Portrait by Robert Grunenberg
Jakob Wiechmann & Henning Strassburger
HS: Jakob, you finished your studies of Business and Engineering yesterday. Is that your dream job?
JW: Haha, nope…
HS: But it is not the easiest subject to study, many don’t make it. Busy busy…!
JW: No (laughing), more lazy lazy… It took me 5 years for a bachelor! I wrote my Bachelor thesis about the strategic management of a french fashion brand.
HS: And did your fellow students from University know about your model career?
JW: I told the cool ones in the beginning. But it makes the rounds relatively fast, you know.
HS: Do you have a certain masterplan for how long you want to go on working as a model? Because you’re doing it for a while now…
JW: Well, as long as nice people want to work with me. Because it is definitely fun, when you have a cool team around you.
HS: And afterwards, changing the sides?
JW: That’s what I can imagine, of course. As a photographer. Maybe as a designer. But I have never done such things so far.
HS: I have a special question: Seeing yourself in a campaign for example, how does it feel? I mean in the way, that it is not you as a person anymore, more like role. Do you separate between these characters?
JW: No, that’s definitely me. I know how the image was created and what it took, that the result looks this way. With this consciousness, it is no big deal for me anymore.
I also try to explain my friends the whole business as close to reality as I can, without making a big story out of it. They sometimes think I only live in 5 Star Hotels with lots of massages (laughing). But I must confess, as a model it is honestly suffering on a higher level. You are in the position to enjoy some advantages: Everybody takes care of you at the set, they want you to feel good. This really rocks! (laughing) Except for today, if your half naked, it is raining and it’s cold… (laughing).
HS: Now that you mention it, what is the most uncomfortable situation for you in the job?
JW: Actually if someone thinks he knows best. I mean if somebody really thinks he is a big deal and it then is no teamwork anymore.
HS: What do you like most coming back to Berlin after shootings?
JW: Watching tracks and the sunset from the Modersohnbrücke and drinking a Sternburg Export. That’s from Leipzig. And costs only 48 Cents in my Späti*.
HS: Oh I shouldn’t write this, it’s my neighborhood and all the tourists shouldn’t know about these places (laughing).
And what’s the perfect music for this situation?
JW: Alle Farben.
HS: And which club afterwords?
JW: Suicide. No, better say Tresor!
source blog.nestmodelmanagement.com