ENZO PAPER - AFTER HOURS, BEFORE THE DREAM Vanity Teen

Between Parisian nights, fashion and carefully composed images, Enzo Paper opens up about digital identity, authenticity and the life beyond the frame. An intimate conversation about creative ambition, personal style and the courage to dream beyond the image.

Somewhere between the last drink and the first light, between a hotel lobby and an empty Parisian street, reality starts to feel a little like a film.

For our first digital cover story of November, Enzo Paper takes us into a world where luxury meets instinct, elegance meets after-dark energy, and nothing is quite as it seems. Framed by the quiet glamour of a luxury hotel and the unmistakable presence of an Aston Martin after dark, the editorial captures a man who understands that an image can be powerful, but the world behind it is what gives it meaning.

At 24, Enzo has built a universe around his own perspective, moving effortlessly between fashion, cars, travel and nightlife. Yet, beyond the perfectly composed frames and the cinematic glimpses of his everyday life, there is a much more thoughtful story unfolding. One about ambition, creative identity, the art of being seen and, perhaps most importantly, the things that are better left unseen.

In our conversation, Enzo opens up about the difference between authenticity and transparency, the freedom of Paris after dark, the memories that shaped his relationship with fashion, and his ambition to build something that can exist far beyond his own image. Because, as he puts it, an image is a key, not the house itself.

There is a certain beauty in not revealing everything. In leaving a little room for interpretation. And perhaps that’s where the real Enzo begins: somewhere between what we see, what we imagine, and everything happening just outside the frame.

This is not just a story about looking like you’re living a dream. It’s about being there, living it, and having the ambition to create something beyond it.

Welcome to Enzo’s world. After hours, before the dream.

ENZO PAPER - AFTER HOURS, BEFORE THE DREAM ENZO PAPER - AFTER HOURS, BEFORE THE DREAM Vanity Teen

THE PERSON BEHIND THE FEED

Your world looks polished, fast and almost cinematic online. But what is something about the real Enzo that could never be captured by a post, a story or a camera?

I think you’re right when you say that everything looks cinematic, because I’m very conscious of how I present things. Almost nothing happens by accident. What people see online is actually the result of a very carefully constructed process, with a lot of thought and planning behind it. There are details that nobody will probably ever notice, but that matter enormously to me. Even ten seconds of video can take days of coordination, problem-solving, last-minute changes and countless decisions before everything finally comes together.

But I think the real Enzo is also much simpler than the version people see on their feeds. There are parts of my life that I deliberately choose not to share, not because I’m trying to hide anything, but because they don’t need an audience. Some things are simply more meaningful when they remain personal.

A large part of what happens behind the scenes is actually quite ordinary: airports, constant travelling back and forth, meetings, work, long conversations and moments of concentration. I’ve come to appreciate the time I spend on planes because, ironically, it’s one of the few moments when nobody can really reach me and I can completely focus on my thoughts and creative direction. Many of my ideas come together somewhere between two cities.

Of course, there’s also a lot of work that doesn’t necessarily photograph well. It’s about thinking, developing ideas, solving problems and working closely with people. In many ways, it’s very similar to editorial work: you don’t always know exactly what the final result will look like when you begin, and that’s part of the beauty of the process. There’s a lot happening before the final image or project even exists. And I think that’s the part of my world that a story could never really capture.

THE ART OF BEING SEEN

Today, visibility is almost a currency. Do you think people are still looking for authenticity, or have we reached a point where creating a persona is part of being authentic?

I think it’s an interesting question, especially because we’re constantly choosing who we are in different situations. We all have different sides to our personalities, depending on the people we’re with, the environment we’re in and the moment we’re experiencing. I don’t necessarily think that makes someone less authentic. Being authentic doesn’t mean presenting exactly the same version of yourself in every situation.

When you become a public figure, visibility inevitably becomes part of the conversation. But personally, I’ve always been more interested in the idea of mystery than complete transparency. Here in Paris, for example, I feel like mystery is almost part of the culture. Everyone seems to be creating a certain world around themselves, something that isn’t immediately accessible to everyone. I find that much more interesting than the idea of having to explain everything about who you are.

The real question, I think, is whether that mystery comes naturally from the person or whether it becomes something they deliberately construct. Because once you’ve built an identity that people recognise, you inevitably start protecting it. And that’s a strange position to find yourself in: you want to remain authentic, but at the same time, you feel responsible for protecting your creative direction and the world you’ve created.

My personal goal has always been to exaggerate reality rather than invent it. I like taking something that already exists and giving it a particular perspective, making it more expressive without losing its essence. That’s probably my own way of approaching authenticity.

I also think there’s an important distinction between authenticity and transparency. I’m not necessarily interested in being completely transparent about everything. I don’t believe that being authentic requires you to share every detail of your life. What matters to me is that whatever I choose to show genuinely reflects who I am, what I like and the way I see the world. In that sense, I prefer being authentic to being entirely exposed.

