Italy is a country synonymous with fashion and design, known worldwide for prestigious brands, exquisite tailoring, and unmistakable elegance and glamour. In a place where style is intrinsic to social life, the importance of making a good impression,“la bella figura,” has made dressing well an extension of living well, “la dolce vita.”
The importance of making a good impression was something I was carefully contemplating as I prepared to interview Rudy Bundini, the model recently featured on the cover of the Italian fashion magazine Faddy. While I have interviewed dozens of celebrities, the prospect of meeting Rudy made me nervous. A recognizable face, he has modeled for such iconic brands as Armani, Versace, Calvin Klein, and Hennesy, as well as campaigns for luxury lifestyle brands like Roger Dubuis and Philipp Plein. Indeed, after having watched his Portfolio dozens of times more than was necessary (for work reasons, obviously!), I had become somewhat infatuated with the model. Maybe it was the chiseled jaw, or those pecs, or his gorgeous eyes, but something about his hunky looks left me seriously worked up. As I waited to interview Rudy, the butterflies in my stomach turned to displaced hornets. I was convinced Rudy would be the hottest person I had ever met.
I was not wrong. Upon meeting him, I received visual confirmation that, yes. Rudy Bundini is hot. Smoking hot. Or, as I later described him to a friend, “en fuego” hot. It is nearly impossible to be anywhere near Bundini and not find yourself staring at him. He is impeccably dressed, and there is an effortless charisma in the way he moves and speaks. Rudy moved to New York in 2014, and his barely-detectable accent belies his meteoric rise in the modeling world. “I consider myself a New Yorker. If you believe in yourself and your dreams, New York will always be the place for you.” It is this ambition that makes Bundini seem unexpectedly humble and gives him an almost coltish charm. Talking with him feels like chatting with the best looking guy in high-school chemistry class – the one whose eyes cause you to daydream about him as he explains the mechanics of combustion. Approachable and quick to flash a megawatt smile, he made me feel at once both at ease and girlishly nervous.
In front of the camera, Bundini transforms. When posing for photographers in the studio, he goes from the friendly, cheerful man I interviewed to a seductive, charismatic, heart-palpitation-inducing model. Witnessing Bundini work is akin to watching a master at his craft: he moves like water as the lens shutters, working through a series of nearly imperceptible adjustments to perfect each pose in rapid fire succession. It is immediately evident that Bundini is a world-class model: he knows exactly which angle makes his jaw the most irresistible, and he delivers a raw magnetism and impressive intuition for what goes into an iconic image. When he’s posing for the camera, you cannot walk away.
The industry could not agree more: Bundini is one of the most sought after models in the world, and his fan base of over one million Instagram followers continues to grow. His most recent Nike commercial became a viral sensation, and showcased an additional facet of Bundini’s talent: acting. I couldn’t help but to ask Bundini about this aspect of his career, and how modeling prepared him for this campaign: “It was a lot less modeling. You know, when you’re looking sultry in the camera, it’s not a split-frame. When it comes to taking a picture, you have to connect for that frame. You have to connect to the photographer, with the stylist, and the hair and makeup you’re doing, but also to the reader and whoever views the image. And you have to maintain that connection – you have to be within that moment. So it’s like taking the frame of a picture and situating it by a thousand, which I really enjoyed.”
His fans enjoyed it as well. Whether modeling for the cover of an Italian fashion magazine, fronting a campaign for one of the largest sporting companies in the world, or walking the most sought-after runway shows of New York Fashion Week, it seems that everyone wants to see more of Rudy Bundini.
