From representing Arsenal to conquering the fashion industry as an Armani model

Fate has certainly smiled on Halls, with the now 44-year-old - who was speaking exclusively to GOAL courtesy of BritishGambler.co.uk - explaining a move into modelling that was seemingly meant to be. “The modelling one's a weird one because I did model as a kid. I was a kid model. So I've done it from, I think about eight, nine, 10, 11" he said. "And then I got signed at the Arsenal and I told my mum, ‘Listen, I don't want to do this modelling no more’. But it went really well for me.

“I was in one of Kylie Minogue's videos, one of her music videos. I was supposed to have a dancing scene in it, but it went to about 4am in Camden. We were shooting in Camden and I think my dance scene was coming up about 5am and I said, ‘Dad, I want to go home’. I was only a kid. Dad says, ‘Sweet, we'll go home’. But I'm in the start of Kylie Minogue's video.

“But then weirdly, towards the end of my career, the injuries started coming and all the rest of it, I think I was about 28, and there was something inside me that was a little bit egotistical where I was like, ‘I’ll go and be a model if this all goes wrong’. And then my sister got into me. When I had my Achilles injury, it looked like it was going to be something, she said, ‘Go into London and just go around all the agencies, walk in there’. So I walked into all the agencies, I walked into the eight big ones in London, and they all said, no, except for the last one. The last one went, ‘Oh, maybe, but what's your deal?’ And I said, ‘Well, I've got a year left at football’. She said, ‘Come back in a year, we'll talk to you maybe’.

“So then eventually, the Achilles done me and retired me. So we retired and literally had five days where it took me to the last paycheck and I was having that cry up. And then I was walking in Westfields shopping centre and the lady there came up - Sarah Vickery, she's my agent now still, came up to me. She said, ‘Do I know you? Are you a model?’ And I was like, ‘No, but I think I popped into your agency a while back’. And she's like, ‘Right, cool, come in tomorrow, we'll get a test shoot done and then we'll see what happens’.

“So I went in the next day. We've done a test shoot down in Shoreditch where they take a couple of pictures of you and they keep you in a nice outfit. And then a cool photographer takes pictures. And then when they come back, they have a little look and they judge you. And that was it. They said, ‘Cool, we want to sign you the next day’. That was it. So I got signed. And then all of a sudden I was a model six days later from retiring.”

Halls completed his transition from footballer to fashionista with consummate ease, saying when asked if there were transferable skills that someone accustomed to life under the sporting spotlight could take with him into photo shoots: “Absolutely. The confidence of a footballer, you believe you can do anything anyway. I mean, most footballers think they can probably play golf, play basketball, play tennis. You know what I mean? We are kind of like that. It's been instilled in you. So that confidence did help.

“I kind of knew how to model-ish anyway from my kid days. I kind of thought I could do it. I mean, the adult side of it was a bit more new and like, ‘Oh, wow, this is different’. But the confidence was always there. And I think going into it a little bit wet behind the ears in terms of I didn't know any photographers. I didn't know any of this and that. So these big names I went to see, they weren't big names to me. They were just any Tom, Dick or Harry. So I would just turn up and be me and be confident.

“And you go on set and you sit in front of 20, 50 people, but it was no different to being in front of the crowds and whatnot. The scary thing was walking out in front of 30,000 fans, not 15 people behind the camera. It wasn't too bad. So that was kind of cool. And then I think as a sports person, being in control of your body and knowing how to stand and drop a hip or whatever, it was kind of the same thing. So some of the things were transferable.”

Standing around in a pair of skimpy briefs must, however, have been slightly odd and nerve-wracking the first time around: “That was always a little bit weird. When you've got your pants on, especially if they don't give you a cup, but obviously if you ain't got a cup and there's still like 20 people looking at you in your pants, that's a little bit scary. But obviously as well, luckily as footballers, you're kind of always in shape. And that sort of went into my modelling side as well. I kept in shape. So you're always confident in terms of your body. But yeah, the old budgie smugglers was always a little bit of a weird one.”

Halls made just one Premier League appearance as a footballer, for Reading in 2007, but he has worked for the likes of Armani and D&G as a model. Quizzed on whether landing those jobs is akin to cracking the top-flight, the Islington native said: “Yeah, that's kind of like your top, top nut.

“I remember when I first went to an Armani casting. If you've ever seen an Armani casting from Milan, it's crazy. It'd be hundreds, maybe thousands of boys waiting outside these gates that just say Giorgio Armani over it. And then all of a sudden, after two hours, three hours of waiting, these gates kind of open slowly. And then it's like, I was so confused, like what's going on? And as these gates open, these boys all sprinted, because it's about a 100 metre dash to the front of the queue. So if you're at the back of the queue, you're there for another three hours queuing until you get to walk in front of Mr. Armani. So now the boys have all started running. I'm like, what's going on? So now I'm cooked, I'm done, I'll be at the back now. So now I've got my elbows up and I'm trying to get through and get to the front.

