Josh Beech

Josh Beech is an English model, musician, and photographer whose career grew out of London’s punk scene. His tattoos and lean frame helped establish a recognizable fashion image in the late 2000s, while music and, later, photography gave him creative roles beyond being the subject of a picture.

Raised in southeast London near the Kent border, Josh was playing in bands before he entered fashion. In The Fashionisto’s 2010 interview, he recalled being scouted by Models 1’s Sherrill Smith at an east London festival in 2007. He waited around three months before starting, uncertain that modeling suited him. His first job was a Burberry campaign, an introduction he enjoyed partly because the cast included other musicians. Before that, he had attended college and worked for Tanglewood Guitars and Virgin Megastores.

His spring-summer 2008 cover of Vogue Hommes International, photographed by Hedi Slimane, became a defining early image. It connected an actual punk singer with the music-informed fashion photography of the period. Advertising for Levi’s and Valentino followed, and his portfolio expanded into fragrance campaigns for Tommy Hilfiger and Moschino.

Music continued throughout those bookings. Speaking to Gigwise in 2012, Josh explained that he had been performing with his punk band Snish when he was spotted in Shoreditch. Modeling and songwriting had always overlapped, so he saw little distinction between the two periods of his life. His collaboration with producer Oliver Som developed into the duo Beech, which released Letters Written in the Sky in 2014. The solo EP Fight Strong followed in 2015.

Josh subsequently developed a photography practice, adding formal study to years spent observing shoots from in front of the lens. On his professional website, he describes how modeling informed his understanding of composition and the experience of being photographed. That shift gives his career a continuous thread, from performing music and interpreting other people’s images to directing and making photographs himself.