Massive Marek.
by Wayne Sterling

The world citizen is the future of fashion. Beyond post-modern, past post-digital, ultra globalist and always jet lagged, the world citizen is what latter day fashion is about. Fashion as a culture is full of these world citizens. The designers, the stylists, the executives and of course the models live a life that is about shifting borders every three days or so. They recognize each other as they shuffle from flight to hotel to show to after-party by their Louis Vuitton baggage, their vintage Adidas kicks, their spanking new MP3 players, their "available in Japan only" Bathing Ape T-shirts. Any brand worth its salt these days has to go global to live. It doesn't matter if you're being sold out of three skateboard shops or three thousand department stores. If the nomadic, cross pollinating world citizen doesn't endorse you, you're out of it.

What's that got to do with modeling? A model, no matter how new or obscure, is himself a brand. Great brands have this aesthetic, this sensibility that communicates its point instantly with maximum power when it walks in the door. A great model walks into a casting and wins because he or she communicates a certain thing, a certain adjective, whether that adjective be "cool" or "punk" or "classic" or "wholesome".

And what's that got to do with our controversial choice of this month's feature subject, MODELS.com's first ever male model to be platformed on our cover?

Simply put, more than any model we've ever shot Marek is the perfect epitome of the world citizen.
Which isn't to say the 19 year old Polish newcomer sitting across from me nervously in IMG's gigantic conference room is any kind of obnoxious and self-conscious hipster.