Meet Finn B, the 16 year old genderqueer model breaking the mould
“Are you a boy or a girl? I get asked that a lot,” Finn B tells me, on a welcome break from GCSE revision. “I am called Finn – I go by ‘he’ and I wear men and women’s clothes.” A little under a year after being discovered outside his local Sainbury’s in Finsbury Park (“I was arguing with a friend at the time”) and the 16-year-old’s first job was an editorial with W magazine styled by Katie Grand. “I just got a booking confirmation for it and googled Katie Grand, Harley Weir and the brands I was going to be wearing. I was quite shocked for someone whose just starting out.”
Finn refuses to fit fashion’s mould, having signed to womenswear agency Linden Staub in London and recently New Madison in Paris (on the women’s and men’s board). “Growing up, my brother got a Thunderbirds outfit and I got a fairytale costume. Instantly we swapped. It was never ‘I want to try this’ it was always ‘give me that, that’s mine.’ With school uniform it’s a skirt, but the second I get out I’m putting on chinos and shirts.”
Outside the school gates, Finn describes his style as a “posh skater boy,” and loves the emergence of genderqueer brands on the runway such as Charles Jeffery. “It’s a great way to say anyone can wear any clothes. Why not? There are no rules to it!”
“When I was really young I literally thought there was one model on the cover because they all looked the same to me,” he adds. “I want to see more diversity [in fashion] – plus size, different backgrounds and cultures.” This one-size-does-not-fit-all philosophy extends to Instagram use – revealing he has three accounts for a different purpose. “One is a vent account which is private, then I have a personal account which is just pictures of friends and then my model account which is pictures from shoots. I think once I build up a bigger platform I would like to express my views on politics.” Being social media conscious and statying true to oneself is important to this Gen Z-er: “If I don’t really have the background or understanding to back up my views [though] I would probably just stay out of it to avoid upset.”
Looking ahead, Finn hopes to score a place at Central Saint Martins to study fashion design. “When I’m shopping for clothes there’s a lot of times where I’m looking for something and it just won’t exist,” he says. “I’d love to create diverse fashion – I love corsetry and clothes that can be changed – you can still edit them at home. I’d love to create one thing that two different people can change in the way that they want to.”
