Tao Okamoto

[maimon]

At the premiere in Tokyo wearing Etro dress


entameplex, edgeline.tokyo

 

[maimon]

ADEAM S/S 2016 Dinner


hautediary

 

[Prymasquous]

Attended Louis Vuitton Series 3 Exhibition
Singapore | November 2015




harpersbazaar.com.sg, instagram/taookamoto, luxury-insider.com

gif by me​

 

[Prymasquous]

FREE MAGAZINE #1 S/S 2015
'Tao'
Ph: Norbert Schoerner
Stylist: Shun Watanabe
Hair/makeup: Katsuya Kamo



freemagazine.jp​

 

[maimon]

73rd Annual Golden Globe Awards (wearing Adeam dress)




zimbio

 

[maimon]

2016 UNICEF Ball Honoring David Beckham




zimbio

 

[Prymasquous]

How awesome for Tao to be at the Globes! Even better. She's just glowing.

 

[Prymasquous]

Her pledge...
Ph: Patrick Demarchelier


wmagazine.com

[​

 

[Prymasquous]

FREE MAGAZINE #1 S/S 2015
'Junya Watanabe Comme Des Garcons'
Ph: Norbert Schoerner
Stylist: Shun Watanabe
Hair/makeup: Katsuya Kamo





freemagazine.jp
​

 

[maimon]

wonder if this indicates that Lim will be designing a wedding gown for her…




Street style NYFW F/W 2016


models


Front Row 3.1 Phillip Lim F/W 2016


zimbio

 

[Prymasquous]

^ That might've been a hint? At the same time, why though? It's actually quite exciting if she's planning to wed soon (is she engaged?).

Either way, yeah it won't be a surprised knowing their relationship. Looking forward to the big day then.

 

[Prymasquous]

instagram/taookamoto​

 

[maimon]

The Last Magazine S/S 2016

Photographer Maciek Kobielski
Editors Magnus Berger, Tenzin Wild
Fashion Editor/Stylist Tracey Nicholson
Hair Stylist Rita Marmor
Makeup Artist Virginia Young
Model Tao Okamoto

TAO OKAMOTO
There are a million ways to deal with growing up on the outside. Some kids bleach their hair, rip their clothes, and otherwise celebrate and enunciate their self-declared freak status; Raf Simons listened to Kraftwerk, Kurt Cobain took up guitar, and Patti Smith stole from a stranger and hopped on a bus to New York. Tao Okamoto, the face of so many high-profile campaigns—and now, in a big way, a burgeoning actress—decided to become a model.
“I was born in the suburbs—it’s called Chiba,” explains the thirty-year-old Japanese beauty over the phone. “I was going to the local public school till junior high school, and I was very different from other kids, because I was very tall for a Japanese girl. One day, I was wondering if maybe I should be a model, [because] models should be tall.”
As hard as it may be to imagine, Okamoto says that she was self-conscious about her appearance while growing up. “I was trying to find a way to appreciate myself, how I am and how I looked,” she recalls. “Till that point, I always thought I was an ugly creature because everybody really treated me like that.”

Okamoto was just fourteen at the time, and with a walk down Tokyo’s most famous scouting street and some encouragement from her parents, she dove into a career—sending photos to a strong Tokyo agency that signed her a few months later—that has since taken her from Tokyo to Paris at age twenty, to New York at twenty-three, into international fame, and, in the last three years, quite inadvertently, into another realm entirely.
Okamoto says that she never really received a great response from the Japanese clients, so she left for Paris—still looking for some acceptance from home, still looking in from the outside—and broke through almost immediately. “I was doing shows and magazine work consistently, but nothing was really satisfying me,” she explains. “I realized the reason why I wasn’t very happy—I was still trying to impress the Japanese people who rejected me at first. I thought, ‘Why am I doing this?’ I realized it’s not very healthy, but somehow, rejection always gives me the energy and motivation to be better.”
Next came a move to New York in 2009, which changed everything. Phillip Lim styled an entire show after Okamoto’s distinct new haircut—“I thought he was joking when he said I was going to be the theme of the show,” says Okamoto, “then on the day of the show I saw the wigs”—and she went on to book Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Yves Saint Laurent, and multiple American Vogue editorials, not to mention campaigns with Mario Testino for Dolce & Gabbana, Mario Sorrenti for Kenzo, and more.

Now, Okamoto is taking charge of a new creative space. Three years ago, with no experience and, admittedly, no previous interest in acting, she took a part in James Mangold’s The Wolverine, opposite Hugh Jackman. “I hated that idea that [modeling] was just a step to becoming an actress,” she says. “I was kind of against that, but then I heard that it was for Hugh Jackman’s love interest. And I decided to do it.”
Okamoto memorized the lines for several scenes and got the part. It turned out, experienced or not, she was a natural. “[Mangold] really taught me how to act,” explains Okamoto. “It wasn’t like I was doing something [inauthentic]. It was just me, putting on some layers with the director’s magic. Since then, I just fell in love with acting and I just wanted to do more.”
From that moment on, Okamoto has devoted herself to the craft. She’s put her modeling career on hold, citing a desire to “put myself in a tougher situation to figure out what I want to do next,“ and she’s been taking acting classes, as well as working with a dialect coach. “If they want me to speak like myself, I can still do it,” says Okamoto. “If they want me to speak more American or English or Australian, whatever that may be, I should respond to that request.”
She says she looks to her youth of feeling on the outskirts, and her most personal connections, when trying to tap into the intimate emotions of her characters. “I think right now, a lot of emotions are coming from my childhood and my relationship with my family,” she reflects. “It makes me very vulnerable somehow, and it’s funny, but all those emotions allow me to act.”