“But then obviously that is the pinnacle, to walk for that guy and to walk out first is kind of the pinnacle of the modelling world. Obviously there's some jobs like perfume ads and campaigns that side, and the fragrance, but to walk out first in a fashion week or to close the show, so you walk out last as well, that's kind of like the top, top, top drawer. And obviously I've been doing Armani luckily now for the last 15 years. And I don't have to do that casting anymore, luckily.

“But you see it today in social media and all these new models, they just want to do that. That's the one they want to do. And luckily for me, I've been there forever. And it's a bit of a family as well. They're kind of very loyal, and there is not much loyalty in fashion, as well as football. But yeah, that's one that has been a bit of loyalty there. And it's a bit of family vibes.”

There are plenty of similarities to be found between sport and fashion - such as travelling the world. Models are a one-man band, though, rather than part of a team. Discussing that change, Halls said: “That was so, so scary when I first started doing it. I remember getting on a plane for the first time on my own, going to airports on my own. And really I just felt so lonely and I felt like everyone was looking at me. It was a weird thing. Because normally we go 20, 30-handed and that's us, we went everywhere. It was a bubble together, it was a team, everything we'd do was together.

“So now all of a sudden, I'm on my own. I'm in a different country. I'm lonely as hell. I've got to go and meet 15 new people the next day. And then I might stay there for a couple more days. I mean, we had spells as new models. What you do is you go, ‘Right, cool, we're going to go and put you in Paris for six weeks so you get to go and see everyone, we're going to go and put you in New York for six weeks so you can go and see everyone, they can see you, you can meet the clients and the rest of it and the bookers’. And it was such a lonely, lonely time.

“And it was weird because I didn't really have any friends either. It was so lonely. I didn't have anyone to reach out to. I wouldn't reach out to anyone. It was kind of the way we were brought up. And it was a really, really tough time.

“Slowly but surely, I kind of got used to it and started enjoying it. But there was definitely a time about, I think, three years in where something just hit me like a brick wall - ‘My God, I'm doing really well in London but I don't know what's going on here because I'm so lonely, I'm so depressed’. And eventually I went to see a psychiatrist and we worked through it all. But yeah, it was a really scary, unknowable thing at the time.”

As in football, there is a sliding payment scale to be found in modelling. Asked to offer some insight into how that works - with certain campaigns, shoots and events generating more money than others - Halls said: “Yeah, it's a big sliding scale. And I think your agent does a lot of the work for you. But there's obviously a different calibre of model. I can demand this rate or this model can demand that rate. And ultimately, when the email comes through or the phone call comes through, what you agreed to is what you agreed to. So if I agreed to a 10 grand job and a different model would be, ‘No, I'm agreeing to 20’, that's what you take. You've got to be happy with it and you'll agree to it and you go and do the job.

“But we have got the e-com, which pays a certain rate. We've got a lookbook, which we demand a bit more. We've got campaigns, we demand a lot more. The runway and then the editorial. The editorial is kind of free. You go and do an editorial for free. You'd be in a magazine, but you're getting a bit of the hype and the attention.

“An e-com job, the rates have really come down since I first started because there's such an influx of models now. So many models and not as much demand on each model because there's so many options. But you can be doing an e-com job for, you could easily be doing it now for 500 pound or you could do it for seven grand. So that's the e-com and that's what you see when you go online and you see the Zaras and whatnot, you just see the guy in the basic stand and still in the picture.

“So it can be that much of a gap and then obviously, we want to demand more for lookbooks. We want to demand more for campaigns and then how long the campaign will be out there for. So it could be a 12-month usage. It could be an 18-month usage and if they reuse it, they have to pay again. So there's a big massive gap in all that we do.

“The runway is kind of like, the boys will come and go and do runway. If they get paid for runway, they're lucky. If they walk away from Milan, which they've stayed there for a week, maybe to do the castings, the runway, hotel, if they walk away evens, they're lucky. They'll be lucky. Certain boys will be walking away with a good few grand in their pocket or even more for the exclusive boys. But if you walk away sometimes from runway events even as a young boy, you're very lucky.

“And then obviously, there is the fragrance. The fragrance was normally the one. That's the big, big boy. You want the money, you want a fragrance. So if you see anyone in the airports and they're doing a fragrance, they're going to have got a few quid.”

Halls is still waiting to land that payday, but given how his career has developed to date, from Arsenal to Armani, it would come as little surprise if he were to hit another target and offer further proof that no dream should be considered out of reach.

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