John John Florence for British Vogue

Words by Ali Klinkenberg

I was leafing through my subscription of British Vogue, yeah I know there’s an Australian issue but if you want quintessential elegance then you have to go straight to the source, and I suddenly became petrified. Turned to stone with pure adulation. Joy and rapture that my worlds had collided once more, because, there he was. All penetrating eyes and muscles, John John Florence. In vogue and in Vogue.

British Vogue shot our darling brothers Florence (John and Nathan, but no Ivan this time) and the jaw-dropping Mahina Garcia (who not-so-quietly, looks 10 times more beautiful than the gun-for-hire models) on the North Shore of Oahu, in film noir. It’s not the first time that the brothers have appeared on the pages of the world’s most fabulous magazine, either. The photographs of the angelic Florence bros with the perpetually gorgeous Malloys from some years ago are enough to bring a salty tear of nostalgia to even the most sun-blazed eyes.

What I really love is the beautiful dissonance of our worlds. The brothers are described as “minnows” (which is a small tasteless fish, btw) and the article is called Wave Riders. Don’t they know how much that cute aryan boy earns? Take Anna Wintour’s wage and double it darling!

You don’t understand us, and we don’t understand you, and that’s not a bad thing. Let’s just lead fabulous separate lives, and, when the time and the light is just right, combine in beautifully meaningless collaboration. John, Vogue, don’t ever change.