IN CONVERSATION WITH LEANDRO DA SILVA

interview by JANA LETONJA

LEANDRO DA SILVA has never been interested in fitting neatly into one category. While he first established himself as an international model, his career has naturally evolved into something far more expansive — spanning fashion, publishing, creative direction and visual storytelling. Driven by curiosity and an openness to opportunity, he has built a path that reflects both creative ambition and personal growth. His latest project, Nature of a Boy, explores masculinity, vulnerability and identity through an intimate lens, revealing a side of him that goes beyond fashion. Rooted in spirituality, nature and self-discovery, it marks a new chapter for a creative who believes that success isn’t about titles, but about staying true to yourself and trusting the journey.

You’ve built a career that extends far beyond modeling. Was there a moment when you realised you no longer wanted to be defined by a single job title? 
I think there have actually been many moments when I’ve felt that I wanted to do more, and much more. I’ve always had this feeling that there were other parts of me that I needed to explore. But I’m a very analytical person, and I tend to think deeply about everything in my life. Sometimes that means it takes me a little longer to understand whether something is truly what I want and whether it really belongs to my journey. I don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing anymore. I think it has allowed me to make choices with more awareness and maturity. 

Modeling has always been like a thread pulling me forward, pushing me out of my comfort zone, making me believe in myself and giving me the courage to pursue dreams that many people around me once told me were impossible. It was the first thing that made me believe I could create a life beyond what I thought was possible for myself. I still protect that dream and I’m still living it, but I also believe we are capable of much more than one role can define. 

Recently, I’ve been having some very strong insights about who I am, what I enjoy and what else I’m capable of exploring. Sometimes they are so strong that they almost become uncomfortable, because they make it impossible for me to ignore the feeling that there is more of me waiting to be discovered. I think I’m at a point in my life where I’m more mature and more respectful of my own journey. I believe everything arrives at the right time, and I’m learning not to rush that process or force myself into a definition. 

That curiosity has led me into different creative projects, from production and journalism to writing and editorial work. Writing, especially, is something I always wanted to explore, and recently I’ve been finding my own voice and my own way of expressing myself through it. I’ve also started working with model scouting and development, which feels very natural because I can bring everything I’ve learned from my own experience into helping someone else navigate theirs. 

When I first started modeling, I received a lot of advice from people around me. Some of it was encouraging, but some of it was negative and made me question whether this path was really possible for me. Looking back, even those difficult experiences became positive in my life because they taught me what kind of person I wanted to be for others. They showed me what I would want to do differently if I ever had the opportunity to guide someone else. 

Modeling gave me the confidence to dream, to take risks and to believe in myself. And I still believe there is so much more for me to accomplish as a model. I will always keep pursuing what I believe is meant for me. At the same time, I want to use everything I’ve learned through modeling and everything that has come with it to create, to tell stories and to help other people believe in themselves too.  

full look GUCCI

Looking back, how important has saying “yes” to unexpected opportunities been in shaping the person and creative you are today? 
Extremely important. Some of the most meaningful things in my life have come from opportunities I could never have planned. But I think I’ve also learned that an opportunity doesn’t always arrive in the form of a job, an invitation or something immediately tangible. Sometimes it arrives through another person. 

I think that during our process of discovering and shaping who we are, it can be difficult to see our own potential clearly. I believe that God, the universe, whatever you believe in as a greater force and place your faith in, sometimes puts people in our path who carry a certain light. I like to think of them as angels along the way. They may not necessarily give you a job or open a door directly, but sometimes they tell you something about yourself that you weren’t able to see yet. It can be a piece of advice, the way they see your potential, or even a vision they have of who you could become. 

Of course, not every piece of advice is meant for you, and I think part of growing is developing the intuition to recognise what resonates with you and what doesn’t. But sometimes someone says something that stays with you, and eventually you realise that what they were offering you was an opportunity to say yes to yourself. 

Many opportunities have appeared in my life at moments when I didn’t necessarily believe I was capable of them yet. And, surprisingly, I’ve said no to many of them. Sometimes because I overthink, sometimes because I don’t feel ready, and sometimes because I simply don’t understand yet why that particular thing has appeared in my life. But I’ve noticed that certain ideas and opportunities have a way of returning. If something is truly connected to my purpose, somehow there comes a moment when I feel ready to explore it. 

Sometimes, you simply have faith in something before you fully understand it. You may not know where it will take you, but you trust that there is something there for you, something that can challenge you, teach you and ultimately help you grow. Sometimes that faith is what allows you to take the first step before you have all the answers. 

