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John Pearson: meet the world's first male supermodel

John Pearson photographed in California, wearing tweed coat, £1,495 and jumper, £795, from Burberry. Photographed by Blair Getz Mezibov, styled by Grant Woodhead
John Pearson photographed in California, wearing tweed coat, £1,495 and jumper, £795, from Burberry. Photographed by Blair Getz Mezibov, styled by Grant Woodhead

There aren’t many male models with a career spanning 30 years, and only one who can boast the title of “the world’s first male supermodel”. But John Pearson, chiselled, lean and dazzlingly blue-eyed at 51, has always stood out. He got his break when he was spotted working in a denim shop in his native Sheffield in the early 1980s, before going on to define male beauty in the 1990s, posing for Peter Lindbergh and starring alongside Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington, Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford in George Michael’s Freedom! video. And today the Yorkshireman – who lives in LA with his wife, Alison Edmond, a former fashion director at Harper’s Bazaar, and three children – is just as in demand.

John Pearson - Credit: Blair Getz Mezibov
Technical cotton belted safari parka, £2,500; White cotton t-shirt, £320; cotton parachute trousers, £785, all Louis VuittonCredit: Blair Getz Mezibov

“When I was starting out, I never thought I’d still be doing this in my 50s,” says Pearson, who also works as a film producer. “But so much has changed in terms of how men look and dress. Today they can look good well into their 70s. There’s a broader idea of what makes a man attractive.” Pearson admits that the Californian lifestyle has played a part in his youthful vigour; he practises hot yoga, plays “soccer” with his sons and goes for jaunts along the Big Sur coastline on his Harley-Davidson.

Pearson is also part of a wider shift of the tectonic fashion plates; ideals of male beauty have morphed to be more all-encompassing, with Pearson and others such as Eric Rutherford demonstrating how in-demand older male models - with grey hair and crow’s feet as part of their character and charm rather than dyed or Botoxed over - have become. On his 47th birthday a few years ago, Prada choppered Pearson in to star in their men’s show, for example.

John Pearson  - Credit: Blair Getz Mezibov
Hand waxed leather ‘Manstead’ trousers, £1095; cotton ‘New Thom’ T-Shirt, £65; burnished suede ‘Ickenham’ boots, £475, all Belstaff . Lemtosh round-frame acetate sunglasses, £240, Moscot at Mr PorterCredit: Blair Getz Mezibov

“In the 1980s and ’90s, I’d be alongside American models with six-packs and bulging biceps. I was never into that; my heroes were Peter O’Toole, Richard Burton - hell raisers with character,” says Pearson. That sense of personality, he says, defined the great shoots of the 1990s. “What I learnt from people like Peter Lindbergh and Herb Ritts is that humour is important. If you have a great time, it shines through in the photograph. It’s important to enjoy it.”

John Pearson - Credit: Blair Getz Mezibov
Wool suit jacket, £425; wool suit trousers, £198, both The Kooples, cotton T-shirt, £65, SunspelCredit: Blair Getz Mezibov

That he does: he recently reunited with Evangelista on a Vogue Italia cover, and shot a campaign on a private island off Tasmania. “I’ve experienced incredible things - working with Muhammad Ali’s trainer for a week with Stephanie Seymour, taking an American road trip for a campaign that involved me racing a motorbike alongside a moving train, or having to make a horse rear up in front of the Flatiron building in the New York rush hour. Before that the only thing I’d ridden was a donkey on Bridlington Promenades,” says Pearson. “That a boy from a council estate in Yorkshire can have these adventures… I tell myself, “You’re really bloody lucky, mate.”’

John Pearson

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