The Most Stylish Guys at Fashion Week Are All the Handsome Servers

When you attend a fashion show, there are a million things to look at. There are the clothes, of course, but there are also the models, the lights, and the famous faces in the front row. The real grist, though, is everything (and everyone) humming on in the background. Frantic publicists. Cadres of celebrity assistants and/or hangers-on. And, at certain shows, an alluringly handsome staff of hired servers, security guards, and doormen.Hiring good-looking people to perform front-facing service work isn’t exactly a novel concept, but these curated staffers are an increasingly conspicuous part of the Fashion Week ecosystem. “Atmosphere models,” as some agencies call them, are often cast to mirror the brands’ taste in the models they send down the runway. (You know—thin, cheekboned, boyish.) In Paris, I’ve heard fashion people refer to these eye-candy servers as the “cravate rouge,” so named for the red neckties they’re sometimes made to wear. Nowadays, when luxury brands are constantly pulling out all the stops to garner attention, every impression counts.In June, Celine accommodated the Paris heat wave by hiring young men in crisp white shirts to distribute glass bottles of water printed with the brand’s logo. Last fall, Dior dressed floppy-haired cuties in gray cashmere sweaters and slacks to work “security” at their spring 2026 show. Over the last few seasons, Valerio Farris, a photographer and PR creative strategist based in Milan, has been photographing the many dashing camerieri he encounters on his personal Instagram. During this most recent Milan Fashion Week, we asked him to photograph them for us.Growing up, Farris spent a good chunk of his teen years and early adulthood working events for his parents’ catering company. “I grew up in the service industry as a cater waiter, so I always really have my eye on those types of people in any type of environment,” he says. Now that he works in fashion communications, he typically spends his Milan Fashion Weeks overseeing shows, presentations, and parties. There, he’s made a habit of chatting with and documenting these staffers at industry affairs.Some of them are students and, as one might expect, many are models themselves. “They’re not just boys who wandered off the street and are holding a tray,” he says. “They’re just kind of thrust into these super random but highly, highly curated spaces.” These gigs tend to be the sort of surreal scenes that Samantha Jones might host in Sex in the City—say, hunky guys holding silver platters lined with chocolates and Champagne at a lingerie-brand cocktail hour.At all of these events, says Farris, “there’s something that’s very obviously being presented,” be it clothes or jewelry or artwork. “I always thought it was quite funny to turn your back [and] pick up on something that was a bit more supposed to be ‘part of the scenery.’ But they’re gorgeous and they’re fantastic and they deserve their own kind of shot as well.”As of late, Farris has been approached with the idea of turning his photos into a calendar. “Have you ever traveled to Rome? They sell this calendar of hot priests,” he says. “And I was like, ‘Oh wait, this would be really funny to do a Milanese version with, like, hot waiters.’”