Jano Badovinac, a rugged Toronto model who isn’t afraid to sort through our trash

Jano Badovinac, a rugged Toronto model who isn’t afraid to sort through our trash

Jano Badovinac is more than just a model (Image: Jaclyn Locke)

We mentioned we were starting a Hot List at The Goods, and today’s entry is the rugged and sometimes-bearded, sometimes-mustachioed industrial designer–cum-model Jano Badovinac. Badovinac is everywhere because he has his hands in everything, from “upcycling” old phone books (he has started a gun-in-a-Bible trick project for glue guns titled “Encygluepedia”), to part-time modelling and being the creative director and managing partner at Fugitive Glue. Find out more about this week’s need-to-know gentleman and a gallery of his work after the jump.

We first noticed Badovinac in a campaign for newly rebranded Cromwell and Cruthers, but we assumed he was merely the latest pretty face in an industry of good-looking ladies and gentlemen (turns out, he wasn’t even a model at the time). Then we spotted him again in the crowd at Philip Sparks, not long before his runway debut at Klaxon Howl. Not only were we seeing him everywhere, so was The Bay, and it scooped him up as a campaign model for its collaboration with Klaxon Howl. Since then, Elmer Olsen has signed him as a model, but Badovinac has too much going on to be complacent about the oft-glamourized world of striking a pose—he can be found upcycling stray chairs from residential garbage, launching a salvaged bike bag company with colleague Ryan Wilding (launch date TBD) and creating unlikely usable objects from miscellany purchased at Home Depot, in a project called “Depot Deco DIY.” Given how much he has on the go, we think it’s impressive that Badovinac balances strutting, creating and garbage collecting on a day-to-day basis. Suddenly, dumpster diving couldn’t seem more glamorous.

Hot List, our compendium of Toronto stylemakers to watch, appears regularly on The Goods. See the full collection as we check in with more of Toronto’s hottest.