FRANCISCO LACHOWSKI - THE ICON COMES HOME Vanity Teen

Sixteen years later, Francisco Lachowski returns to Vanity Teen

Sixteen years ago, Francisco Lachowski was eighteen, a rising model with Vanity Teen written across his chest. The internet turned that boy into an obsession.
Time did something far more interesting: it gave him a life.

Now Chico is back on our cover, older, sharper, a husband, a father, still chasing a decent forehand and still refusing to take himself too seriously.
From the early days of fashion’s digital underground to a generation that has turned his face into internet mythology, his story has outlived the images that made him famous.
The face remains.
The context has changed.
The boy became a man without becoming a monument to his own past.

This is not a nostalgia trip.
It is a full-circle moment with a pulse.
The same magazine, the same magnetic face, sixteen years of life in between.
For our October digital cover, Chico returns to Vanity Teen to talk growing older without growing stale, the beauty of getting things wrong, fatherhood, tennis, and everything that exists beyond the frame.

Some images become iconic.
Some people become trapped inside them.
Chico came back with a life of his own.

Sixteen years ago, you were 18, photographed for Vanity Teen with “Vanity Teen” written across your chest. Now you’re back on the cover. If the boy in those photographs could step into this new shoot for five minutes, what would surprise him most about the man he’s looking at?

Probably that we’re still doing this! At 18, I was discovering everything as it happened. I didn’t have some big plan for a long career in fashion. I think seeing Jess and the boys would be the biggest thing for him. I always wanted a family, but imagining it and actually living it are very different. He’d probably have a lot of questions about that. And then he’d ask if we still play tennis.

That 2010 shoot became almost an internet relic, and Vanity Teen even brought it back in 2014 with the title “I Love You Francisco Lachowski.”
Do you remember the feeling of being that boy in front of the camera, or has that version of you become someone you now remember almost as a photograph?

Looking at those photos is strange because I recognize myself, but so much has happened since then. At that age, I was traveling, meeting people and learning how this whole world worked. I liked the adventure of it. You don’t do a shoot thinking people will still be talking about it sixteen years later. For me, it belongs to the beginning of my life as a model. For someone else, it might remind them of being a teenager themselves. It’s pretty crazy that a photograph can connect those two things.

Your new Vanity Teen cover arrives sixteen years later. What did you want the camera to capture this time that it simply couldn’t have captured back then?

I’d like to think you can see that I’m more comfortable with myself. I have more experience now, and a whole life that has happened between those two shoots. Becoming a husband and a father, making mistakes, learning things about myself. You bring all of that with you, even if you’re just standing in front of a camera. I still want to have fun with it. I wouldn’t want getting older to mean losing the playful side of who I am.

You’ve gone from runways and fashion campaigns to fatherhood, tennis, cycling, podcasts, and your own digital world. Somewhere along the way, “model” stopped being the whole story. Who is Francisco when nobody needs him to look like Francisco Lachowski?

Just Chico. Pretty easy to find, actually: with my family, on a tennis court, on a bike, or having a coffee. I like being outside and having something to do. At home, there are normal things to take care of, and I enjoy that. Modeling has been a huge part of my life, but the people closest to me know the everyday version. I think sharing more of that has been good. There’s a lot more to talk about once people get past the photographs.

You once wanted to become a professional tennis player, and now tennis has found its way back into your life. If your 18-year-old self could choose one career path for you, model, athlete, or something completely unexpected, which one do you think he would pick, and which one would you actually choose today?

The younger me would probably choose professional tennis. That was a real dream for me. I took it seriously, but pursuing it in Brazil was difficult, especially financially. Modeling came along and opened a completely different life.

Today, knowing what that life has given me, I’d choose the path I took. It brought me opportunities I couldn’t have imagined, and I met Jess in Japan through that world. Now I get to have tennis in my life again in a bigger way, and share it with my boys. I’m very lucky with how things worked out.

Fashion is obsessed with youth, but you’ve somehow made getting older part of the appeal. What did you gain at 35 that you could never have faked at 18?

Perspective. At 18, so many things are happening for the first time that you don’t have much to compare them with. A job can feel enormous. Someone’s opinion can feel enormous. You get older and experience enough good and difficult moments to understand that things keep moving.

Becoming a father young also gave me responsibilities outside myself. I still care about doing a good job, but I have a better sense of where it fits in my life. I don’t think you can really pose your way into that. You have to live a little.

Your Instagram has become almost a second autobiography: fashion, family, sport, travel, coffee, chaos, real life. If you had to delete everything except one photograph to explain who you are today, what would that photograph look like?

It would be a picture with Jess and the boys, somewhere outside. Probably a moment where nobody is properly ready for the photo. Someone laughing, someone moving, maybe me trying to get everyone together and making it worse.

I’d want to look at it and remember what it felt like to be there. We’ve had the chance to make beautiful professional pictures together, but for this question I’d choose something that feels like an ordinary day with us. That would explain a lot about me.

Imagine we erase the internet, the campaigns, the covers, the follower count, and every photograph ever taken of you. What would still be unmistakably Francisco Lachowski?

My family would still be the center of my life. I’d still be someone who likes to share what he has and help where he can. If someone close to me needs something, I want them to know they can count on me. Being generous isn’t always about giving things; sometimes it’s making time, listening or just showing up. I think the people who know me would recognize that immediately. And I’d probably still be trying to get everyone outside to do something together, followed by a coffee.

A LETTER TO YOUR FUTURE SELF:
Twenty years from now, you find this interview again. Write yourself a letter in one paragraph. What do you hope you never become, what do you hope you still love, and what do you hope the man reading this has finally understood about life?

Hey Chico, I hope you’re still moving and that you can still hit a decent forehand. I hope you and Jess still make each other laugh, and that the boys want to spend time with you now that they have their own lives. I hope you’ve given them space to become themselves, and that you still find adventures to go on together. Keep traveling, discovering new places and saying yes to experiences that excite you. Take care of yourself so you can keep playing sports and doing the things you love for as long as possible. Please don’t become someone who only talks about how good things used to be. Be interested in what’s happening now. Keep finding reasons to go outside, see your friends and try something you’re not already good at. I hope you’re proud of the work you did and even prouder of how you treated people. If you’re healthy, loved and still curious, I hope you know how much you have.