FASHION AS A LANGUAGE

You move between fashion, luxury, travel, cars and nightlife. What do these worlds say about the generation you belong to — and what do you think your generation is trying to prove through them?

I think my generation has a very strong identity and a very particular way of expressing itself. It’s true that we often communicate through images before we even use words. We were born into a world where phones and visual communication have become such a natural part of everyday life, and that has inevitably influenced the way we express ourselves.

For me, fashion is one of the most immediate forms of communication. But it’s not just about clothes. Music, the places you choose to go, the people you surround yourself with and even the cities you identify with all become part of the language you use to express yourself. Paris is a particularly interesting example of this, because the location itself can say so much about a person. The way you move through the city, the places you know and the environments you feel connected to become part of your identity.

I think we’re a generation that communicates a lot without necessarily feeling the need to explain ourselves. You can meet someone, understand their references, their interests and their general attitude towards life within a few minutes, sometimes without having to exchange that many words. Fashion, music and places can create an immediate connection between people who share a similar sensibility.

One misconception, though, is that we’re constantly trying to show off. I don’t necessarily see it that way. I think people sometimes interpret visual expression as a need for validation, when in reality it can simply be a way of celebrating the fact that we’re living.

We spent several years during the pandemic watching a version of life on social media that we were supposed to be experiencing ourselves. Those were years when we were meant to be discovering ourselves, going out, travelling, meeting people and creating memories, but instead a lot of those experiences were put on hold. I think that has had a real impact on my generation.

Now there’s a renewed desire to go out, to experience things, to discover places and to be part of something again. So perhaps it’s less about showing people what we have and more about expressing that we’re finally living again. There’s a difference between displaying a lifestyle and genuinely wanting to experience everything life has to offer. And I think that desire to experience things is a much more interesting way to understand my generation.

PARIS AFTER DARK

What happens to Enzo when the sun goes down? What does nightlife give you that daytime – and social media – never could?

I think this question is closely connected to Paris itself, because the city feels like a completely different place at night. Paris has two very distinct identities, and I love the contrast between them.

What I particularly love about Parisian nightlife is that it allows you to experience the city in a different way. One of my favourite things to do is drive around in a classic car or a convertible, simply taking in the architecture. To me, Paris at night feels like an open-air museum. The streets, the buildings and the atmosphere become something entirely different once the city lights up. Every time I drive or walk around at night, I find myself looking at everything and thinking about how lucky I am to live here.

I also love how much variety the city offers. You can go from a very serious dinner at a beautiful restaurant, perhaps somewhere like Chez Laurent, to a completely different kind of night at Colonia, which is one of my favourite clubs in Paris. I love that contrast. You can meet people you’ve never met before, end up spending the entire night together and suddenly find yourself watching the sunrise. Those are the kinds of nights I like to call opera nights.

There’s something about nightlife that gives you permission to be a little more spontaneous, especially in a city like Paris, where going out is genuinely part of the culture. It’s not just about going to a club or attending an event. It’s about the unexpected encounters, the conversations, the atmosphere and the feeling that anything could happen.

But there’s also something more personal about it. Night-time is often when I finally stop for a moment and realise where I am and what I’m experiencing. Sometimes, in the middle of a night in Paris, I just look around and think: I’m actually living here. And I think that’s something social media can never really give you. You can photograph a night, document it and share it with thousands of people, but you can’t fully communicate the feeling of being there. That’s what I love most about it.

THE DREAM VS. THE IMAGE

There is a difference between actually living a dream and looking like you are living one. When did you realise you were no longer just documenting your life, but actively constructing a world around it?

I think it’s difficult to identify one particular moment when that happened, because the transition was quite natural. I get this question quite often, especially from people who sometimes wonder whether the lifestyle they see online is something I’m actually experiencing or simply something I’m trying to make people believe.

But I’ve never really felt the need to worry about that. Even if it looks like I’m living a dream, I am living it. At the same time, I don’t think I’m there yet. In my own opinion, I haven’t reached my dream life. I’m still on my way towards the life I ultimately want to build, even though I’m incredibly grateful for everything I’ve managed to create so far.

When I first started sharing things online, I was simply documenting what was already happening in my life. There wasn’t a strategy behind it, there was no particular audience I was trying to reach and I certainly wasn’t planning to turn it into a profession. I was just sharing things because I genuinely enjoyed them.

The brands, the professional opportunities and everything that eventually came with it happened later. Only at that point did documenting my life gradually become a job. I never started by constructing a world in order to make my life look like something it wasn’t. I was simply sharing my own reality, and over time people became interested in seeing more of it.

I think there’s an important difference between creating an image and building something around your actual experiences. Of course, I’ve become much more conscious of the way I present things, and I’ve learned how to develop a visual identity and a creative direction. But that doesn’t mean the experiences themselves are artificial.

