger at his agent who is beaming, "I'm giving it one year and if nothing happens, that's it."
Stetson moved in with a cousin in London, "and things took off."
For the last two years, Stetson has been working at least once a month for H & M, and has shot in South Africa, Brazil, Australia and all through the U.S. and Europe including Majorca, the French Alps, Sicily and Prague.
He has amassed a personal collection of 8,000 travel photographs and some remarkable memories.
"I've been 3,200 metres up a mountain in a blizzard wearing shorts. And I spent all day posing naked with two topless girls for a Chinese magazine."
The intense workload has its price.
"I spend 90 hours a month on a plane averaging 10 to 14 countries," notes Stetson, casually dressed in a T-shirt he bought from a street vendor in Europe, and Energie jeans. "I'll fly 12 hours to a job and go to work straight off the plane. It kills your immune system. You are constantly run down. You have to take breaks and build your energy back up."
It was on one of those breaks in April of last year that Stetson, back in Burlington, received a call that he had been optioned for the Calvin Klein campaign. "I thought, `Yeah, I've heard this before.' It was on my tab that I would have to fly back to New York. But I'm glad I went."
He was sent to Klein's home — "a huge house that used to be a police station and he went over my book with me. He asked to keep it, and I knew that was a good sign."
There would be no hand close-ups, since Stetson's tattooed arms and rugged fingers bear all the scars and rough edges of a manual labourer. But there was something in his moody gaze, the product of a Ukrainian/Czech mother and Scottish/English father, that captivated the designer.
Negotiations began. Stetson says Klein wanted to lock him up for two years, to do all their menswear ads including underwear and jeans. It was a lucrative deal, but not enough to entice Stetson. "It would have taken me off the market and, frankly, I like the freedom of being able to do different jobs." In the end, Stetson signed for the fragrance only.
The print and TV ads, overseen by fashion giants Steven Meisel and Fabien Baron, break next month. In the meantime, Stetson is booked to shoot for London milliner Philip Treacy and, the next day, to work in New York for Macy's.
"I'm making the most of modelling. But to be honest, I would rather go back to carpentry. I love carpentry. It's not work to me. And it keeps me grounded and balanced. There are not a lot of models who have something else to fall back on."
- another one of my fave boys!