Sometimes the right people appear and encourage me, and other times I reach that understanding on my own. That has taught me that saying yes doesn’t mean accepting everything that comes your way. It means being open enough to recognise when something is asking you to grow. 

And I think that’s what has surprised me the most recently. Every time I’ve allowed myself to say yes to something unexpected that genuinely felt right, I’ve discovered another part of myself. Those experiences have helped me become more curious, more adaptable and more confident in trusting not only where life is taking me, but also who I am becoming along the way. 

top EGONLAB

Building an international career often comes with uncertainty and rejection. How have those challenges shaped your resilience? 
I’m a very intense and sensitive person, and I think I’ve been that way for as long as I can remember. I learned very early in life that I experience things deeply, relationships, rejection, love, expectations, everything. There were moments when that intensity was very difficult for me to understand and even more difficult to carry. 

I went through a very painful period when I was younger, when I was in a very dark place emotionally. I was fortunate to have an incredible family around me, especially my mother, my grandmother and my grandfather, who were there for me when I needed them most. Their love and presence played a huge part in helping me get through that period. 

Looking back, I understand that some of the intensity I carried came from many different experiences throughout my childhood and adolescence, questions around my sexuality, religion, relationships, the absence of my father and other things that left their own scars. For a long time, I think I was trying to understand myself while also trying to understand how the world expected me to be. 

Therapy and a lot of personal healing helped me change my relationship with that intensity. I didn’t become a less sensitive person, and I don’t think I ever want to. I learned how to understand myself better, how to recognise what I’m feeling and how not to let every difficult experience define me. 

At the same time, I’m an artist, and I think it’s important to be honest about that. Of course I want to be seen. I want to be applauded. I want people to respond to what I create. I think every artist, in some way, hopes for a response. The difference for me today is that I don’t need that response to validate who I am. I can want recognition without depending on it to know my own value. 

Rejection still affects me because I care deeply about what I do. I don’t think resilience means becoming indifferent. For me, it means being able to feel something deeply without allowing it to stop me from moving forward. And after so many years in fashion, I’ve learned to manage rejection much better. I understand that I want to work with people who genuinely want to work with me. I want to be around people who want me there, who believe in what I can bring and where we can create something together. That mindset makes rejection much easier to navigate. 

A rejection is an experience, it isn’t a definition of my worth. I can still want the opportunity, feel disappointed when I don’t get it, and then continue moving forward. I think that is where my resilience comes from today, not from feeling less, but from knowing myself well enough to keep going.  

jacket LOUIS VUITTON
underwear LOUIS GABRIEL NOUCHI
cap PARABOLOÏDE
gloves AGNELLE
shoes ROMBAUT

You’ve spoken about trusting the timing of life. Was there a specific experience that taught you that patience can be just as valuable as ambition? 
I think my faith in my dreams has always helped me understand patience, even when I didn’t have the clarity to recognise what I was learning at the time. I’ve always been very persistent about becoming a model. I believed in it, I talked about it, I visualised it, and I never really let go of that dream. 

For a long time, when things weren’t happening for me, people would tell me that there was always a physical reason. Maybe it was my abs, the way I walked, the way I looked, or something else that needed to be changed. And for a long time, I believed that those were the reasons I wasn’t working more. Looking back, I realise it was much more complicated than that. 

Sometimes, when you’re not ready for an opportunity, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to become completely ready before it arrives. Sometimes the opportunity comes and you learn through the experience itself. I think I spent a lot of time focusing on becoming the person I thought other people wanted me to be, when perhaps I should have been paying more attention to understanding who I was becoming. 

But I also don’t want to look back at that time with resentment. That period was important. It shaped me, challenged me and helped refine me in ways I couldn’t see at the time. I think we have to learn to look at our own journey with love and accept it without turning ourselves into victims of it. We don’t have to agree with everything that happened to us, but we can still recognise what it gave us. 

For me, that’s where patience becomes just as valuable as ambition. Patience doesn’t mean stopping or giving up on what you want. I was still pursuing my dream. I was still believing in it. But I was also being shaped by everything that was happening along the way. 

There is something I carry with me that has almost become a prayer. Even the negative things in our lives can become blessings. Sometimes we only understand that much later. And I think I’ve learned to trust that a little more, to keep moving, keep believing, and allow time to reveal why certain things had to happen the way they did. 

tops and trousers DIESEL
jockstrap OUEST PARIS

You’ve become increasingly open about self-discovery. What have you learned about yourself that surprised you most? 
I think what has surprised me the most is how much of a chameleon I am. I often joke with people that I’m “multitasking” if I’m doing two or more things at the same time. But the more I think about it, the more I realise how true it actually is. I’ve learned that we have so much more capacity to reinvent ourselves than we sometimes allow ourselves to believe. 

