Thaddeus Coates | New York Model and Influencer | Out Magazine | Interview Feature
July 14, 2020 • • Thaddeus Coates
In a few years, model and artist Thaddeus Coates hopes you’ll know him by just one name: Thaddeus. And his journey to take the fashion world by storm and become a household name begins now. The 24-year-old Black queer model is a part of American Eagle’s latest Ne(X)t Level Jeans Campaign, including athletic fit jeans that, as he wrote on Twitter, “for guys who need a little more room in the thighs.”
Can you tell me a little bit about how you started your modelling career?
I started like, officially officially, I guess I would say in the summertime, actually. But I’ve been taking pictures with my friends, because I go to [the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York], a lot of my friends are photographers, so I would just be taking pictures with them for their assignments and things. They’d always be down to create things and I’d be down to help create their vision. So they’d ask me to model and I would.
How did you find Bridge? Or did they find you?
OK, so before this campaign that just dropped, I did a campaign for back to school for the fall for American Eagle and that one was just from me going to a casting randomly. And then after I got that, I reached out, I looked up a bunch of male modeling agencies that I wanted to be a part of — Wilhelmina, IMG — and then I was looking at the top agencies to feature guys of size. I know IMG recently added a new section to their roster that has bigger, plus-size men a part of it and Wilhelmina added a segment, but there was no US agency that catered to what my brand is, that I would be able to fit into. So I added a bunch of them and Bridge Models slid into my DMs and was like “Congratulations on your American Eagle campaign!” and I was like, “Thank you, I was looking at your portfolio, as well! How do I go about signing with you guys?”
