TOTAL STAZ
FROM SOCIAL MEDIA TO MOSCHINO, RISING MODEL STAZ LINDES INFUSES EVERYTHING SHE TOUCHES WITH ATTITUDE. BY LISA MISCHIANTI. PHOTOGRAPHED BY BETH GARRABRANT

Staz Lindes doesn’t see why anyone would want to follow her on Instagram. “I’m like, what is it?” she says with a laugh. “I guess whatever I’m doing is working, but I can’t really figure it out.” Clocking in at upwards of 42K followers with the handle @yostazyo, she certainly is doing something right. She may be unsure what that something is, but we’ll venture a guess: The 21-year-old It Model and social media-slash-Tumblr star is not only super striking and stylish, but she also has an apparent inability to take herself too seriously. (On her blog, fans even feel comfortable asking for all kinds of personal advice—and Lindes sincerely obliges.)

London-born and California-raised, she’s been a badass from the beginning. “I had pink hair when I was, like, eight,” she recalls. “I had a really awesome babysitter who used to dye it for me.” Throughout her formative years, she describes herself as “kind of a weird kid that usually fantasized about punks.”
So it makes sense that the iconoclastic Jeremy Scott thought her the perfect fit to model his first-ever collection as the creative director of Moschino, for which Lindes appeared in both the lookbook and runway show. “When Jeremy and I met, we ended up really getting each other. We both like pop culture and retro stuff, and both think that fashion’s a bit silly and should be taken lightly,” she says. “I guess he just believed in me, so I feel very lucky.”

When she’s not modeling, Lindes is pursuing her other passion: music. She’s self-taught (her father is rock star Hal Lindes of Dire Straits, so it runs in her blood), and primarily plays the guitar, but dabbles in other instruments as well. “I can kind of pick up anything,” she explains. “I have a banjo and ukulele lying around. I’m also trying to learn piano these days.” And although she’s long been a West Coast girl, she recently left the L.A. scene for New York City life and moved into a shared house in Brooklyn. “It’s sinking in the backyard, so it’s sideways a little,” she says amusedly. “All the floors are super warped—but it’s so cool.”