I’ve come to understand that you can start again at any age, with any dream. Nothing is impossible until someone makes it happen, and then that person becomes a reference for everyone who comes after. I think there is something very powerful about breaking a cycle, stepping outside of a bubble and letting go of the expectations that other people have created for you. 

When I was fourteen, for example, I worked at a children’s party company. I created a character called “Uncle Giraffe,” because of my height, and I would play that character at the children's parties. It was a way for me to act, which I had always loved, while creating my own way of entertaining the children. I created a whole repertoire of games and ways of interacting with them, and I loved being able to perform, make people laugh and bring the character to life. At the same time, I was earning my own money so I could buy the things I wanted and invest in theatre, which had always been a dream of mine. 

I’ve also worked in restaurants as a waiter, in retail as a salesperson, and now I work for a fashion magazine as an editor and journalist. I write, I work on creative projects, and I find myself dreaming about more and more things I want to explore. 

When I look at all these different versions of myself, I don’t see them as disconnected. They are all part of the same person. Each experience taught me something, gave me a different perspective and brought me closer to understanding what I’m capable of. 

I think that’s what continues to surprise me about myself, this ability to adapt, to learn, to start again and to become something new without necessarily losing who I am. Maybe self-discovery isn’t about finding one definitive version of yourself. Maybe it’s about realising how many versions of you are possible. 

full look PRADA

Spirituality and faith seem to play an important role in your life. How do they influence the way you approach both your career and your everyday life? 
Faith has been part of my life long before I was even born. There is a story my mother has told me throughout my life that has had a profound impact on the way I understand faith. When she was six months pregnant with me, everything was going well. Then one night she had a dream that felt so real that she described it almost like a vision. In the dream, she saw that I would die during childbirth. She began crying and praying, asking God to change that story, give her another chance to have me in her arms and give us another chance. At one point, she knelt down with her face against the dust on the ground and prayed with everything she had. She tells me that, while she was on her knees, a very bright, powerful light suddenly appeared, so intense that she couldn't even tell where the sound was coming from. Then a voice said, “Because of your faith, I will change your story. I will give you your son in your arms so that you may know that I am God, but I want you and your family to walk in my ways.” 

My mother woke up deeply shaken and immediately contacted her gynecologist because she had dreamed that I would be born prematurely. He told her it was impossible and that there was no reason to believe she would have a premature birth. She even consulted two other doctors, and they told her the same thing. 

Then, when she was seven months pregnant, she suddenly realised that she was losing amniotic fluid. A neighbour who was with her told her to go to the hospital. When she arrived, they admitted her and began giving her injections to help mature my lungs. They didn’t want to discharge her, and even if she had been allowed to go home, she would have needed complete bed rest. But after the effort of simply going home, she began losing even more fluid and had to return to the hospital the following day. Once she was admitted again, they ran more tests because there was a serious risk of infection. The doctors explained that the infection could put either her life or mine at risk, and because she was only seven months pregnant, the situation was extremely complicated. She was even faced with the possibility of having to make an unimaginable decision about whose life could be prioritised if it came to that. 

Eventually, I was born naturally. The doctors had to rupture the remaining membranes and use forceps to help deliver me. I was 47 centimetres long and weighed 1.49 kilograms, small enough to fit inside a shoebox. I spent 17 days in intensive care, including three days when my life was extremely fragile. I developed jaundice and needed phototherapy, and because I kept pulling out the IV lines, I had to have my arms and legs secured. 

My paternal grandmother visited us in the ICU on the very day I was born. Seeing how fragile I was, she said that she didn’t think I would survive. My mother responded that I would survive because I was a promise from God in her life. For my mother, those words came from the same faith that had carried her through everything she had experienced during the pregnancy. 

When I hear this story, I don’t see it simply as a story about survival. I see it as one of the first stories of faith in my life. I wasn’t there to experience my mother’s prayer, but I grew up knowing that people were already believing in my life before I was even able to believe in it myself. My mother prayed for a different story, and she continued to believe that I was meant to live. 

I think that has influenced the way I approach my own life today. My faith doesn’t mean that I believe everything will always happen exactly as I want it to. It means that I believe there can be meaning in what I experience, even when I don’t understand it immediately. 

