Rick Genest – Embrace Everything That’s Different

While I was sick, there has been a lot going on in the fashion reality. I definitely had to catch up on that one featuring Zombie Boy. 

We are in a huge fabric hall. An exposed and obviously uncommon character sits there on a couch. German photographer Nadine Elfenbein will soon continue taking pictures of him. He smokes his cigarette while making little tricks with it. Short inflammations illuminate his face releasing skull fragments. It’s a Day of the Dead scenery.

We are here with Rick Genest aka Rico the Zombie. Thanks to Nicola Formichetti, Lady Gaga’s famous stylist and creative director of fashion label Thierry Mugler, Rick has become a fashion icon and is currently taking of over the scene.Covered with permanent ink in the shape of a living dead he surely is an exceptional appearance in the bright spotlight of the fashion cosmos. But, Rick’s way into this business was not the usual one.

As a teenager Rick got diagnosed with a brain tumor. He got treatment and spent a long time waiting, not knowing what would happen. During this time Rick thought a lot about life, death and about himself as an individual person. At the age of 19 Rick started his full-body tattoo project and his own travelling freak show titled Lucifer’s Blasphemous Mad Macabre Torture Carnival.
As Rick explained us, his focus now is to embrace life and to live day by day. Walking the catwalk or doing his freak shows are just two ways of living his live but not the only ones. “I embrace the idea of everything that’s different and helps people open their mind”. Whatever stage it is, Rick will keep going. “I will always be who I am and do what I do”.