I found this article some pathetic but amusing B)
This year's It Boy
Introducing Martin Cohn, the new beauty on the block
By Polly Vernon
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 17 January 2010
Martin Cohn is New York's newest, hottest It boy. He's a peroxide-blond, alabaster-skinned model-about-town who earned his It status off the back of six months' intensive street-style blog coverage (he's so regularly stopped and snapped by the likes of thesartorialist and garancecdore and so on, it's as if they're Cohn's own personal paparazzi). He's so eminently, inexhaustibly social that parties aren't really parties without him, and he is constantly name-checked in New York nightlife fanzines. Right now Cohn is enjoying a celebrity that is completely disproportionate to his achievements (which, by his own admission, are pretty limited. Some runway shows and a shoot or two in Italian Vogue. He burns to be an actor, but he hasn't really done much yet). But that's what it takes to be, y'know, It. Cohn's currency is completely related to his youth, the fact that he is fabulously well-dressed at all times, that he is imbued with a gracious sense of entitlement that equates to cool – and his looks, which are weirdly compelling.
Cohn is beautiful. He has a rosebud mouth, a pointed, pixie-ish chin, and eyebrows of great architectural merit; the overall effect is of a whimsical albino vampire child, which is appropriate because his parents are Romanian and: "My grandmother does come from Transylvania," he says. "She really does." He does 80s redux (oversized black cashmere jumper-dresses, skinny bondage jeans, workman's boots and a snood – all in a jet black designed to set off his hair and skin to perfection) better than anyone else around, including Agyness Deyn.
He is also – crucially – so perfectly androgynous that he can (and has) modelled both womenswear and menswear on the catwalks of New York. Everywhere we go, people gaze at Cohn in an unabashed effort to drink him in and work him out. He doesn't want to make a big deal about it. He asks me not to report that every cab driver, waiter and lift attendant the two of us encounter refers to us as "ladies", but I can't resist. Cohn doesn't blink when it happens; he certainly doesn't bother correcting anyone.
We're sitting in the VIP area of the Boom Room, a bar so fantastically fashionable it hasn't opened yet. It's the private club at the top of the recently launched Standard Hotel (a venue now infamous on account of its decadence. Residents of nearby apartments have complained that hotel guests perform live sex shows in their rooms – in full knowledge that they are overlooked). We'd originally arranged to meet at the New York outpost of London's Soho House (which I'd thought was a pretty damn cool destination), but Cohn redirected us to the Standard.
Martin Cohn was born in New York 20 years ago ("You can't say my age! It's a mystery") and "mostly grew up here, back and forth", although he alludes to a childhood that involved a certain amount of globe-trotting dictated by his parents' prolonged and tortuous divorce. "I lived in Romania, Italy, France, Monaco… Monaco, not France! I always forget it's a different place. And we were very snooty about it when we lived there." He went to school in Monte Carlo for a while; he was in the same class as Sir Philip 'Topshop' Green's son, and a couple of years above his daughter Chloe. Cohn's was evidently a privileged upbringing, although he won't be pinned down on the details. All he'll say is that he's aware of the privilege "and I have always been grateful for it".
Cohn, of course, does not consider himself to be It. "I'm a geek! I'm such a geek!" he says. He claims he was neither cool nor beautiful as a child.
Cohn says that all he ever really wanted to do was act. Tilda Swinton has always been his inspiration - although he insists this is because of her talent, not her androgynous looks. Cohn landed a place at Tisch, NYU's prestigious acting college, "but I left after a week. It was awful. I've never been in such an uncreative environment". Now he is studying a liberal arts course and is much happier. The day after we meet, he will shoot a cameo role in a friend's low-budget movie.
But – back to Cohn's social status. Here we are, in the most fabulous, glamorous city in the world – and everywhere we go, people know you. You're… It, Martin. "I guess," he says vaguely. "It's just… friends. It's just… New York. I can understand that to people it seems like a fantasy and so over the top," he laughs. "So… champagne and wine! And I know a lot of people. But it really is random. You go somewhere. If something happens, it happens. That's the magic of New York. You know someone here, you know someone there. You're all friends."
He takes me back to have a look at his (smallish, sweet, sparsely furnished) apartment in Chelsea. Balenciaga bags and Rodarte leather jackets hang from every coat hook; a very small dog skittles around the floorboards.
Next, the two of us take a cab to a club on the Lower East Side – but disaster! They won't let Cohn in because he doesn't have any ID. I am surprised to see his It status thwarted by something as prosaic as the fact that he's underage; he pouts a little but eventually accepts the doorman's impassive line. He swaps mobile phone numbers with me, kisses me fondly, pops me in a cab, and sends me on my way.
guardian.co.uk
