How an OG Ralph Lauren Model Found His Way From the Merchant Navy to the Runway

The first time I saw Tim Easton, I was at that critical age in a young girl’s life when your conception of masculinity and attraction is just starting to crystallize. There he was, in the Macy’s of our local suburban mall. Backlit and eight feet tall on the wall of the men’s Ralph Lauren department. Gazing up, my retinas stinging from the fluorescent display while my mother picked out button down shirts for my father and grandfather, I decided: that’s a man.

They say never meet your heroes. But no one ever warns you about meeting your first crush. And if you had told that little girl that he’d be somehow even more handsome and kinder, than the fantasy, I don’t know that she’d have believed you.

There’s a misconception that the absurdly good looking exist only with some karmic balance to offset their genetic luck: they must be rude, they can’t be that good looking in person and they are used to being styled and waited on so they probably don’t have any real sense of dress themselves. It’s a kind of get out of jail free card for those looking to justify their perceived faults. Sorry, Easton disproves that theory. 

Looking a bit like Gary Cooper (if he’d joined a garden club), Easton joins me via Zoom from New York where he’s visiting friends before heading back to Florida. In a simple navy stripe sweater and a pair of Kilsgaard blonde acetate frames that he sources from eBay (more on that later) Easton proves a soft spoken British gentleman with a wry, gentle wit and thoughtful opinions on everything from secondhand shopping to giving back to the community. 

From The Scouts to The Runway 

Easton, who grew up in London and Dorset, recounts his earliest exposure to the world of fashion that he would later become such a fixture in. “I was in the Merchant Navy and our ship would come from England to New York a lot and one time I came across a GQ magazine,” says Easton. “I’d never seen it, I didn’t know about American magazines and I started flicking through it. I mean—talk about that thing, what is it? The law of attraction? Manifesting? I remember seeing pictures and they were by Bruce Weber and Donald Sterzin and I knew nothing about the business but I was so attracted to the pictures, and I thought this is really great. And then years later I became the guy in photos.”

From the Merchant Navy, Easton moved to LA where he took a job at a vintage clothing store called Flip off Hollywood ,where he did everything from driving the truck to dyeing and printing clothing and dry-cleaning runs. An Italian stylist, Elisabetta Rogiani, came into the store one day and spotted Easton. She had some pictures taken and it wasn’t long before he was signed to work with Nadia Shahrik. Then came his first job with Bruce Weber—a Calvin Klein campaign where he shot portraits of five guys, including Easton. “When they ran the ad, it wasn’t me and I was disappointed. But it turned out to be a real blessing in disguise because if I had been the Calvin Klein guy, Ralph Lauren would have never used me.” It was Weber that saw something special in his look, something that would suit the Ralph Lauren aesthetic just right. 

“About six months later, I got booked to go to Barbados to shoot for Ralph Lauren, and I thought I was just going to be an extra because they had a crew of people and they used regulars. And then the ads came out and it was me and Isabelle Townsend. We were the new couple. I didn’t expect that.” 

That full circle moment began a meteoric rise for Easton’s career. Now represented by Heroes Model Management he’s worked for industry giants and remained a fixture in front of the legendary Weber’s lens. I ask him what it was like, the serendipity of thinking back to that GQ spread and being on one of Bruce’s sets. “It’s hard to believe,” he tells me. “It really was magic working with Bruce and Donald who would create these sets for Ralph Lauren. Before all the shoots we’d have a day or two of fittings and that was amazing because whenever they’d have clothing that they didn’t know what to do, Bruce would say ‘Put it on Tim! He can carry anything!’ It was really magic how he would create those pictures.” 

But Easton’s inclination to fashion started even before that fated encounter with a copy of GQ. Growing up, he was always interested in clothing. His friends used to customize their school uniforms for fun, and always took pride in what they wore out to clubs. I ask him what he thinks it is that makes British men so singularly stylish. “I think it comes from being stuck on a wet ,damp island,” he says with a chuckle. “You think ‘what am I going to do? Let’s play with our clothes, Let’s dress up.’” Easton says he thinks there’s a passion the Brits take in their cultural endeavors, be it clothes, music, or art. “When I’m back, it’s still amazing to see what’s going on with all the kids,” he says – something he sees echoed in places like New York and LA.

The “Disheveled Millionaire” 

That ingenuity is something Easton tracks not only to his time working at Flip but to his childhood spent with the Scouts where he carved fastenings for neck scarves out of wood and learned how to use the clothes on their back as flotation devices. “You get a pair of pants and you tie up the bottom of them and then catch the air and use that to float on if you’re trying to rescue someone,” he tells me. And it’s an approach to dressing, and life, that has been a through line in Easton’s life ever since. “I made my own wetsuit,” he tells me with complete nonchalance as if he hadn’t just said he made his own wetsuit. “I was sailing and kayaking and it was so cold in England so  I bought a wetsuit pattern and material and I made my own wetsuit.”

