how new products create supermodels out of hand models

[chatpati]

It had all the elements of a typical New York City photo shoot: bright lights, a gushing director ("Excellent, that's it, hold it right there"), even some sad-looking scrambled eggs that lay bereft on the craft-services table. But the subject of the shoot wasn't some leggy model striking a fierce pose. Instead, the focus of everyone's attention was on a pair of manicured hands, gently shaped to resemble a teapot.

The hands belong to 25-year-old Ryan Serhant, whose appendages are the centerpiece of AT&T's popular "Hands" advertising campaign, in which art-directed digits and palms form images associated with different countries (in this case, England). For more than 10 hours, Serhant's paws were painted, positioned, and repeatedly retouched by an artist, while a black T shirt covered his (actually quite handsome) face. The teapot configuration is just the latest hand job for Serhant, who over the past two years has contorted his extremities into the shapes of the Great Wall of China, a pair of Japanese geishas, and Egyptian hieroglyphics, among other finger fare, appearing in magazines, airport terminals, and on billboards across the world.

"When I told my parents that I was a hand model, they were like, 'What?' Which is pretty much how everyone responds," says Serhant, in between hands-free sips of water through a straw that an assistant unwrapped for him.

from NewsWeek, read the full article with Video here