From The Halls Of Southampton High School, To The Walls Of Abercrombie

Southampton resident Brett Listl never imagined he would become a model one day, let alone for one of the most well-known clothing stores in the country.

After suffering a string of injuries over the years from playing lacrosse and football—a torn ACL his freshman year at Southampton High School, another torn ACL his senior year, a labral tear in his shoulder while a freshman at Endicott College in Massachusetts, followed by ripped articular cartilage in his knee the next year—he faced the fact that his time as an athlete was slowly and painfully coming to an end.

“That window kind of closed for me,” Mr. Listl admitted in a recent interview.

So, at the suggestion of some friends, he decided to take up modeling. Early last summer he signed a five-year contract with New York City-based modeling agency Re:Quest Model Management.

He quickly landed jobs modeling for clothiers such as Agave Denim and military-inspired menswear company Cadet, and he had the opportunity to participate in editorial shoots for Love, Icon and At Large magazines. He said editorial shoots did not always pay, but they gave his modeling career exposure and put his face out there.

After working in the industry for about only three months, the 21-year-old landed what is perhaps one of the holy grails of modeling for twentysomethings: a gig with the casual yet upscale clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch.

Mr. Listl can now be seen plastered on the walls of Abercrombie stores, as well as in many photos on the company’s website sporting the various East Coast-inspired sweatshirts, flannels, jackets and pants featured in the brand’s winter line.

“Abercrombie was never really my style,” Mr. Listl said with a laugh. “It is very weird, actually. It’s something I never thought I’d see myself doing.”

He usually travels to Manhattan for his modeling work—he has also traveled to Los Angeles and Santa Monica, California—but got to stay closer to home for his first big Abercrombie photo shoot.

Late last summer he spent a couple days with a 20-person production team in Montauk for the brand’s winter campaign, with shooting locations that included the Montauk Lighthouse, Navy Beach and a rented house. The company has since been using many of those pictures on its Instagram account, @abercrombie, throughout the season—complete with a Montauk, New York, geotag and garnering tens of thousands of “likes”—to tease the upcoming warmer months.

His overall experience modeling has proved to be unlike anything he has ever done.

Mr. Listl went from spending his time studying entrepreneurship at Endicott—he has taken a leave of absence to focus on modeling—to constantly traveling and being on location for shoots.

“It’s a whole new world, which has definitely been a lot of fun,” he said. “It’s such a completely different lifestyle than what I was used to—it’s very sporadic. Sometimes you have to wake up super early to get the right lighting from the sunrise—different little things.”

He also had to change up his diet and exercise routine, as prior to modeling for Abercrombie he was training as a lineman for Endicott’s football team, a position that tends to require players to be more muscular. He lost 20 pounds of muscle as part of his contract. “I wasn’t fat, but I was definitely wide and broad,” he explained. “You definitely have to switch up your lifestyle between working out, eating right. [And] as hard as it is to lose fat, it’s harder to lose muscle.”

Mr. Listl said while he doesn’t see himself modeling with Abercrombie, or in general, as a long-term career, he believes it will provide him with the self-promotional tools he will need to be a successful entrepreneur.

“I honestly was very open-minded going into it,” he said. “If it didn’t work out, it didn’t work out.

“It’s such a roller-coaster industry,” he added. “Now that I’m kind of shown in all the stores now, people are starting to see me left and right. It’s an awesome feeling.”