New Name: 17-year-old musician and top model Lucky Blue
IN RUBRIC "NEW NAME" Once a week we talk about promising newcomers: musicians, directors, artists and other creative people — that is, everyone whose name is increasingly appearing on the pages of magazines, in social network tapes and in our conversations and who is clearly on the verge of great success. Today we talk about a young American model, Mormon and a drummer with the heartbreaking name of Lucky Blue Smith.
About 17-year-olds, it is usually accepted to say that they have a great future (and well, if so). But the stories are notable for exceptions, and Lucky Blue is one of them. It is a little strange to talk about a teenager that he already has a great past, but otherwise it can’t be called: for the last five years he has consistently and confidently turned into a king of podiums, an idol of youth (mostly female) and a pop star of the Instagram era. At 12 he was shot by Edie Sliman for the Japanese Vogue Homme, followed by Levi's in his campaign against the background of the inscription "Hollywood"; Now crowds go for Lucky Blue, wherever he appears, he is invited to the show by Ellen DeGeneres, and separate articles from Business of Fashion and New York Magazine are devoted to his phenomenon. He is one of those who do not even need a surname for recognition - like Naomi, Kate or Kare - although, we recognize, such a name as his is difficult to forget.
Back in 2010, little predicted such a development. Lucky Blue was an awkward, angular and lanky teenager with long, whitish patla (sorry for that word, but you can't tell otherwise) and protruding front teeth, by his own admission, made him look like a rodent. Add to this the three beauties-sisters slightly older, and everything will be clear - the guy in the Smith family has long been not the first cast. Moreover, the beauty in this family was obviously transmitted through the maternal line: the mother of our hero Sheridan Smith was a model in her youth, like her mother, by the way. Father's mom, too.
All three sisters Lucky Blue are also models, and looking at their family photos is really weird. Such a concentration of conventional beauty almost depreciates it and at least dehumanizes it: we see the embodiment of the American dream, as if fixed in one frame. It would seem that even living people have no such names: in addition to Lucky Blue, the younger generation of the Smith family is Daisy Clementine, Piper America and Starley Cheyenne. Yes, these are all real names, and I really want to go to their hometown, Spanish Fork, in Utah, to see the names of the other residents.
Actually, the origin - the second trump card in the sleeve of the Smith family, and it seems that they are well aware that he gives them +10 to charisma and singularity. The natives of the Mormon state of America, the Smiths, as befits adherents of this religious movement, propagandize it in every way (even by the very fact of their existence): they demonstrate to journalists how they pray before a meal, and revealingly stick to traditional family values. From time to time, Lucky Blue himself tweets quotes from the Book of Mormon on Twitter, which leads his online flock to both delight, tenderness and bewilderment. Considering that before we knew only one Mormon sex symbol — The Killers lead singer Brandon Flowers — and the followers of Mormonism are still suspected of polygamy and virginity before marriage, an additional halo of mystery naturally arose around Lucky.
← The first clip of the Atomics Smith family, where Lucky Blue is only thirteen years old
Unfortunately, all this almost says nothing about the personality of the young man and his inner world: success in the modeling business, traditions and beliefs inherent in his parents and the environment, even his passion for music - all this does not seem to be exactly he, but the image which other people try on it. The success story of Lucky Blue, as in a textbook, follows the path of many children-stars, which their parents stubbornly and since their early years. When our hero was ten, his fourteen-year-old sister was taken to model casting in Salt Lake City, and more than successfully. She was signed by one of the major US agencies Next, and a couple of years later Smiths brought two other daughters and a son to Los Angeles. A couple of recommendations from the Bookers, six months in braces and a few hours in the hairdresser's chair - and so a new star was born: platinum blond with a piercing look, for which he is always compared with James Dean.
Even the family and very good surf-rock band of young Smiths The Atomics, in which Lucky Blue sits at the drums, and the sisters play the guitars, it seems, at least in part, invented by their father. He, as is usually the case, is their manager. Reporter The Cut says that in the Los Angeles apartment, where now all four live with their parents, the walls are plastered and painted not with cheerful rebellious slogans and pictures, as is customary at this age, but with motivational signs charging for success and success once again, like "You work hard, work hard to fame." In the task list The Atomics, which also hangs in a prominent place, is to get to the first line of the iTunes charts. It’s not very hard to believe that they will succeed in this, but Lucky Bleu always has a cinema walk away: on top of that, he is going to play with Rob Diamond, an indie director and friend of the Smith family.
All this together should be terrible to put pressure on the teenage psyche, but, looking at Lucky Blue, you understand that it seems to be saved by the fact that he is a teenager. He sincerely "freezes out" and laughs at himself on the Ellen show, feels like a king and a jerk at the same time, and with pleasure (with the encouragement of his mother) gives out on Instagram the coordinates of his whereabouts - where crowds of fans fly right away. Yes, perhaps this is how parents want to see the success of their offspring, but this does not mean that this is not at all in tune with the offspring itself. It remains only to wait when the personality begins to break through from under all these clichés and games of innocent sex symbolism. "I really would not want to turn into one of these guys who are becoming famous and start behaving like terrible assholes," he says, and we would love to catch him with the word.
