A Brief Interview with John Hall

A picture in your mind of John Hall picking daffodils in the field doesn’t seem to jive with anything you’ve heard or seen or even fantasized about John Hall, the new image model of Bench underwear. But that’s the vision of John in his youth that his mother has kept in her heart through the years. "He was a very sweet child," Fortune Hall affectionately recalls. He still is, she adds.

It may seem kind of disconcerting to some people talking to a mother about her son who gets low down, literally, to his shorts, but John Hall is a man of few words – maybe he’s still reticent, being quite new to the invasive media – while Fortune Hall is so proud of her son, she could keep going on about him. "He was very good with the household chores," she even says (you could almost see John squirming), "and when he was finished with that, only then would he drift off to sleep."

Which about complicates some more the mystic surrounding this sexy newcomer model who piqued everyone’s curiosity and raised temperatures when he first appeared in the papers and magazines as a winner in a bikini open competition, displaying great physique, abs to die for, toned muscles, strong legs that stretched a mile, and a panther’s grace.

When eventually he was occasionally sighted in ramp shows and in magazine spreads, and especially when he came out in that deliciously decadent book by Raymond Lontok, Brief Moments (a sequel to Brief Encounters, commissioned by Bench), people were increasingly intrigued. Where did he come from? Is he a basketball player? Is he a foreign model brought in by one of our fashion designers?

Well, don’t stretch your fancies, or fantasies, any further. John Hall is from Cebu and he works in his mother’s furniture factory.

Which actually makes him more intriguing.

Nonetheless, he’s coming into focus now that Bench has chosen him for its image model for the underwear line, joining the durable Jomari Yllana. It promises to be a double-barrel "undercover" attack: one coming from the boyish, dreamily romantic Jomari, and another from the aggressive, come-and-get-it sensuality of John Hall. And Bench’s scandalized competitors can go hang with their eyes raised upward sanctimoniously. Bench underwear is not an unmentionable piece of clothing: It is blatant provocation, it is a weaponry in a commercial war.

John Hall is one of the three new Bench image models handpicked at the start of this year by Ben Chan of Bench (a better talent scout than any in the field). The other two are Robby Mananquil, a twentysomething visual artist, musician, model and aspiring actor; and John Prats, the teenage TV darling who is dancing his way into the hearts of his screaming young fans. Robby and John will typify yuppies and teeny-boppers, respectively for Bench.

John Hall is as foreign as one can be and as Filipino as one could get. He was born in England of English and Filipino parentage: Geoff Hall who’s from Newcastle and Fortune Ramos who’s from Batangas. His parents met in Saudi Arabia where his engineer father and nurse mother were both working in the same hospital. John grew up in Crewe and went to a private school in Chester up until the age of seven.

Growing up in Crewe, John remembers, people would stare at him because of his exotic features and dark skin tone. Moving in 1986 to Cebu, where he enrolled at CIS, did not help any. He would come home irked that even his teachers mimicked his British accent. "Mom, are they making fun of me?" he would ask, almost in tears.

When he was 12, his family moved to Florida where John spent much of his adolescence – and lost his British accent. To this day he speaks, and swears, like an American. He enrolled and finished his lower years at the Manatee High School, where he excelled in basketball, if not in academic subjects. His interest was totally focused on basketball. "If there’s one thing I’m really good at, it’s basketball!" John confides.

It was in his teens when he displayed the famous "Irish temper," a trait he inherited from his father who has a bit of Irish blood in him. His mother says he did not get into brawls, none that she knew of anyway, but like every teenager he was rebellious. And yet, says Fortune Hall, it was John who, among his brothers, could communicate (as in, "Hey, let’s talk this over?") with her and the rest of the family. He is rather concerned.

"If I have a problem, I go to John for comfort." Fortune Hall treasures this closeness with her son John more than anything else in the world.

The boy, the middle child, who took care of the household chores is still his mom’s little helper, although this time in a more responsible role. John is today very much involved in the operations and management of the family enterprise in Cebu, Buyers Link, which produces export-quality furniture, a company that the Halls set up in the mid-80s.

He spends much of his time there now when he isn’t in Manila or elsewhere for his modeling assignments, his preoccupation at the moment, while he aims higher. Higher where? Playing professional basketball, he says. He doesn’t know exactly how it will come about but "I have a friend who knows an agent..." he stammers. He needn’t worry. It will happen, the same way his modeling happened – "accidentally," John says.

There was this friend who had a friend who pushed him into joining a bikini open competition, which led to another friend who got him to model for Bench (and then Dockers and then Bench again.) His friends and his friends’ friends were themselves stunned how far he got into the roll. Bless them; John has resisted signing up with an agency so far, wanting to see how far it will get him being a freelancer and backed by his own merits.

Look at him now – the newest image model for Bench underwear! Everybody knows of course this is not like getting a bit part in the movies that nobody remembers afterward. This is the big time, as it is for the young actors today who understand that stripping to their branded briefs is the best exposure for their career.

John Hall, however, is guarded, understated as usual. The way he looks at modelling: it’s nice, it’s easy work, and fun while it lasts. For how long? "You never know," he says. He doesn’t really care, although, he admits, "I need to work for the extra money." No, not for his studies, but for like, going away to the beach and soaking in the sun and the sea. He has just come back from a holiday in Puerto Galera and his skin is burnished gold and glistening.

He doesn’t show much interest in it now, but when John was a child, Fortune Hall says, he took to drawing at times. "I even thought he would have the inclination to become an architect or at least a draftsman." The only drawings John is interested now are cartoons. Hard to believe, but he’d rather watch cartoons on TV, especially animé, in the evenings than do the nightlife or go to rave parties and dance till dawn. "It doesn’t really interest me. I want to save my energy for other things."

What other things? Like keeping himself fit and ready at any moment when the opportunity to realize his hoop dreams comes knocking on his door. He has promised himself to work out more regularly in the gym, maybe five times a week, to prepare himself for the hard court.

Ever since he declared his independence at the age of 16, John has always tried to be a person of his own. No role model for him: "I don’t like to be anybody but myself," he says firmly. Again without him saying so, liking yourself is the first significant step to getting what you want in life.

But oh, to be as carefree and insouciant as John Hall who is enjoying his youth – and the great audience and commercial frenzy he rouses when he strips down to his Bench underwear in the Bench ads in the papers and in posters. His sex appeal is so strong and palpable, says one knocked-out social creature, "you could almost smell it on the page."

She would die happily sniffing if she saw John Hall going about his work in his mother’s furniture factory wearing sando and jeans. That’s his regular attire when he’s among the workers, although he will put on a more decent polo when he has to meet people in the showroom. He’s always casually correct in his clothes, an attitude he says, that he finds in Bench clothing. "Bench always has the important elements in mind – comfort and appropriateness."

Now, he could say that also about Bench briefs and boxer shorts. But it’s not necessary. Just look at his pictures in them and you will know what he means.

But he’s not shown picking daffodils.

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You can catch John Hall at the upcoming Bench underwear/denim show entitled "One Night Only" at the Araneta Coliseum on June 14 at 7 p.m.