I launched MenStyleFashion in 2012. My first interview was with David Gandy at London Collections: Males in 2013. Since then I’ve interviewed Ricki Corridor, John Halls, Andres Velencoso, and dozens of different male fashions, designers, and stylists throughout trend weeks in London, Milan, Florence, Barcelona, and New York. Our photographer Maria Scard’s pictures from these occasions have been featured in Vogue. I’m recognized within the business as the feminine voice for menswear.
London Collections: Males, January 2013. My very first trend week interview. The person standing in entrance of me: David Gandy.
I’d ready questions on menswear developments. About whether or not runway kinds translated to the road. About Dolce & Gabbana. I forgot all of them. As a result of up shut, Gandy’s face did one thing images had by no means conveyed. These blue eyes — and I’d seen them in 100 marketing campaign pictures — have been a unique expertise at arm’s size. Sharper. Extra alive. He held eye contact whereas speaking to me, even with Maria Scard and a dozen different photographers jockeying for his consideration behind us, and that single high quality gave his face a dimension the digital camera by no means captures.
I requested him how he dealt with being consistently photographed. His reply, verbatim: “It’s my job.” Three phrases. No ego. No efficiency. He mentioned it the way in which a plumber may say he fixes pipes. That plainness, mixed together with his consciousness of each digital camera angle within the room, advised me one thing about facial attractiveness that I’ve spent 12 years confirming: probably the most engaging factor a face can do is look current with out wanting prefer it’s making an attempt.
That interview modified MenStyleFashion. It modified how I strategy males’s faces. And it gave me a decade-long obsession with a query the tutorial analysis solely half-answers: what’s it about sure males’s faces that makes ladies flip round?
Ricki Corridor: Each Rule About Male Facial Attractiveness, Damaged
In August 2013, 5 months after that first Gandy interview, I sat down with Ricki Corridor.
Ricki will not be David Gandy. He’s not classically good-looking by any scientific measure. Full beard. Lined in tattoos. He was scouted strolling out of a Topman retailer in London — not at a modelling company, not at a casting. A scout noticed one thing in his face on a random Saturday afternoon and handed him a card for Nevs, his company. From that time, Ricki turned some of the influential male model icons of 2013 and 2014, booked consistently, and recognized throughout the business alongside tattooed fashions like Ash Stymest and Jimmy Q.
I interviewed him about his look, his tattoos, his beard upkeep. However the dialog I keep in mind most was about how ladies responded to him versus how the style business anticipated ladies to answer him. Ricki advised me that when he walked into castings, some purchasers didn’t know what to do with him. He wasn’t clean-cut. He didn’t match the Gandy mould. However when he appeared at occasions, ladies gravitated towards him — as a result of his face had character. Character. A lived-in high quality {that a} symmetrical, groomed mannequin’s face typically doesn’t.
The Affiliation for Psychological Science (referencing the Stirrat & Perrett study on fWHR) printed analysis displaying ladies affiliate wider male faces with dominance and short-term courting curiosity. That analysis is performed with images in managed settings. It measures one variable at a time. Ricki Corridor’s profession is what occurs whenever you add the opposite 50 variables again in: motion, voice, the way in which a beard frames an imperfect jaw, the way in which tattoos draw the attention throughout a face that isn’t symmetrical however is undeniably compelling.
Ricki taught me that the analysis on facial attractiveness tells you what wins in {a photograph}. It doesn’t let you know what wins in a room.
Learn my unique 2013 breakout interview with Ricki Hall on the rise of the “Bearded Icon.”
John Halls at Barcelona Style Week: The Smile That Ended the Dialog
Barcelona Style Week, March 2015. John Halls, a British male mannequin, had simply walked for Desigual.
I noticed him within the crowd afterwards. He wasn’t the tallest man there. Wasn’t probably the most chiselled. However his smile — broad, real, directed at whoever he was speaking to — made it unattainable to look elsewhere. I shouted throughout to him to present me a smile for the digital camera. He walked over, kissed me on the cheek, and mentioned, “I do know who you’re.”
