One day in March I got an email out of the blue about appearing in L’Uomo Vogue magazine. Next thing you know I was in a small photo studio in Soho. This shoot was unlike any other shoot I’ve ever done, for a few reasons. First of all it was quick, we did 5 looks in under an hour. Second, it was all about the stylist. The stylist! I later realized that Rushka Bergman is a name that rings bells. A contributing fashion editor for the magazine, but also “Michael Jackson’s personal stylist for 3 years” (she repeated this many times), Rushka spoke with an Eastern-European accent coupled with very dramatic intonations. When she completed an outfit she would take a glance at it and say: “divine!” Normally I’d be hands-on with the choice of clothes, I’d give a lot of input on what I’d normally wear… but when dealing with Vogue it’s a different set of rules. As Rushka pointed out, “we know fashion 6 months before the rest of the world does, you have to trust us. I’ve done 300 features in Vogue, trust me. Michael trusted me.” Okay! I later realized that Kanye tried trusting her last year, which led to Rushka styling Pusha T for the VMA’s, hence Pusha’s line “Italian Vogue styled a n*gga for a minute rhyme.” Maybe that relationship didn’t last but I got along fine with the lady, she had me cracking up half the time. She would look at me and say: “Look at his eyes! So powerful. So kind.” I couldn’t help but chuckle. Then she would get an idea: “Okay let’s play,” and she’d throw some clothes on me while we were shooting, swapping out jackets and coats, throwing a top hat on my head, tying a bow on a necktie. “This is fine art”, she said. She requested a huge piece of cardboard and made me wrap it around me like a cocoon. “This one is for a museum!”, she declared. “Don’t worry, we’re going to make you look like God.” I’m not sure if the divine ambition was realized with me, but in any case it gave me a funny story to tell. I remember sitting in the cab on my way home and thinking, “what just happened? Did I just wear leather pants?” Then I went home and read her Wiki entry. It reassured me. It was an honor working with her!

Check out the behind-the-scenes video of the shoot HERE (tell the Italians we need an embed option).