A NEW FACE EMERGING: ALEXIS OTERO

By Leon Haasbroek

My editorial career has shaped into a space where I spend time with male models, understanding not only their journeys within the fashion industry, but how they balance modelling alongside their future ambitions. It has become a lens I am particularly drawn to, especially when exploring how lifestyle, discipline, and environment shape the modern male model.

More recently, I have found myself delving into the connection between the ocean, surfing culture, and the new generation of talent emerging globally. There is a certain calmness, a clarity, and a physical awareness that often translates so naturally into the visual language of fashion. It was within this broader exploration that Alexis Otero caught my attention.

There is a quiet moment in every model’s career before the industry catches up, before the runways, before the campaigns, before the recognisability. It is a space defined not by volume, but by potential, and Alexis Otero exists precisely in that moment.

Born in Cuba and raised between two realities, his story begins far from the traditional fashion capitals. A childhood shaped by restriction, where access to something as simple as the internet was not a given, and where modelling, as a concept, did not exist in any tangible way. When his parents made the decision to leave, it was not for opportunity within fashion, but for something far more fundamental, a better life, and Spain became that new beginning.

It was there, in Mallorca, that modelling first entered his world, not through ambition, but through suggestion. A few images sent, a conversation opened, a possibility introduced that had never been considered before.

“The first thing that caught my interest was being able to make a life out of my image,” he says. “I never thought that was something I could do.”

At the time, it was not taken seriously. It could not be. Without context, without understanding the mechanics of the industry, modelling remained abstract. It was not until his move to London, and a series of meetings that culminated in signing with IMG Models, that the shift occurred. That moment reframed everything.

“If an agency that important sees something in you, then maybe this can really become your life,” he reflects.

From there, the discipline began, the subtle transformation that often goes unseen. Attention to detail, physical conditioning, skin, presence, the quiet work that precedes visibility. Yet what makes Alexis particularly compelling is not just his entry into modelling, but the duality of his life alongside it.

At the same time as signing with some of the most influential agencies globally, he was studying dentistry, a structured, demanding path that exists in complete contrast to the fluidity of fashion. Balancing the two has not been seamless, flights between commitments, studying on planes, working the next day, missing opportunities, navigating the friction between two entirely different futures.

It is here that his story becomes layered.

Modelling, for Alexis, is not rooted in escapism, it is rooted in possibility. Dentistry remains a long-term anchor, something he speaks about returning to one day, stability, family, longevity, the kind of considerations that rarely surface this early in a modelling career yet feel intrinsic to how he views his life.

In contrast, the modelling experiences themselves unfold with a certain unpredictability, rowing a boat for a shoot, climbing snow covered mountains for a campaign, swimming far into open water in winter conditions to capture a single shot. These are the moments that have defined his early career, not through scale, but through experience.

“This is what makes modelling exciting,” he says. “You never know what you are going to be doing next.”

There is also a quiet sense of perspective in how he perceives the industry. Working with brands such as Emporio Armani and Dsquared2 has not yet been mythologised in his mind. Instead, he describes those early experiences with a level of clarity that speaks to his stage, observational, not inflated.

The real intrigue lies in what is still to come.

Advised by his agencies to focus on professionalism above all else, Alexis speaks about consistency in simple terms, being in shape, being present, being kind, showing up, building a presence that clients remember. It is the foundation of longevity, stripped back to its essentials.

Outside of work, his world simplifies again, clean lines, minimal styling, a preference for looking good without trying too much, time spent between sport, friends, and family. The ocean plays a recurring role, not as a performance space, but as a place of stillness, swimming, snorkeling, fishing, watching the water as a way to disconnect from everything else.

“The ocean, for me, is relaxation,” he says.

It is perhaps this duality, between movement and stillness, ambition and grounding, that defines him most clearly.

There is a quiet confidence in the way he speaks about his own potential, not overstated, but understood, a recognition of his features, his versatility, the ability to exist between commercial and high fashion, a space that, when developed correctly, becomes incredibly valuable within the industry.

“I think I have a mix,” he says. “That is something uncommon.”

And then, almost instinctively, the vision sharpens. A future cover, a global campaign, the ocean once again, this time not as a place of escape, but as a backdrop, a reference to Acqua di Giò, and the kind of imagery that has defined masculine fragrance campaigns for decades.

It is specific, it is visual, it is intentional.

Alexis Otero may still be at the beginning, but there is a clarity to where this could go. And sometimes, that is all that matters.