In my career, that gives me the courage to dream, to take risks and to keep going when I don’t have all the answers. I work hard for what I want, but I also understand that I cannot control everything. Sometimes you have to do your part and then have faith in what comes next. 

And perhaps most importantly, faith reminds me of gratitude. When I think about the fact that I’m here, doing what I love, creating, working and still dreaming about everything that is ahead of me, I feel that I have already been given an extraordinary opportunity. I think I carry that with me every day. 

For me, spirituality is not about having a perfect relationship with life or knowing exactly what will happen next. It is about trusting, being grateful and remaining open to the possibility that there is something greater guiding us, even when we cannot see the whole story yet. 

Nature appears throughout your work and your personal philosophy. What is it about being in nature that helps you reconnect with yourself? 
I’ve always felt deeply connected to nature and to the universe, and I think that connection explains many of my tattoos as well. I carry elements of nature and ancestry with me in many forms — waves from the ocean, an eagle, a black panther, butterflies, Saturn and the stars, as well as an Indigenous Cabocla figure. They all represent different things to me, but together they reflect this connection I’ve always had with the natural world, the universe and something ancestral. 

My mind doesn’t really stop. I’m always thinking, analysing, creating, questioning, and sometimes I need something that can quiet all of that. I often find that in the simplest things — the green of the trees, the blue of the ocean, the sound of birds, the wind, the feeling of being surrounded by something much bigger than myself. Nature has a way of calming me without asking anything from me. 

I also bring that connection into my home and my everyday life. I keep stones and crystals around me, and I like to light incense at home. They are small rituals, but they help me create an environment where I can slow down and reconnect with myself. 

When I’m in nature, I feel like I’m connecting not only with myself, but also with something divine and ancestral. There is something very powerful about being reminded that I’m part of something much larger than my own thoughts, my work or my everyday life. 

It’s almost as if I can silence everything that doesn’t need a voice and finally listen to the things that do. I become more present, more intuitive and more connected to my spiritual side. 

I think that’s why nature is so important to me. It doesn’t ask me to be anything. I don’t have to perform, explain myself or become a certain version of who I am. I can simply exist. And in that simplicity, I often find myself again.  

trousers and top LOUIS GABRIEL NOUCHI
shoes CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN

In an industry that rarely slows down, why has creating space for stillness become so important to you? 
I think everything in our lives is connected. There is no real separation between the way we feel internally and the way we show up in other areas of our lives. If you’re not well within yourself, I don't think you can truly be well in your work, your relationships or the way you experience the world. 

Fashion moves incredibly fast. There are flights, castings, shoots, deadlines, messages, new cities, new people, and before you realise it, another month has passed. Sometimes I feel like time is moving faster and faster. Everything happens so quickly that I think it becomes even more important to consciously create moments where nothing is happening. 

I need time that is simply for me. I like being alone sometimes and analysing things, which comes naturally to me because I’m a very analytical person. I need space to understand what I’m feeling, what I’m thinking and where I am in my life. 

I also really appreciate what I would call the art of doing nothing. I’m actually very comfortable with simply doing nothing. I don’t always need to be producing, achieving or filling every moment with something. Sometimes doing nothing is exactly what allows me to recharge. 

I think silence is important for many things. It gives you the space to hear yourself without all the noise around you. And sometimes, when you stop trying to find an answer, something inside you becomes clear on its own. 

For me, stillness isn’t about slowing down my ambition. It’s about creating enough space within myself to understand where that ambition is taking me, and whether I’m still moving in a direction that feels true to who I am.  

Nature of a Boy is such a personal project. What inspired you to create it, and what does the title represent?
Nature of a Boy was created collectively by the team and the photographer, but when I saw the concept, I immediately felt a very strong connection with it. It arrived at a moment in my life when I was already exploring many of the same questions within myself: identity, masculinity, vulnerability, nature and the different versions of who we can become. 

For me, “boy” isn’t necessarily about age. It represents a part of ourselves that remains curious, sensitive, instinctive and open to discovery. There is something very honest about that part of us, before we start becoming too concerned with expectations, definitions and everything society tells us we are supposed to be. 

One thing that is very important to me is looking at the little boy I once was and asking him if he is happy with what we are doing today. I think about that version of myself often. I try to look at my inner child with love, compassion and acceptance, rather than judging him for the things he didn’t know or the ways he was still trying to understand the world. 

