Unpindownable and unputdownable, model, actor, and all-in-one wunderkind Evan Mock makes magic in perpetual motion.
As of press time, Evan Mock has begun his Saturn return.
The planet’s orbit around the sun lasts approximately 29.5 Earth years. When it begins to approach the same place it was when you were born (roughly between the ages 27 and 30), you can begin to expect transformative life shifts, leading you to the person you’re meant to be.
I explained this to Mock a few weeks before his 27th birthday. Though he isn’t familiar with the subject, a friend just texted him about “an influence update” on his chart and “things [he] needs to know to stay on track.” There’s something in the air. Once I get into explaining everything it entails, he’s onboard. “Cool, I’m ready to be the person I’m supposed to be. I would love that,” he says.
Evan is a man in flux, caught in a series of transformations and fixations. It’s an exciting time to be alive. He explains, “I do feel a bit of a change. I do feel like I am getting more mature, hopefully. I feel like I’m starting to think about things a lot more than I used to, as you do as you get older, but I still feel like a child at heart, honestly.”
After coming up as a skater and surfer in 2019, Mock began a career as a model, walking shows for Louis Vuitton and 1017 ALYX 9SM, and gracing the campaigns for Calvin Klein. Recently, he’s been a prominent fixture in the front rows at Thom Browne and Saint Laurent. A broader audience got to know him through a breakout performance as Aki Menzies in Gossip Girl that ran from 2021 to 2023. As the demonic bisexual skater boy, Mock’s scene-stealing magnetism and signature pink buzzcut made an indelible impression on the show’s fans.
Now, Mock wears his hair a little longer. It’s dark with a rattail, just another phase of his evolution. He talks about the toll of weekly bleaching on his scalp. “You do it every week for two and a half years, it has to have some kind of end to it one day. I’ve resorted to a rattail. It’s forever changing,” he says. “I never thought I’d have a rattail. That’s what’s fun about it too, you just get to keep it fun and fresh.”
Mock is also set to star in Marked Men, a film adaptation of the bestselling young adult book series, releasing later this year. Directed by Nick Cassavetes, known for hits like The Notebook and My Sister’s Keeper, the film attracted Mock due to Cassavetes’ reputation as an actor’s director. Mock portrays Jet Teller, a modern-day rockstar who DJs, sings, plays guitar, and sports numerous tattoos. “I felt I could easily relate to him,” Mock says. He appreciates the structured nature of acting, noting it’s a stark contrast to his real life. “Being out of your comfort zone teaches you a lot about yourself,” he adds.
These days, he splits his time between the oceanic ease of Hawai’i, where he was born and raised, and the urban mania of New York, his second home. “I can leave my front door in either New York or Hawaii and run into someone that you know and I love that. I love seeing people that I know,” he says.
He is in Hawai’i for this interview, chilling at his sister’s house after a morning at the beach. “New York and Hawaii are very polar opposites in other ways, which I think is why I like both so much,” Mock says. He slides between these two energies with ease. “It’s a nice contrast to be able to have both of those energies. When I get sick of one, it’s nice to come to the other.”
Mock grew up in North Shore, Oahu, a stone’s throw away from the beach. His mother says he rode his first wave at the age of two, and has been surfing ever since. He speaks fondly of the ocean, growing up learning to be attuned to the waves and the wind to ride the perfect wave. “We’ve been blessed to say that we can’t even think about one perfect day, because there’s been too many,” he says. “A lot of the culture here is centered around the beach. The ocean is everything to us and it’s given everything to us so we feel blessed every time we go.”
Skating, too, goes hand in hand with surfing in Mock’s life. This attunement to spaces whether aquatic or urban stands as further proof of an inherent duality in him. “You have the same core values as a surfer and a skater,” he says.
