For years, Jon Kortajarena thought staying silent was a strength. These days, he’s learning that release is its own kind of resilience. “I used to believe crying made me weak,” he says. “Now I know it’s liberating.”
Over the last two decades, Kortajarena has modelled for Tom Ford, walked for Bottega Veneta, and fronted fragrance campaigns that defined eras. He’s still in the business of being looked at, but his focus has shifted inward. “I’ve realised how important it is to let go,” he says. “To feel things fully.”
His mornings begin with meditation. Not an app. Not a curated ritual. Just a few quiet minutes, no matter where he is. “Even five minutes helps,” he says. “When I travel, it gives me a sense of consistency. I can take it with me everywhere.” The practice is deliberately simple. It’s not part of a brand story or done to be documented. It exists because he needs it.
For Kortajarena, wellness is about what lasts; what holds up when you’re jet-lagged, overstimulated or expected to perform. It’s a checkpoint he returns to before slipping into character in front of a camera.
Because modelling, he says, is always a kind of performance. “You’re never just posing. You’re telling a story.” It’s a craft built on connection, and that connection has to start from somewhere real. “If I don’t feel something, there’s nothing behind the eyes.”
That emotional effort rarely gets acknowledged. The stillness of a finished photo masks the energy it took to get there. The long-haul flights, the half-slept nights, the mental reset required to step into someone else’s vision of beauty. But Kortajarena is not one to romanticise; he talks about the work like someone who’s learned not just how to do it, but how to recover from it.
Recovery, for him, has meant unlearning what he once believed about masculinity. “For years, I thought I had to be the strong guy who never showed emotion,” he says. “But I’ve learned to do the opposite.” He doesn’t say this like a thesis, just something he knows now. “Masculinity doesn’t have to be hard. I’m stronger when I’m connected to myself.”
He isn’t offering a manifesto. What’s changed is harder to pin down, something internal that shapes how he feels and works. Later this year, Kortajarena steps into a new role as a global ambassador for the Hummingbird Fashion Award, which supports the Elton John AIDS Foundation. He’s not positioning himself as the voice but instead making room for others. “Fashion needs to be more democratic,” he says. “It’s time to listen to new voices.” For him, the platform is a chance to reflect on what it means to show up in fashion, what visibility is for and who gets to be seen. “This industry has given me so much,” he says. “I want to give something back. I want to help shape what comes next.”
