Will You Be My Underwear Model?

How to Recruit Models

Hey! I know you don’t know me, but…
Would you be interested in being an underwear model?

Despite the awkward question from the dirtbag traveler (me), some people actually said yes (after a just a tiny bit more explanation). And I had no idea that my quest for real people willing to try their hand at underwear modeling would set the stage for the “global agility” ethos of WhereNext, which I would go on to found in Colombia the next year.

But what, exactly, was I up to? After telling the story of my own two-year adventure in just two pairs of ExOfficio’s awesome undies, the iconic travel clothing brand asked me to create their Made to Adventure campaign for spring/summer 2013. With a client so rooted in roaming, I wanted to bring ExOfficio’s theme of authenticity to life in a way the brand had never seen before. I would use social media and good old-fashioned networking along the Colombian traveler’s trail to find real people on real adventures. And, naturally, I would photograph them in various states of undress.

First, I hired two talented assistants, Kathryn Friedman and Willa Kammerer—who’ve both gone on to become rock-star storytellers—and my Colombian friend and fixer extraordinaire Hernan Acevedo. Then we set out a ten-day, 2,000-plus-mile road trip through the country to track down the kind of inspired wanderers who were out there living ExOfficio’s brand ethos.

As we journeyed together making new friends and stumbling upon more and more amazing places, we carried three giant duffel bags stuffed with hundreds of clothing samples in a variety of sizes. Our challenge was not only to find natural talents who were on their own personal adventures and could also feature as the heroes of our campaign; we also had to make sure the right clothes fit in the right place at the right time. Our non-model models had to be the correct size and gender for the products we were shooting in each geographic zone: sun garments in the desert, surf and water apparel on the coast, Bugs Away in the jungle, urban travel in colonial towns, and cool-weather and trekking garments in the Andes.

And of course there remained the whole asking to take pictures of people we’d just met—in their underwear. Sure, we planned everything as carefully as possible, but we had to have faith that it would all come together perfectly every time out. It was only by letting go and believing in serendipity that it did. We found the right people, and the right people found us, time and time again. When production wrapped, we’d photographed 38 incredible international travelers from all walks of life for the campaign—every single one of them on a life-changing journey, with great stories to tell.

In the end, our underwear odyssey had taken us to 14 different shoot locations and given us even more adventures to remember, including offroading over 14,000-foot passes in Los Nevados National Park, trekking through a valley while surrounded by the tallest palm trees in the world, walking across barren stretches of sand in the Tatacoa Desert, drinking Colombian rum in cobbled Spanish colonial towns, and chilling out on dreamy Caribbean beaches in Tayrona National Park. Their was work and play in equal measures, and that perfect mix kept the creative fresh and fun.

The result? While we captured ExO’s full spring/summer line, their underwear went on to account for more than half of the company’s total revenue the following year, and the brand hired us to produce their catalogs in exotic destinations for the next five seasons. And to this day it’s still the only brand that I, and a few nomadic friends, will wear when traveling.

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