Sometimes I ask myself: “If that boy could see me today, would he be proud? Would he feel that we are still following the dreams we had? Would he recognise himself in the person I’ve become?” Those questions keep me grounded and remind me not to lose the things that made me who I am. 

And “nature” represents something equally important to me, what is authentic, instinctive and connected to something larger than ourselves. It brings me back to the idea that there is a version of us that exists before all the labels we collect throughout life. 

That is why the title feels so connected to me. I’ve spent so much of my life discovering different versions of myself, and I think I’m still doing that. I don’t believe we ever arrive at one final version of who we are. We keep changing, learning, growing and sometimes returning to parts of ourselves that we had forgotten. 

So even though I didn’t create the concept alone, I feel that it found me at the right moment. It reflects a lot of what I’m living and questioning right now, and that’s what makes it feel so personal to me.  

coat, top, trouser and tie CELINE

Through Nature of a Boy, you explore vulnerability as a form of strength. Do you think our understanding of masculinity is finally beginning to change? 
I believe deeply in the idea of Yin and Yang, that there are masculine and feminine energies within all of us. To me, they are not opposites that need to compete with each other, but complementary forces that can coexist. There is femininity within masculinity and masculinity within femininity, and I think there is something very powerful about allowing both to exist within us. 

Of course, arriving at that understanding came through a lot of experiences that were painful and frustrating for me. When I was around ten or twelve, I was bullied at school for being a more feminine and sensitive child. Boys would call me gay, even though at that age I didn’t even understand my own sexuality. I was simply a child who was more sensitive, more expressive and perhaps different from what they expected a boy to be. 

I also grew up surrounded by powerful women and was raised with an enormous amount of love and strength by my mother, my grandmother and my aunts. They are some of the great muses and inspirations in my life. So, I don’t see femininity as something that takes away from my masculinity. In many ways, my masculinity is deeply connected to the femininity I grew up around, and I’m proud of that. 

For me, masculinity has never needed to mean being emotionally closed, invulnerable or constantly in control. There is strength in courage, action and having direction, but there is also strength in sensitivity, intuition, tenderness and the ability to express what you feel. I don’t think one cancels out the other. 

I think we are beginning to understand that masculinity doesn’t have to be one fixed definition. A man can be strong and gentle, ambitious and sensitive, protective and vulnerable. He can have softness without losing his strength. 

It’s actually funny because today, people sometimes see my tattoos and immediately assume I’m a bad boy. Then they meet me and realise I’m really not that at all. I think that contrast says something interesting about masculinity too. We are so quick to read people through their appearance, when there is always so much more underneath. 

And perhaps the most important thing I’ve learned is that the parts of myself that other people once made me feel ashamed of are actually some of the parts I value most today. My sensitivity, my emotionality, my connection to the feminine, they are not things I need to hide in order to be a man. They are part of the man I am. 

So yes, I think our understanding of masculinity is changing. But I also think there is still a lot of work to do. For me, real strength is being able to look at every part of yourself and say: this is also me, and I don’t need to apologise for it.  

tuxedo robe and trousers DOLCE & GABBANA

What emotions or conversations do you hope people leave with after experiencing the project? 
This story carries so much of my journey and connects it with who I am today. I’m more mature, both personally and professionally, and seeing that reflected in these images is incredibly gratifying. 

A big part of that is the incredible team behind the project. KOSMAS PAVLOS photographed it, and I think he is a genius. The way he gave himself to the process and made everything happen was incredible. LAURENT DOMBROWICZ did the styling and brought so much creativity to the story, choosing incredible looks that connected beautifully with the concept and with me. CHRISTOPHER KOLLER did an amazing job with the makeup and hair. I think the whole team brought something very special to it, and I’m grateful to all of us for making it happen. 

I would love for this story to open conversations about masculinity, identity, vulnerability and the different ways we understand ourselves. I think it’s important to understand our own strength and our own nature, what is truly ours, before all the expectations and definitions we collect along the way. We all carry different versions of ourselves, and sometimes we spend so much time moving forward that we forget to look back with tenderness at the person who brought us here.  

After everything you’ve experienced and learned, what does success mean to you now? 
Success, for me, is being well with my family and having quality time with the people I love. It’s being closer and closer to the people who matter to me and being able to share my life with them. It’s also being at peace with myself, never losing my ability to dream and never losing my faith. 

I have so many dreams and goals, and I’m sure I will always have more. I think that’s part of being alive, we are always dreaming, growing and looking for the next thing. But there are also things in life that are so valuable that, without them, none of the rest would really matter. 