What struck me in particular person was that John’s total face modified when he smiled. Not a mannequin smile — the type the place the mouth strikes however the brow stays frozen. The whole lot moved. Eyes narrowed. Cheeks lifted. The geometry of his face shifted from peculiar to magnetic. A research within the Journal of Comparative Psychology by Little et al. discovered that facial symmetry is likely one of the strongest cross-cultural predictors of perceived attractiveness. John’s face wasn’t remarkably symmetrical at relaxation. However when he smiled, all the pieces balanced. The expression itself created the symmetry the analysis says we’re drawn to.
John additionally advised me he’d been an expert footballer earlier than modelling. He carried himself like an athlete — relaxed, bodily, comfy in his physique. That ease translated on to how his face learn. No rigidity. No self-consciousness. His face seemed prefer it belonged to somebody who wasn’t nervous about how his face seemed.
I’ve photographed dozens of males at trend weeks who had higher bone construction than John Halls. None of them commanded a room the way in which he did. His face was proof that expression and power outweigh structure.
Learn our full John Halls interview to be taught extra in regards to the athlete-to-model transition.
What Our Photographer Maria Scard Taught Me About Capturing Males’s Faces
Maria Scard has been MenStyleFashion’s photographer for the reason that starting. Her pictures of David Gandy at London Collections: Males have been picked up by Vogue — not as a result of she had the most costly gear within the room, however as a result of she understood one thing about males’s faces that the majority trend photographers ignore.
Maria’s methodology: by no means ask a person to pose. Shoot him mid-sentence. Mid-laugh. Strolling. Turning. Her philosophy is {that a} man’s face at its most tasty is his face at its most unguarded. The second he is aware of the digital camera is there and arranges his expression, one thing dies within the picture.
I watched this play out a whole bunch of instances. At London Style Week in 2015, Maria and I labored the group exterior the exhibits. Our strategy was easy — I’d stroll as much as a person and say, “I’m from MenStyleFashion, can I take a photograph?” The lads who seemed greatest on digital camera have been those who stored speaking, stored laughing, and forgot Maria was there inside seconds. The lads who stiffened up, sucked of their cheeks, and tilted their jawlines towards the lens? Constantly flat. Lifeless. Regardless of how good-looking they have been.
Maria as soon as advised me the distinction between a face that images effectively and a face that’s engaging in particular person: “The digital camera loves motion. A face that’s frozen is a face that’s useless.” She mentioned Gandy understood this instinctively — even when he was being photographed by 20 folks concurrently, he by no means locked right into a single expression. He shifted consistently. A slight smile. A look left. A raised eyebrow. Every micro-movement gave each photographer a unique picture.
That’s not one thing the attractiveness analysis measures. Symmetry, jaw width, facial proportions — all measured from static pictures. Maria’s profession is constructed on the other perception: that engaging faces are engaging as a result of they transfer.
The Day David Gandy Put On Persol Glasses and Modified His Total Face
London Collections: Males, June 2013. Second day. Gandy arrived carrying a vest, gray tie, a white shirt, Paul Smith and Ralph Lauren items, and a pair of Persol frames.
I observed the glasses earlier than I observed the outfit. As a result of they did one thing to his face I hadn’t seen earlier than. Gandy’s naked face reads as highly effective. Robust jaw, intense eyes, barely intimidating. The Persol frames softened all of that. They added an mental high quality, a heat, that his unframed face doesn’t naturally challenge. Girls on the occasion that day used phrases like “good” and “subtle” to explain him — not the same old “attractive” or “intimidating.” One pair of frames moved him from one class of attractiveness to a very completely different one.
A research from the School of Optometrists discovered that glasses improve perceived trustworthiness and intelligence. However the discovering I care about as somebody in males’s trend is geometric. The best body form provides construction the place the face doesn’t present it.
Understanding your face form helps right here. The 5 essential classes—oval, spherical, sq., coronary heart, rectangular—every pair otherwise with completely different body kinds. Strolling the halls of the Fortezza da Basso at Pitti Uomo in 2026, I’ve observed a definite shift towards stronger rectangular and sq. frames. It’s a ‘return to masculinity’ that mirrors the structured tailoring we’re seeing from Prada and Zegna this season. For those who don’t know yours, ask your barber. They consider face shapes consistently.