Since The Wolverine, Okamoto has played an elusive assistant to Hannibal Lector’s aunt on NBC’s Hannibal; a tech-savvy detective hunting down a murderer in the Japanese miniseries Chi no Wadachi; and Betty, the wife of a lawyer in the dystopian Amazon drama The Man in the High Castle; and also starred in Crossroads, a Japanese film about a local volunteer organization, out later this year. She says she doesn’t have specific roles she’d like to pursue, but that she would like to star in a picture that can bring in one of her other passions. “I studied classical music,” she explains, “and I’d like to do something with music—that’s a dream.”
In just a short time, she has already met with impressive success in Hollywood, but she still finds herself turning to home. “I wish I could do more in Japan,” she says. “It’s very difficult to find a balance of where I can be and for how long. It’s always a gamble to choose work to do.” If she can do both Japanese pictures and Hollywood films, she says, she will.
Up next is probably her most hotly anticipated film of all. Okamoto will play Mercy Graves, the assistant and bodyguard of Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor in the mega-blockbuster Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (also starring Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill in the title roles), a part she secured after director Zack Snyder watched her in The Wolverine. “It was really great,” she exclaims. “The character didn’t need to be Asian or Japanese. I’m very happy about that. Once you’re an actor, you can become someone else.”
In the meantime, Okamoto is continuing to hone her craft and looking to expand her range. She’s taking piano, singing, and, sometimes, swordfighting and tap lessons, and soon she’ll begin working on two new features unlike any she’s been involved with thus far. “I cannot mention the names of the projects, but I’ve been working on two independent movies which are very different from what I’ve done,” she reveals. “That’s something I’ve always been a fan of watching as an audience, rather than superhero films. [They’re] very personal and dark, and I hope a lot of people can really have empathy for these characters. It’s difficult, because I’m tall and I’m an ex-model and I’m Asian. It’s very easy to do stereotyped typecasting with the big superhero movies. It’s going to be a great balance if I can do the independent movies. You have to appreciate every day, every experience.”
Batman v Superman is out March 25.

thelast-magazine

great interview and i just love the pictures!
just sayin but her boyfriend being the editor and shooting it in their cool apartment… goals

 

[Prymasquous]

MORE MAGAZINE MAR. 2016
'The Shape of Things to Come'
Ph: Dominik Tarabanski
Stylist: Haidee Findlay-Levin
Hair: Hanjee
Makeup: Akiko Sakamoto
Nails: Kiyo Okada

Note: Click second image for Tao's mini interview - make sure to read to the end





tarabanski.com​

 

[maimon]

^ thanks for posting this! the close-ups are so beautiful! and that last anecdote is adorable

 

[jexxica]

Tao Okamoto attends the 'Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice' New York Premiere at Radio City Music Hall on March 20, 2016 in New York City.

getty

 

[maimon]

looking beautiful!


zimbio

 

[cestmagique]

^she looks fantastic

 

[maimon]

she is wearing a dress from Tadashi Shoji F/W 2016

 

[maimon]

Tao Okamoto Rules the Red Carpet at the Batman v Superman New York Premiere

There was no shortage of attractive faces at the Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice premiere—Henry Cavill alone is enough to double any event’s attractiveness quota—but the evening also provided Hollywood with an introduction to one of fashion’s finest: Tao Okamoto, who has been a presence within the modeling industry since the early aughts. Back then, Okamoto debuted with a choppy bowl cut and seemingly irresistible appeal, racking up nearly every modeling milestone a girl can hope for—international Vogue covers; campaigns for labels like Ralph Lauren, Armani, and Michael Kors; a recurrent presence on the catwalk—and she could have easily rested on her laurels, only she didn’t. Starting with 2013’s The Wolverine, Okamoto has reinvented herself as an actress, quickly establishing herself as a star on the rise, garnering roles on the final season of Hannibal and Amazon’s streaming hit The Man in the High Castle, in addition to her recent time spent in the company of no less than Batman and Superman.

With the red carpet as valid a career launchpad as any film, starlets work overtime to make sure their wardrobes are picture-perfect, and coming from a fashion background gives Okamoto, who’s already familiar with influential designers from her runway days, a leg up on her competition. Whether she’s showing up on the Golden Globes red carpet in belly-baring Adeam or sporting printed Etro at a Japanese film premiere, rather than settling on a signature, Okamoto takes on a variety of looks like the runway chameleon she once was. Still, there are a few brands emerging as favorites. Okamoto’s ability to pull off both Michael Kors’s all-American ease and Nicolas Ghesquière’s futuristic looks for Louis Vuitton is part of what made her essential as a model, and now as she steps into the next phase of her career, that versatility is helping her become one of the most interesting style stars around. Frequently spotted in Louis Vuitton as of late, Okamoto may be the next Ghesquière girl—if Kors doesn’t get to her first. Even with the interest of fashion’s big guns, Okamoto isn’t a slave to labels. For her, it’s all about matching the outfit to the moment—like the sequined Tadashi Shoji number she wore to the New York premiere of Batman v Superman that let everyone know she can pull off Hollywood glamour with the best of them. Watch this space.

vogue