A brief affair
Remember this guy? Calvin Klein model Tom Hintnaus once made a splash in Houston
A New York Times story on Calvin Klein underwear model Kellan Lutz includes a brief history of highs and lows in the brief biz. Among them: Tom Hintnaus, the first Calvin Klein underwear model, who made a splash in Houston in 1994 when he took a swan dive into the River Oaks Country Club pool at the finale of the annual Tootsies fashion show. (The idea was hatched by Becca Cason, before she was Thrash, in her PR whiz days.)
"It was not exactly a career highlight, but Mr. Hintnaus was a sport," Times fashion reporter Eric Wilson writes.
Klein first introduced the iconic image of a very tanned Hintnaus in white briefs against a whitewashed wall on the Greek island of Santorini in 1982. The photograph, which at the time was considered scandalous, was plastered against the side of a building in New York's Times Square and stopped traffic. It has been cited by American Photographer magazine as one of "10 Pictures That Changed America."
Now 52, Hintnaus is a contractor in Hawaii. "I'm still in shape," he told the Times. "Maybe they'll bring me back for an old guy campaign."