A lanky 16-year-old with dyed white hair and piercing blue eyes walks through Paris’ Jardin des Tuileries when a group of girls spots him.
They raise their phones and start snapping photos while dozens more teens rush toward him.
Suddenly, he’s surrounded by close to 200 squealing girls.
This isn’t a member of One Direction. It’s Lucky Blue Smith, a Mormon model with a rabid social media following, who moonlights in a band with his equally beautiful sisters.
“Most of them are shaking,” Smith says of the girls he meets after his fashion shows. “Some of them keep their cool, but when they hold their phones to take a selfie with me, their hands are trembling.”
With movie-star looks that recall James Dean, Smith is a rising sensation in an industry where — with respect to Derek Zoolander — men often remain nameless pretty faces.
This winter was Smith’s inaugural season doing the fashion-week circuit — and he walked in 12 shows including Tom Ford, Fendi and Jeremy Scott. He’s been featured in ads for Levi’s, Tommy Hilfiger and H&M, and is currently gracing the April cover of French magazine Jalouse alongside model Hailey Baldwin.
“I have never, in all my years as an agent, seen a response like this to a male model,” says Mimi Yapor, his agent at Next Models LA.
Teenvogue.com agrees. They called him the “male model of the moment,” due in part to his “crazy fans.”
Crazy might be an understatement.
During his January Paris meet-and-greet, one girl fainted after he hugged her. This month, Smith was in New York to perform at an event, and one fan drove five hours to meet him.
The hysteria is just fine with Smith.
“My favorite thing is meeting new people,” he says. “The girls are so sweet and innocent.”
While traveling for work, he started posting his whereabouts to connect with his 825,000 Instagram followers. And whether he’s in the Big Apple, Milan or Paris, they always show. Sometimes, he’ll even grab coffee or lunch with an admirer.
Would-be suitors might be out of, ahem, luck for now. Smith says he’s in the beginning stages of a relationship. And while he won’t reveal much about his new girl, he says he likes the low-key type.
“I like a girl with a good personality that I can have fun with. If I am taking you out on a date, let’s eat burgers and cheese fries,” says Smith.
His rise to heartthrob status began to solidify before he even stepped onto the runway — thanks to an Instagram account flaunting shirtless snaps and brooding selfies. Now Smith nets about 1,000 new followers on a daily basis.
“He’s everywhere at the moment,” says Rosie Daly, a models.com editor. “He’s a boy who’d be booked even if he had zero social media presence — he’s a beautiful guy, and the social media thing is a bonus.”
Smith was discovered by the director of Next Models LA at the age of 12. But it was his three older sisters who initially caught the agent’s eye.
The family flew out to Los Angeles from their native Utah to explore modeling careers for the girls and brought Lucky along with them. The agency immediately signed all four siblings.
Two years ago, the gorgeous clan, including mother Sheridan, a former model, dad Dallon and sisters Pyper America, 18, Daisy Clementine, 19, and Starlie, 21 (yes, those are Lucky and his sibs’ real names), moved to Hollywood, where they all currently live in a two-bedroom apartment and are home-schooled.
After moving to LA, Smith dyed his light brown hair a now-signature white.
“My agent thought I looked too ‘sweet California boy,’ and they needed something edgy,” says Smith, who quickly began booking top assignments after the bleach job.
When Smith and his siblings aren’t modeling, they’re playing together in a band they formed when he was 10, the Atomics. Smith, who plays the drums, compares their music to the Black Keys.
Their parents help manage their children’s lives and their music. Smith says: “My dad taught us all to play. He can just pick up any instrument.”
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While music and good looks run in the family, the fashion industry has taken some time for Smith to learn.
“I didn’t know half the designers I walked for,” he says.
One designer he does know is Hedi Slimane of Saint Laurent. The fashion house’s creative director shot Smith for Vogue Hommes Japan when he was 12 years old, back when he was living in Utah.
Four years later, he has his big blue eyes on the prize.
Smith says with a bright smile: “I want a Saint Laurent campaign, for sure.”