Industry Insiders: Sean Patterson, Model President

Sean Patterson says himself, that people want to be around other beautiful people. Lucky guy then, that he gets to be president of Wilhelmina Models, the mega modeling agency which boasts such clients as Ciara, Fergie, and Gabriel Aubry. Here's the prez himself, on his history in New York's nightlife, his picks for the world's most beautiful, and his connection with some guy named Steve Lewis.

Where do you like to hang out?
Well, I love the Hotel Arts [in Barcelona]. For me, that’s the only hotel that exists in Barcelona. It’s probably my favorite hotel in the whole world. It’s this unbelievable combination of a really luxurious full-amenity Ritz Carlton/Four Seasons quality hotel, but it’s got all of the distinct character of Barcelona. It’s got this unbelievable Gaudi sculpture out in this giant back courtyard, and it all overlooks the ocean. It’s like this 50-story building right on the ocean.

I live in New York and there are probably a couple of places that I find myself going to quite often. I do like The Waverly Inn. The food is amazing and the atmosphere is pretty comfortable. You can go in there on a date and have a great time, or you can go in there and have a business meeting with people in the industry. I can take magazine editors there, I can take photographers and clients there, and we have a great time. I love Rose Bar. It’s kind of like what a modern lounge should be. It’s always a lot of fun, it’s never too packed – I mean, Nur [Khan] who runs Rose Bar, likes to keep it busy, but he never lets it get overcrowded and uncomfortable. It’s just exceptionally well-done, and there’s a very sexy vibe in there. I like the new Megu Lounge they put in upstairs at the restaurant; that’s pretty fun. I’m a huge fan of The Box. I go there quite often. There’s always craziness and amazing shows and people having a good time at all hours of the evening.

What’s one of the wildest shows you’ve seen at The Box?
The woman who can play songs by, um, letting air out of that orifice, that female orifice, that men don’t have, hat was one. She could play music. The guy who pulls a fist out of his rear end and then throws it into the audience–that one’s pretty harsh. Um, what else did I see. A woman that pulls, you know, that magic trick, where he’ll pull a scarf out of his ear, and he’ll just keep pulling and pulling, but the scarf never ends? Well, it came out of the woman, actually. It came out of the woman’s, um, anatomy. And it’s one of the crazy New York institutions that you say, “You know what, is this too disturbing or demented, or is this part of what New York nightlife actually always has?” There’s always a little bit of pushing the boundaries, I think, in most artistic, creative endeavors. I think there’s gotta be some group or some artist pushing the boundaries. And I think that as crazy and over-the-top, and in some ways too much as those shows can seem, they’re also--there’s something very humorous about them.

You’re in Miami now. Where’s your favorite place in Miami?
The Gansevoort, clearly, at this point is my favorite place in Miami. I’ve always loved Casa Tua. It’s just so beautiful and romantic and, again, it’s a great date place, if you wanna go, you know, take somebody out there and have a special night. Sometimes I like something simple, too. You know, as clichéd as it sounds, you can’t really beat Joe’s Stone Crab.

Or the take-out.
Oh my God, I’m the king of that take-out place. A lot of times what I would do is I would go there, pick up Joe’s take-away, bring it back to my hotel, and eat it out at the terrace, overlooking the ocean. I’d buy like, $200 of stone crabs with my buddies, we’d come back here, and we’d just sit on the terrace and we’d just overlook the ocean eating stone crab. The food is unbelievable.

So, you’re not gonna be there for Art Basel. You’re coming back before?
No, I’m gonna come back probably two days before everyone heads down for Basel, but that’s because I have to work on some stuff in Europe and in Los Angeles. One of our clients is Fergie, the singer, and she’s busy shooting. She’s doing a movie now, Nine, out in London, and she’s working on a couple of really big products. She shot a new HP commercial that just came out. So, we’re there working with her – because we style and image her for all that stuff, so whenever she has a big project, we kind of have to go at that moment. We have a couple other big clients that we’re working with like that. We’re doing Natasha Bedingfield right now at the American Music Awards out in LA next week. So, we’ve got all these different projects that kind of pull me all over the place, which is the reason that I have to travel so much.

How did you get started in the model industry?
While I was at NYU, I met this girl who saw that I could get in and knew a lot of people in college and blah blah blah, and she said, “Sean, do you want to go to this party as a club promoter Wednesday nights at this club?” And I didn’t know what the heck it was, so she said, “We’ll pay you. You can get paid $2 or $3 for every person that comes that’s on your list.” So I said, “Sure, I’ll give this a shot, I’ve never heard of such a thing.” Where I come from, upstate New York, this doesn’t exist. And apparently I did a pretty good job, so we ended up partnering for a couple of years and we ended up doing some of the bigger nightclub parties in New York. And I was this nineteen year old kid, making $7500 cash a week promoting nightclubs, like the Roxy on Friday nights. We were the ones who got the Friday night straight modeling thing going. We opened a club called Ten – which was, at the time, the old Copa. The club that was Life, we found that space, actually, and named it Peace before it was even Life, which was the old Village Gate at the time.