Hawai’i’s cultural melting pot is another facet to Mock’s upbringing. Mock’s maternal great-grandparents embarked on a journey from the Philippines to Hawaii aboard a boat, driven by hopes of a better life. “My grandfather, his dad and my mom worked in the sugarcane fields, so it’s been passed down for generations,” he says. This unwavering work ethic left an indelible mark on Mock, instilling values of perseverance and determination.
As the descendant of three generations of Filipino immigrants, he also grew up surrounded by Filipino food and experiencing a plethora of cultures on the island. “That’s also the beauty of Hawaii,” he says. “It’s like an Asian fusion potluck basically, you’re getting things from all sorts of sides and I think that’s what makes the luaus here very special, because everyone’s bringing their own flavor to the table and we all get to share that together.”
Mock continues to pay tribute to his lineage through Wahine, a streetwear brand he established in 2022 and says is a reflection of things he saw growing up in Hawai’i. “It’s a love letter to my mother and my sister. ‘Wahine’ means ‘female’ so it’s an ode to the strong women in my life but it’s also a way to share the culture of where I grew up.”
Wahine’s collection boasts classic varsity jackets, cheeky oxford shirts, and t-shirts. It’s fresh, playful, and has been worn by the likes of Madonna, Dua Lipa, and Daniel Caesar. Recently, they launched a collaboration with Revolve coinciding with Coachella 2024.
As a part of his continued evolution, Mock’s fashion shifts, too, day by day. Sifting through changing trends, he knows to trust his gut. “If you feel good, then I feel like you’re glowing and you look good. It’s more of a feeling than looking in a mirror and saying, ‘This is great.’ It’s important to not care what people think or want you to look like,” he says.
Mock is something of a Renaissance man on many sprawling paths: acting, modeling, skating, surfing, fashion with Wahine, beauty with his brand Good Weird, photography, knitting (briefly during the pandemic), and now organizing a music festival in Hawai’i. It’s a project he’s working on now, with the hopes of starting to hold it annually. When I ask what draws him to new projects and hobbies, he speaks of the excitement of “being in darkness” about what to do, how it’s the space for “the transformative part of growing.”
“It’s a learning experience and I think the fun part about it is diving headfirst and doing it,” he says. “I think the most important part about it is having fun with what you’re doing. All the things that I do, I thoroughly enjoy and I want to be the best that I can be at those things, so I think the way I grow the fastest and excel the fastest is by just purely having fun at it and having the passion behind it. If you’re fighting what you’re supposed to be doing, it’s not gonna be fun and you’re not gonna grow nearly as fast.”
Looking forward to his 27th year, Mock says his goal is “living for a living,” adding that “it’s been kind of my whole life motto from when I was 0 to 26. I’ve always wanted to see if I could figure out a way to do the things I love and get paid for it.”
With more upcoming projects under wraps, Saturn’s returning, he’s destined to keep us a little on edge, to move on and on to new, exciting things.
A few days after his interview, videos of him standing out of the sunroof of an SUV on Orchard St. in New York circulated on the Internet. Omar Apollo’s holding a surprise release event for his single “Spite” and the car is crowded with a throng of hundreds. Right there next to Apollo in the heat of the crowd is Mock, in constant motion, vibing with ease, slipping into the opposite energy of when he was last seen. One wonders when he’ll surprise us next.
By APA AGBAYANI. Photographs by MASON ROSE. Styling by AYUMI PERRY. Vogue Man Editor: DANYL GENECIRAN. Grooming: Luisa Duran. Creative Director: Briana Garrido. Production Design: Logan Renhault. Executive Producers: Anz Hizon, Briana Garrido, Matias Letelier, May Lin Le Goff. Producer: Samantha Rose. Creative Producers: Jessica Marren, Samantha Rose. Production Coordinator: Sophia Sorrentino. Production Companies: Daytrip Productions, Aries Rising Projects. Production Assistant: Natasha Schneider. Stylist’s Assistant: Franceleslia Millien. Production Design Assistant: Chris Maghsodi.
