How Alton Mason Became The World's Only Male Super Model

In an industry that still treats many male models interchangeably, one has transcended mannequin status to reach the heights of the fashion world. But he doesn't plan on staying put for long.

- SAMUEL HINE

IN A SUBTERRANEAN bunker beneath Paris, Alton Mason materializes to a soundtrack of ear-splitting German techno. Wearing a long black coat and colossal platform boots, ropes of thick, braided hair framing his fiercely angular face, he looks like a Marvel hero flirting with the dark side. We're in the concrete basement of the Palais de Tokyo, about a half hour before Mason will walk in the Rick Owens fall-winter 2023 runway show, and Mason is wrestling with a decision, stroking the goatee that dusts his cantilevered jawline.

"Rick comes to me about an hour ago," Mason tells me, "and says, 'It's totally up to you, but do you want to shave your beard?'"

I had noticed, standing among the room of towering, wraithlike figures who would soon be joining Mason on the runway, that not one other model had so much as a single whisker on their mug. That's the vibe on the Rick Owens runway. Smooth faces, blank bodies. The models serve as canvases that are modified by the several dozen hairstylists and make-up artists to perfectly fulfil Owens's singular vision for the season. In the room, some make-up artists paint thick black Vs on the boys' faces. Others squish malevolent black lenses onto the models' corneas.

"But," Mason continues, "Rick said, 'It's up to you, you don't have to.' I was like, Hmmm...." Mason strokes his chin again. "He was just like, 'Think about it, and then walks away."