What Girls at Style Occasions Advised Me They Really Discover
Over 12 years of attending trend weeks, after-parties, model shows, and business dinners, I’ve had this dialog with ladies extra instances than I can rely. Not formally. Not as a survey. Simply the pure query that comes up whenever you spend your profession photographing good-looking males: what do you truly discover?
The solutions, distilled from years of those conversations:
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Eyes and eye contact Talked about greater than anything, by a large margin. Not eye color — eye behaviour. Whether or not a person checked out them or previous them. Whether or not the eye felt real. A stylist I spoke with at Pitti Uomo as soon as advised me: “A person with common options who holds correct eye contact will all the time beat a beautiful man taking a look at his cellphone.” I’ve by no means heard a girl disagree with that.
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Smile Particularly: actual smiles. The John Halls impact. Girls can inform the distinction between a performative smile and one which reaches the eyes. I’ve watched it occur at occasions in actual time — a person with an unremarkable face lights up with a real smile and immediately he’s the one folks drift towards.
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Grooming Not perfection. Proof of care. Clear pores and skin. Formed facial hair. Maintained eyebrows. A number of ladies over time have particularly talked about uneven or wild eyebrows as one thing they discover negatively. The backstage grooming groups at trend exhibits know this — eyebrow shaping is likely one of the first issues they do, as a result of even a millimetre of adjustment modifications how balanced a face seems.
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Expression and power How animated the face is. Whether or not the person appears tense or comfy. This echoes precisely what Maria Scard images for. The Pitti Uomo remark holds: a relaxed, expressive face on an average-looking man attracts extra consideration than a tense, bored face on a good-looking one.
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Jawline and bone construction It appeared. Fifth. Behind eyes, smile, grooming, and expressiveness. The function the web fixates on most ranked final in 12 years of my casual, unstructured conversations with actual ladies at actual occasions.
The place the Analysis Strains Up and The place It Misses
The educational work on facial attractiveness will not be incorrect. Symmetry does matter — ladies I spoke with describe it with out naming it, saying a face “simply works” or “nothing appears off.” Composite “common” faces (a discovering courting again to 1878 and replicated many instances) do fee larger than excessive faces — which implies most males are nearer to engaging than they imagine. Wider faces do learn as extra dominant in managed settings.
The place the analysis loses accuracy is in its methodology. Static images. Remoted variables. Managed lighting. Zero context. A face in a lab will not be a face at a dinner desk, or in a bar, or strolling via the Fortezza da Basso in a well-cut linen go well with. Ricki Corridor’s profession wouldn’t exist if facial attractiveness labored the way in which lab research counsel. John Halls’ smile could be irrelevant. Gandy’s Persol frames would make no distinction.
Actual faces transfer. They categorical. They’re framed by hair, beards, glasses, clothes. They exist in three dimensions, not two. The analysis offers you the baseline. Twelve years of watching ladies reply to males’s faces in actual life offers you all the pieces the baseline leaves out.
Incessantly Requested Questions
What facial function do ladies discover most tasty on a person? Eyes and eye contact, primarily based on 12 years of conversations at trend occasions. In laboratory analysis, symmetry and jawlines rating highest. In particular person, expression and grooming matter greater than bone construction.
Does face form have an effect on how engaging a person is? No single face form is extra engaging than one other. Face form determines which hairstyles, beard shapes, and glasses frames create probably the most balanced look — and that grooming alignment does have an effect on attractiveness.
Can glasses make a person extra engaging? Analysis says sure — glasses improve perceived intelligence and trustworthiness. From private remark at trend occasions, the best frames also can shift a person’s total perceived character, as I witnessed when David Gandy wore Persol frames and the descriptors ladies used for him modified from “attractive” to “subtle.”
Do ladies favor beards or clean-shaven faces? Analysis from the Journal of Evolutionary Biology discovered heavy stubble rated highest on common. Preferences fluctuate between people. The constant discovering: well-maintained facial hair outperforms each patchy beards and uncared for clean-shaven appears.
