Paul Hameline is the 20-year-old model taking the fashion world by storm. As if straight out of one of Larry Clark’s fucked up teenage films, he’s strikingly beautiful, and effortlessly cool. Perhaps it’s his Parisian charm. Born and raised in the French capital, Paul was first discovered on rue Saint Antoine, in 2014, while withdrawing money from an ATM. He was late for an exam when Tomorrow Is Another Day founder, Eva Gödel, spied him and signed him on the spot. Since then, the blue eyed, brown haired Aquarious has walked for the coolest brands on the block, including Vetements, Kenzo, and Hood By Air and even fronted Iro’s spring/summer 16 campaign, shot by Collier Shorr. He’s the apple of our i, here are 10 things you need to know about him.
1. He’s a jack of all trades…
“Aside from modelling I do a few different things. I designed patterns for Ann Demeulemeester’s menswear collection, played the protagonist in Dennis Cooper’s film Like Cattle Towards Glow and in Alexander Sokurov’s Francofonia, DJed here and there and organised a few parties.”
2. But first and foremost he thinks of himself as an artist…
“I mainly concentrate on my artistic projects; collages, video, photography etc.”
3. Speaking of his collages…
“I have no clue how I could describe in a few words the aesthetic of my work. It’s simply fuelled by the images and films I look at, books I read and music I listen to. Musically speaking, I would go for Coil, Death In June, Throbbing Gristle, Suicide, Soft Cell and Iggy Pop. Then cinematically speaking, I would have to talk about Kenneth Anger, David Lynch, Ingmar Bergman, Nick Zedd, Dario Argento and Pier Paolo Passolini.”
4. Working with Dennis Cooper was a dream come true…
“It was an incredible experience! When I heard about the job, I remembered reading his book The Slut in the bath and how it turned me on as much as it made me cry. He’s a writer that really affected me when I was younger. And now we keep on seeing each other from time to time, I learned a lot from him.”
5. The best piece of advice he’s ever been given was by his mother…
“My mother is still saying it to me actually, La parole n’engage que ceux qui la reçoivent. In doesn’t really translate to English, but it kind of means you can only truly communicate with someone who wants to communicate with you.”
6. He’s very well read…
“I like writers like George Bataille, Friedrich Nietzsche, John Giorno, Dennis Cooper, Sigmund Freud and Michel Houellebecq… they are the ones that formed my critical state of mind.”
7. These are a few of his favourite things…
“The Adam’s Family, my friends in other words. I’m as proud, as I am inspired by them. They’re the people I love, and that have loved me back since the very beginning.”
8. He has some wise words to say about beauty…
“I’ve encountered enough ‘beautiful’ people to be bored of them. I’m appealed by an attitude and a persona mostly. So I don’t usually think about whether a person is beautiful or not, as long as they attract me I don’t ask for anything more.”
9.The hardest lesson he’s ever had to learn is…
“1 + 1 = 2.”
10. He likes to live in the moment…
“I look at the present, if I’m happy with it or not. And right now I am, so I’m not asking for anything more.”
Credits
Text Tish Weinstock
Catwalk photography Mitchell Sams