Really? The Village Gate?
Yeah, we found it, actually. One of the first guys I ever worked for was a guy named Steve Lewis. And Steve is like, you know, kind of like a legendary nightlife guy. So, Steve is actually one of the first people I ever worked for in the club business, and Steve was a big part of us, because he’s just such a creative guy. So we did that whole model scene, fashion scene, party scene. After that, I ended up getting to know every single model, photographer, agent and stylist because everybody went out in New York at that time. This is like the early ‘90’s, and everybody was going out. Because of that, I got to know a few agents at Wilhelmina that thought that I’d be good as an agent. And, as a matter of fact, there was a brand new model into New York, it was his first job ever in New York with Bruce Weber, he shot a Banana Republic campaign, and that was Marc Vanderloo. And, when a position became open at Wilhelmina Men, Marc suggested me to the agent, and the agents on their own already knew me and said, “You know what, we think Sean’s a good talker – we’d like to hire him.” And the rest is history. As a matter of fact, Marc’s down here at the Gansevoort this weekend, because he came down here for the 10th Anniversary [party for Wilhemina Miami].

Since you’re an expert in this field, who’s the hottest model in the world in your opinion?
For me, it’s indisputable. I think the most universally beautiful girl is Alessandra Ambrosio. I think Alessandra is absolutely stunning. Adriana Lima is a pretty close second. You could take her to a mall in middle-America, you could take her to Brazil, you could take her anywhere and people would say, “Oh my God, she is the most beautiful girl.” So I think that Alessandra is probably way, way, way up there. As far as guys go, it’s kind of a different yardstick that you use, because it’s more about, like, being rugged and handsome. So, I’d say from that standpoint, I’d say that Gabriel Aubry is pretty close. Gabriel Aubry is with Halle Berry, he’s got a daughter Nala, with Halle, and Gabriel is probably the highest paid male model at this moment in the world, and he deserves it because he’s really pretty phenomenal looking. There’s very few people who are as sexy and hot and also classic at the same time. You know what, if you’ve got a hot Academy Award winning girlfriend, I’d say that’s the golden seal of approval.

You have a nightlife background, so you’ll understand this question. Models, in terms of the top tier of the nightlife industry–the 1Oaks, the Butters, etc., they’re kind of the building blocks, because they lure the skirt-chasing celebrities and the media coverage.
That was my business. I’ll tell you exactly how it works. We would get the models to come to the clubs, and then everybody else would follow the models to the clubs. So, they were always the building block. If you put them behind the velvet rope, everybody wants to get in the velvet rope. That’s the way that you can drive all these dollars from all these people who want to spend money to be near them. And that’s why the models get comped. That’s the reason the models get free drinks, and free entry, and all of that stuff, and they get schmoozed by the club promoters because there’s an obvious attraction to beauty. People want to be near beautiful people. And it’s universal. In some ways, it can just be viewed as incredibly superficial, but I think in some ways, it’s natural. I mean, would you rather buy an ugly house or a house that looks beautiful? Would you rather buy an ugly car, or a car that’s beautiful?

There’s an innate kind of drive.
Aesthetically pleasing things, you know, are something that are attractive universally to human beings.

Models have to wake up at 5 a.m. sometimes for call time, and have to go to like multiple castings. So, if they’re out all night, it’s difficult for them to get that done, and they don’t look as good as they would, so it kind of hurts your business. How do you keep your girls from going out absolutely every single night?
I think that basically, clubs are like any other temptation in this world, and I think that you give most of the models as best an understanding about how being a professional will be the greatest advantage to them having a very successful, long-term, profitable career. And that there are plenty of things that can get in the way of that goal, besides just nightclubs, so you just hope that they take their professionalism very seriously. And if they do, they’ll do well, and if they don’t – if they get sucked into the club world or anywhere else – I think that that would certainly hinder their career, and we’ll step in saying, “Look, you know what, you’re showing up to shoots not looking great, this is not, you know, conducive to you having a great career.”

Who are some people you might be seen with?
Probably my favorite clients that I’m always with. I love basically all the 1,500 clients at Wilhelmina, but the ones that I end up spending a good amount of time with probably right now are Gabriel Aubry, Marc Vanderloo and Alex Lundquist. Fergie, for sure. I’m basically traveling around the world with her making sure that we always take care of all of her fashion appropriately, all of her imaging stuff appropriately, and we handle all of her bookings, her endorsements, etc. Natasha Bedingfield is a very big talent of ours. The singer Estelle is a big client of ours, and we spend a lot of time with her. Beverly Johnson, who’s just a historical figure in fashion, she’s one of my co-judges on the TV show She’s Got the Look, so I’m always with Beverly.

What are you doing tonight?
I’m going to be going out and celebrating with about 800 of our nearest and dearest–friends, models, clients, celebrities, fashion designers–the 10th Anniversary of Wilhelmina Miami here at the Gansevoort Hotel. And it’s gonna be just an unbelievable party, it’s gonna be a celebration, the ten years here. We have forty years in total as a company, you know Wilhelmina International, Wilhelmina NY, and LA. But this is our 10th Anniversary of Wilhelmina Miami. And, if what I’m hearing in the RSVP list is any indication, it’s gonna be a very late night, and everybody’s gonna enjoy themselves, probably over-eat, and I’m certain even over-drink a little bit.


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