Ultimately, I don’t want to spend my life trying to convince people that I’m living a dream. I’d rather keep working towards the life I actually want, while appreciating the fact that I’m already living parts of it.

THE NEXT VERSION OF YOU

Your generation grew up watching people turn themselves into brands, but you are also living through a moment when that model is constantly changing. What do you want to build that is bigger than your own image?

My point of view is that using your image to build something bigger can be incredibly powerful. An image has the ability to open doors, create curiosity and initiate conversations with people you might otherwise never have the opportunity to meet. It can make people interested in what you do and, sometimes, allow you to reach the right person much faster. But I see the image as a key, not as the house itself.

That’s why I’m personally moving towards the industries I’ve always been interested in, and which have mattered to me long before content creation became my profession. Fashion and the creative industry have always been at the centre of my interests, and I’ve always wanted to understand them from a deeper perspective.

The fashion industry, in particular, is a very closed world. It’s an industry with a long history, established relationships and very specific codes. It’s not necessarily easy to enter, especially if you didn’t grow up within that environment or start building connections from a very young age. In many ways, there are very few obvious entry points.

For me, content creation became a way into that world. It was an opportunity to build relationships, create visibility and eventually develop a position from which I could explore things beyond the screen. And that’s really what interests me now: using what I’ve built online as a foundation for creating something tangible in the real world.

I think one of the most valuable things about our generation is that we have access to tools that previous generations simply didn’t have. During a masterclass, I once heard someone make a point that stayed with me: everyone should try to master social media, because there is so much you can learn from it. People are genuinely building businesses, developing ideas and creating opportunities using nothing more than their phones, often without having a traditional educational background or any established connections.

I find that incredibly powerful. Of course, not everything created online necessarily needs to become a business, but I would encourage people to use these tools to create something meaningful. Develop an idea, build a project, establish a personal identity and see where it can take you.

Ultimately, I don’t want my future to be defined exclusively by my image. I want the image to be the starting point of something much bigger. Content creation gave me a way in, but what I want to build now is something that can exist independently of the screen.

ONE NIGHT, ONE MEMORY

If you could relive one night from your life exactly as it happened — no changes, no second takes — which night would you choose, and why?

I think you’re going to like my answer, because it’s very much connected to fashion. And you might actually know the story already.

Without hesitation, I would choose the first fashion show I was invited to, in 2023, and, more specifically, the night that followed. It was the return to the Palace after its closure, and for someone of my generation, that place represented something incredibly special. In a way, it was our own version of Studio 54.

I was so excited to be there. Before a single look had even come out from backstage, the atmosphere in the room already felt like a statement. Everyone was dressed in their own way, almost as if the entire room had become part of the show. There was this incredible rock-and-roll energy, and the band that played after the show made the whole experience even more memorable. The night went on for hours, much longer than I had expected.

I remember standing there and genuinely not being able to believe that I was part of that moment. It felt almost out of time, as if I had stepped into a different era.

That night also made me understand something about the meaning of heritage. For me, heritage isn’t simply an abstract concept or something that belongs behind the glass of a museum. It’s something that continues to exist in the present. It’s a place, an atmosphere or a cultural reference that mattered many years ago and still has the power to bring people together today.

What made the evening particularly beautiful was seeing so many people from my generation embracing and celebrating a place that had such an important history, even though most of us had been too young to experience it during its original era. We were discovering it in our own way, but there was still a shared understanding of what it represented.

I think that’s what made the night so special. It wasn’t just about fashion, the people in the room or the fact that I was attending an important event. It was about being part of something with a history, something that existed before us but that we could reinterpret and make our own.

If I could really go back and relive one night exactly as it happened, that would be the one. Not because everything was perfect, but because, for a moment, everything felt exactly where it was supposed to be.

A LETTER TO YOUR FUTURE SELF

Imagine you are reading this interview ten years from now. Write a short letter to the person you will have become. What do you hope you never lose, what do you hope you have learned, and what do you want that future Enzo to remember about who you are today?

Dear Enzo,

I hope you still get excited.

I hope you still walk into a room and look around instead of at your phone. I hope you still care about beautiful things, and that somewhere along the way you worked out that beauty and value aren’t the same.

I hope you built what you set out to build. Not for the recognition, but because there are now things in the world that exist because of you and carry on without your name attached. That was always the point. I hope you opened doors for people too. That’s the part that lasts.

Remember the version of you writing this. He said yes before knowing where things led, changed cities and ideas out of curiosity, and called it a strategy afterwards. He had no plan, and it worked out better than a plan would have.

Remember the small things too, because they go first. One suitcase for a week. Driving around Paris at night for no reason. The smell of a racetrack.

Keep the curiosity. It’s the only thing you had at the start.

And stay light about it. You were never the most serious person in the room, and that’s probably why anyone let you in.

You spent your twenties building a life that looked like a film. I hope you realised the best part was never the film. It was being there, and what you did with it.

Enzo, 24