The first woman to break into the understandably male-dominated world of male modelling has booked her first campaign. Model Casey Legler, the New York artist signed to Ford Models men’s division, appears in British streetwear retailer AllSaints spring 2013 ads.
Photo: AllSaints
In jackets, tees and denim, Legler’s look here is more androgynous than full dude drag. It’s not like she’s wearing a fake moustache—she even models pieces from both the men’s and women’s line. It’s a departure from her editorial work, which has either included a lot of suits, ball caps and cigar-chomping, or else, like a lot of male models, topless shots.
The male-female-mix-match styling of the campaign connects with the anything-for-everyone philosophy Legler championed in a Time.com interview last November. “It would be a really beautiful thing if we could all just wear what we wanted, without it meaning something,” she said at the time.
The AllSaints campaign mixes models with hipster unknowns for the portrait series. Legler joins Marc Jacobs’ model Hollie May Saker, Swiss actress Sonja Kinski and skateboarding tattoo artist Vinnie Woolston among others in the campaign.
The 6’2” Legler was born in France, and was a competitive swimmer in the Summer Olympics in 1996. Now 35, she got her break in modelling when photographer friend Cass Bird cast her as a dude in a Muse magazine editorial opposite Candice Swanepoel.
But ad work is where the real money is, and so the AllSaints campaign is a huge step forward for Legler’s modelling career. Plus, she gets to work in comfy jeans and t-shirts. Lucky!
