This morning I received the very sad news that Lucas Coppini had passed away after being in a coma for over a week due to a tragic car accident on the night of June 1st. I cared very much for Lucas, and feel blessed that I got to meet him and work with him a few times over the past two years. He was a great kid, dedicated, caring, funny, and always full of joy. My sincere condolences go out to his family and his twin brother Luis, who was not involved in the accident.
I met Lucas almost two years ago after a Givenchy show in Paris when Diego Fragoso introduced him to me and he was just 17. We worked together a few months after shooting a story with him and Luis for Made In Brazil #6 with photographer Cristiano Madureira, who was as thrilled as I was to be working with the two of them. We spent over six hours in a van just the four of us and the driver because Cristiano insisted we shoot them in a very remote beach, and I still have the funniest pictures from that day trip, along with really beautiful images of the two of them Cristiano captured for the magazine. I will always remember that shoot, all the nonsense we talked about on our trip back at night, and how much we laughed when they offered to take me and Cristiano to a rave in their hometown (which now in retrospect maybe we should have accepted).
The last time I saw Lucas and worked with him was earlier this year in Paris when we shot a story for the new issue of the magazine that just launched. I picked him and Luis up from their hotel at 7:30 am in the morning after the Givenchy party. They told me they had been very responsible models and left the party early because of the shoot, but I knew they hadn't. I didn’t care either way because I knew they would deliver, and I knew I would have a blast spending the day working with them in Paris. I made them stroll around a cold apartment in underwear and walk around the streets in the middle of winter in Dior Homme shorts and shoes that were two sizes smaller than their feet, but they did not complain about a single thing. They were just thrilled to be working and to be in Paris together for the first time. By then Lucas had already walked three Givenchy shows back to back, but it was the first time Luis was booked and flown to Paris for the show along with him, and anyone who knows them knows how much they meant to each other. Lucas was more experienced than Luis and was the one who truly loved being a model, directing his twin brother throughout the entire shoot. That day, I kept them working until eight o’clock at night when they got almost no sleep the night before and could have had a free day of tourism in Paris, and yet they made jokes all day and gave me a big hug and thanked me for the opportunity when I dropped them off at their hotel. I was already very much looking forward to seeing the two of them again and to seeing their careers blossom.
May Lucas rest in peace. He will be dearly missed by everyone who got a chance to meet him.
#teamcoppini
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