It’s a hard life being a male model. To avoid the unimaginably awful fate of being just another pretty face, strings must be added to that really, really ridiculously good-looking bow.

Today’s most influential male models aren’t so much seen and not heard, they’re seen, heard and then some. Rather than simply wearing the latest fashion trends, they are setting them and even designing them, making canny sidesteps into business ventures and turning their god-given cheekbones into social media clout and real world capital. Meet the men with plenty of brains to match their brawn.

Armando Cabral

Most male models are the end product of smoke and mirrors: they look good when stage-managed within an inch of their life, but have little affinity for the professional world they inhabit.

That’s not the case with Portugal-raised model Armando Cabral who can back up being generally elegant and expensive-looking with being the designer of an eponymous shoe brand that is every bit as tasteful in appearance as the man himself.

In a world where being a name and a face is enough to get cash-registers ringing furiously, the fact that Cabral’s fancy footwear shows a genuine understanding of design is music to our ears, and feet.

Follow Him: @armando_cabral

Billy Huxley

Whether you consider it admirable or unforgivable, Billy Huxley is one of OG beard wearers who spawned thousands of hairy-hipster imitators.

Putting that divisive achievement aside, in an industry where models are expected to be a blank canvas, Huxley’s decidely unblank canvas (he’s teeming with tattoos) marked a new kind of men’s style icon where clothes are almost secondary to body mods.

Peak hipster may have subsided, but Huxley’s still got us wishing we were cool enough to go heavy on the facial hair, tattoos, leather and jewellery without looking completely and utterly ridiculous.