Mens clothing store, Hallensteins, is pushing the boundaries with their latest photoshoot, featuring a female modelling the new season gear amongst the men.

Hallensteins put the call out on their Facebook page “looking for real brothers to take part in a photo shoot” for the new season Show your dark side campaign. It just so happened that one of those “brothers” was Clare Sweeney from Two Hands Tattoo, who express featured last year.

Sweeney says “Scott, the Hallensteins National Visual Merchandising Manager, came into Two Hands to get tattooed and it went from there. He just asked me to do it, it was really easy, he said he wanted the three of us, I was one of them and I said yes.”

Project Creative Director, Lachlan McPherson was excited to be working with a female as part of the campaign, ”As part of this campaign we put the call out through Facebook and our friends for real guys with a story to tell. One of those guys suggested we also work with his ‘brother’ who just happened to be a woman.”

“This is the first time Hallensteins has ever featured their clothes being worn by a female model. We are all really happy with the result,” he says.

Androgyny has long been a hot trend in the fashion industry, however a woman modeling mens clothing is rarely if ever seen from a mainstream clothing company and certainly not in New Zealand. Hallensteins seems to understand that their customer base extends beyond traditional gender roles.

“I was treated exactly the same as every other person modeling and they dressed me in the kind of thing I wear anyway. Almost all the clothes I own are ‘mens’ so it was just normal, dressing femme would’ve been a lot more uncomfortable for me!” says Sweeney.

“The shoot was sweet, everyone was awesome and we knew some of the people working on the shoot and in the office. I have no idea how to model so I just tried to put all my years of watching Top Model to good use!”

So will we be seeing more of Sweeney on billboards in mens clothing? “I guess I’d do it again, I don’t really have any great ambitions to become a model but it was fun!” she says.

| Sarah Murphy