Their female peers get all the glory, but the world of male modeling has no shortage of former stars. The Lucky Blues of yesterday are legion. Consider the athletic elegance of Bill Curry in his late-’70s heyday, the alpha maleness of ’80s super John Pearson, or the groundbreaking 1990s success of Tyson Beckford. In honor of the men’s Fall 2016 shows, which kicked off this weekend in London (find our complete coverage here), we sat down with some of the most beautiful men in the business.

Tony Spinelli

tony spinelli Photo: (From left) Irving Penn, Vogue, April 1978; Courtesy of Tony Spinelli

As one of the key figures of the 1970s modeling industry, Spinelli’s smoldering good looks could be seen everywhere from Halston’s debut ad campaign to Avedon’s landmark work for Versace. He was a frequent presence in the pages of Vogue, for which he was shot by Arthur Elgort, Helmut Newton, and Bob Richardson.

“I was attending the New York Institute of Technology, and while I was studying there a lot of people told me that I should try modeling. Of course, you just blow that off in general conversation. It got to the point, though, where so many people said it that I started to take it seriously. A friend of mine knew of the Ford Agency. Ford would have open calls on Monday or Tuesday, so my friend brought me with her to see the men’s agents. I had just come back from Florida and I was tan, with long hair down my shoulders and a mustache. If you know anything about Ford back then, you know that was not the Ford look!

I had no idea who Eileen Ford was, but she was in the hallway as we arrived, and she came up to my friend and said, ‘What’s going on over here?’ Looking the way I did, Eileen must have thought I was there to pick up the trash! My friend said, ‘Eileen, this is my friend Tony, and he wants to be a model.’ Eileen took one look at me and said, ‘You have got to be kidding me.’ I got rejected from several agencies—Wilhelmina, Elite—but there was one new agency called Zoli that took me, long hair and all.