Step Off!

18Fluff Your Lips and Thrust Those Hips

On a beautiful New York City night in the early 90s, I found myself gliding down the electric streets of Manhattan walking like I was a mashup of Tony Manero and George Jefferson. I didn't care, I was in New York, the only city I've ever been in where the energy enters the soles of your feet and almost as if a disco ball was hanging from your heart, visibly exits out of every pore of your being.

I was in town to spread my wings, grow my brand, and attempt to do something I'd never done before, be a model. I mean why not, it was the 90s, the decade that birthed the “supermodel.” There were the likes of Cindy, Naomi, and Kate, why not add Dan into that mix? Although that's lacking the necessary je ne sais quoi, it probably only would have worked if I added an accent to my name and pronounced it “Day-on.” There we go, much better.

The following morning I had an early call time for my shoot in SoHo, and just shooting there made me feel so-ho much like a model. I was excited, nervous, and truthfully, a little hungry…okay, a lot hungry. I remember being told by someone, or more than likely, it was my own brain, which came up with the concept to not eat dinner the night prior to, or breakfast the morning of the shoot, with the hopes of making myself look a bit more svelte.

This was a serious gig, so I stuck to my male modeling guidelines. It was an ad for Iceberg clothing, which was to be used in magazines and billboards in the US and Europe ...