Joel West, Young Man

Indianola native creates waves with new Calvin Klein ad
By Margery Hanes

A contract with Calvin Klein, an apartment on Park Avenue and a billboard on Times Square. Not too shabby for a former Indianola resident who was just walking through the mall one day. Joel West, a 1993 graduate of Indianola High School, has signed a seven figure contract to model for designer Calvin Klein as their first male model last summer. He has already become controversial for a set of ads that were pulled from publication last week.

The ads were deemed too provocative, as they showed West in underwear sitting with his legs spread apart. This ad was slated for use on a billboard above Times Square, but will now be replaced with another ad. West, being from Indianola, is known by many Simpson students. Alison Brown, was a year behind West in school. "Honestly, I thought Joel was fairly quiet and shy," said Brown. "He didn't have a lot of friends in school. He played a lot of sports, and he was well liked by the coach and the teachers. People liked him." Brown was with West when he was discovered for the first time. "We were on a youth group trip to the mega-mall," said Brown. "We were just walking around when this guy came up to Joel and asked him if he could take some pictures and asked if Joel had ever modeled. He was surprised. People thought he was attractive, but never as being a model," said Brown.

After those photos were taken, West did a little modeling for small agencies and began working for Avant Studios in Des Moines. West went to Buena Vista College for a semester, and then left for Paris where he spent five months being paid $100 a week. While in Paris, West never worked a day. Upon returning to Iowa, West did some commercials and local modeling. The Calvin Klein contract happened this summer. Since then, West has done many magazine layouts, his most recent being the pulled ads that appeared in Esquire, Rolling Stone, Spin and Playboy.

TV 13 conducted an In Touch poll of viewers to see if they thought the ad was too provocative. The results were, 53% yes and 47% saying no. Simpson students have opinions as well. "They didn't bother me. They're no worse than what they show of women," said Joe Anderson. "I thought the ads showed really poor judgement. That's not how I'd want to be remembered," said Brown. "Those ads were no different than the ads that advertise with women," said Cory Sinclair who has been West's best friend since 5th grade. "Besides, I know for a fact that those weren't his favorite pictures anyway," said Sinclair. "He thought the controversy was sort of funny. Any publicity is good publicity for him." Sinclair said that West just built a house outside of Indianola and spends his time here when he's not traveling. "We were a lot alike in high school. We didn't need tons of friends, and we made fun of the cliques," said Sinclair. "We didn't drink a lot. We went to movies or skiing and did stuff with our youth group. He never thought of himself as good looking, especially when he was younger. He actually tried to dress like me and he would say, 'Why can't I have your looks?'" said Sinclair.

In the future, West will continue modeling for Calvin Klein, according to Sinclair. West hopes to eventually go into acting. "He said that I can live with him while I'm looking for work," said Sinclair, who also hopes for an acting career. "When he started [modeling] they told him that he was going to be the best in the industry," said Sinclair. "They kept telling him that," said Sinclair. "We didn't believe it."

back