Easton is an adept sewer, in fact—something he learned from his mother. “When I was growing up she was always sewing, and always knitting.” She taught him to sew by hand, he tells me, though now he has machine work done when he needs repairs made. But even with this, he takes a creative approach. “I have a pair of jeans that I really like and they’ve gotten holes in them over the years,” he says. The pants have traveled with him all around the world and he’s meticulously charted those travels in thread. “Each time I’ve gotten it done, I ask them to do it in different colors,” he tells me, holding up a pair of well loved jeans to the camera. “So now it’s like, there’s Prague, there’s England, there’s Spain.” As he rattles off destinations, he points to different spots on the jeans, each mended in different thread. 

And though this is the first time I’m learning about Tim’s world-traveling pants, it’s not the first time I’ve come to see Tim’s life through his clothes, which tell a story as vibrant and intentional as the man himself. When we first met a few years ago, I asked Tim about a particular pair of shoes I’d seen often on his Instagram, a sort of clog but with a back. Turns out they were a discontinued style of Birkenstock that Easton had tracked down through eBay—where he is an adept consumer, scouring for everything from his signature frames to knitwear. “Sometimes I just look around and see what’s there,” he says. “I put in a couple of keywords and things pop up.” His frames retail for a couple hundred dollars, but Tim, ever inventive, buys them through eBay for $40 from opticians and other sellers who have old stock.  

Easton mixes these singular finds with higher end pieces (he of course enjoys a good bit of Double RL). And that eclectic mix makes for a style that is equal parts refined and rustic, an aesthetic his friend coined as the “disheveled millionaire.” 

It’s also a matter of principle for Tim—he clearly loves clothing, but he doesn’t needlessly consume. He takes immense pride in the pieces he’s curated and kept over the years and they all mean something to him. His affinity is for the unique. He loves t-shirts, many of which he gets from friends like artist Oliver Sanchez, or at record stores or clubs that hold meaning to him. “I’ll go to a particular concert or event and see a t-shirt for it and I’ll buy it and not wear it for years. But I’ll wash it so it gets older and older,” he says. “So maybe five or ten years later, I start wearing it and people are like where did you get that!” 

His approach reflects an immense amount of discipline – whether that stems from his days in the Scouts and the Merchant Navy or his mother instilling a love of sewing in him – he very clearly, and intentionally thinks about his purchases. They mean something to him, they are equal parts function and art. And with that sense of restraint, he balances a kind of whimsy – an embrace of life and sense of humor that brings him everywhere from fashion week runways to botanical gardens to CERT training courses. 

Model Behavior

Scratch beneath the surface and you’ll learn that Tim is a master gardener who volunteers at botanical gardens and meditation centers. Gardening, he says, gives him a home wherever he goes. He’s constantly traveling – for work, for family, and for friends but no matter where he is, he tries to get involved with the local garden or nature reserve. He also did his permaculture certification in France and he beams as he tells me how it inspired him. “When I was living in Venice Beach I would turn on my shower and it took ages for the water to get hot. So I put a bucket under the water while it was heating up and I used it to water my plants.” 

A trip to India with his acting coach at the time, he says, was pivotal in his world view and it’s apparent he finds purpose and joy in jumping in head first to any opportunity he gets to make himself a more involved citizen. During a stint volunteering at a meditation center he says, the local fire department stopped by with information about a CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) training course. Easton enrolled right away. “I think I was the only person in the center that went. I just thought, this sounds really great – they taught you everything to do [in an emergency], what to have in your house, what you need to be prepared. To me, that kind of thing and permaculture all ties in together. There’s all these different ways you can make energy and use things to work together.” He says he takes comfort in knowing people are increasingly aware of issues like sustainability, undertaking personal efforts like composting or opting for solar energy.

Easton has also dedicated his time over the years to Peace4Kids, a non-profit that serves children and young people in foster care. He’s mentored young people – many of whom are now grown with families of their own and they still stay in touch. He shared his love of gardening with the kids, took them on camping trips and out sailing. “It makes such a difference,” he says.” We had a reunion recently – twenty five year reunion for the Peace Garden. One girl who is now a mother herself was saying ‘We beat the odds,’ and to see that effect just that little bit of love can have, it was so moving. And we had so much fun.” What started as a grassroots organization with just a few people is now a thriving organization with a full team of volunteers, he says with pride. 

Despite how serious Tim takes these principles, he’s nothing if not good humored about it. We talk a bit about the expectations of being a man and a gentleman—of the dissonance between vanity and masculinity. This prompts him to share one of my all time favorite Tim anecdotes:

“One funny thing that has happened,” he says, “Is if I go out with a woman, for instance, they ask what kind of car I drive. And I say a Toyota Tacoma pickup truck and they’re completely baffled. They imagine I drive a Jag or a Mercedes,” he laughs flashing that trillion dollar smile. “But I can’t really use a Jag or Mercedes, because where am I going to put my compost? Where am I going to put my lumber? I couldn’t do with a fancy gentleman’s car. And I get it, you see these images of men in nice clothing driving fancy cars. It’s a whole look. But it’s not sustainable.”

Credit: robbreport.com