For me, success is also about living my purpose on this Earth. I believe there are things that cannot be fulfilled through material achievements alone. Some things can only be nourished spiritually. 

A friend once gave me a metaphor that stayed with me. He said that in life we have two dogs, one represents our material or physical side, and the other our spiritual side. If we feed one more than the other, the other one eventually becomes weaker. I think life is about learning how to feed both and finding a balance between the material and the spiritual. 

So, of course, I still want to achieve things. I want to grow, create, travel, work, dream and accomplish many of the goals I have for myself. But success, to me, is being able to do all of that without losing the things that give my life meaning. It’s being surrounded by love, being at peace with myself, staying connected to my faith and knowing that I’m walking in the direction of my purpose. 

You’ve lived between different countries and cultures throughout your career. Has that changed your understanding of what “home” really means? 
I had to understand that being far from home doesn’t mean being disconnected from everything that gives me a sense of belonging. Over time, I realised that I also carry my own home within me, everything I’ve experienced, everything that has shaped me and the values I carry. That also applies to my spirituality. When I want to connect with God or with the divine, I can also access that within myself. I can find that connection inside me. 

My family will always be home to me. Nothing compares to coming back to their embrace and being surrounded by the people who love me. That will always be a part of what home means to me. 

At the same time, when I’m far from my family and the people I love, I need to feel comfortable within myself and know that I can carry that sense of peace wherever I go. 

Living and working in different countries has also taught me to feel at home in different cultures. Every place, every person and every culture has something different to offer. I carry a kind of filter with me, I take from each place and each person whatever feels good and meaningful to me, and those experiences become part of who I am. That’s how I continue to evolve. 

I believe that, in this life and on this planet, we are all connected in some way. So home can exist in many places. I can embrace myself wherever I am and create a sense of belonging within me. 

But there is still nothing quite like coming back to the people you love. That is home too.  

full look TOM FORD

Your work is influenced by fashion, cinema, music and travel. Where does inspiration usually find you? 
It’s funny because inspiration really comes from everywhere. It comes from all kinds of connections. I can be watching a film and a particular scene makes me feel something, and suddenly that feeling can turn into a much bigger idea. Sometimes I’ll see someone walking down the street and something about them catches my attention and connects with another thought. It can happen through music, while travelling, or even sitting in a hammock one night and simply being present in that moment. 

Dreams also bring me a lot of creativity. I feel constantly connected to the environment around me, and my mind is always creating and making connections. Sometimes it can be difficult to switch it off or filter everything that comes through, but I’m learning how to work with that instead of fighting it. 

I’ve also been learning to put more of those ideas on paper. For a long time, I had so many thoughts and creative impulses but didn’t always know what to do with them. Now I’m finding my own way of writing and expressing them, and that has opened another part of my creativity. 

I think inspiration is really about being present and allowing yourself to notice things. You never know when something very small will connect with something else inside you and become the beginning of something much bigger.  

Looking ahead, what kind of creative — and what kind of person — do you hope you’re becoming? 
I hope I’m becoming someone who continues to explore, create and stay curious. I still have so many dreams and so many things I want to accomplish, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop wanting to discover new parts of myself. 

But something I carry very strongly with me is the desire to help other people. I spent a long time trying to understand myself, questioning who I was, what I wanted and where I was going. I know how important that process can be, and I believe everyone deserves the space to go through it in their own way. 

I want to use what I’ve learned, including the difficult experiences, to create things that can have meaning beyond myself and help other people believe in themselves and their own possibilities. 

I want to keep growing creatively, have the courage to explore things I haven’t explored yet and continue finding new ways to express what I carry inside me. But more than anything, I want to become someone who can open doors for others, encourage people to believe in themselves and help them see possibilities they might not see yet. 

Ultimately, I hope I’m becoming a person who stays connected to who I am, keeps learning, keeps believing and keeps dreaming and, above all, is fulfilling my purpose on this Earth. I want to understand what that purpose asks of me and have the courage to live it fully. I want everything I’ve experienced and everything I create to have meaning beyond myself and, in some way, touch other people's lives. 

TEAM CREDITS:
model LEANDRO DA SILVA
photography KOSMAS PAVLOS
styling LAURENT DOMBROWICZ
hair and makeup CHRISTOPHER KOLLER lighting director LUKE JOHNSON
post production ALEXANDRA HEINDL
styling assistance JULIA BAS CUNILL
editor TIMI LETONJA
interview JANA LETONJA
cover design ARTHUR ROELOFFZEN