The American fashion photographer Bruce Weber is responsible for some of the most alluring images of human flesh of the past 50 years. His Calvin Klein underwear campaigns once stopped traffic in Times Square. He discovered the “first male supermodel”, Jeff Aquilon, playing water polo in 1978. His images of male athletes in briefs (and sometimes considerably less) made homoerotica mainstream in the 1980s.
As such there are people, says Weber, who find meeting him a bit of a let down. “Someone once came up to me and said: ‘Hey, I’m really disappointed! I always thought Jeff Aquilon was you! And now that I see you, I realise you’re not nearly as handsome.’”
