It’s The Summer of Soderstrom, claims reporter Alejandro Vargas in the latest cover feature for Stare Magazine, with exclusive photos by the magnificent Elm Diaz!
With hair and makeup by Taylor Jazz, this pictorial was shot in Bel Air, California and Executive Produced by our boss Paul Heyman.
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“The very first thing you notice when Summer Soderstrom walks into the room is that everyone else in the room can’t stop staring at her.”
So says the legendary Paul Heyman, multi-industry disruptor and current WWE wiseman and “special counsel” to the biggest box office attraction in the history of World Wrestling Entertainment, Undisputed WWE Universal Heavyweight Champion and perennial WrestleMania main eventer “The Tribal Chief” Roman Reigns.
Heyman has been, for decades, the most influential creative force in the global phenomenon known as “sports entertainment” outside of multi-billionaire Vince McMahon, whose WWE empire is in the process of a $21 billion (with a “B”) merger with Ari Emanuel’s Endeavor, which is placing WWE and UFC under the same corporate umbrella. And while Heyman continues, after all these years, to be the very definition of a “star maker” at the absolute top level in WWE, he has not-so-quietly been doing the same and making (tidal) waves in the supermodel world as well.
Just as Heyman’s marketing company, the New York-based eccentrically named Looking4Larry Agency expanded into Las Vegas by taking over the re-branding of the then-Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, Heyman saw a pattern emerging in the modeling world. “Instead of setting trends, the modeling world lost its way and started becoming a cultural knockoff brand,” Heyman offered in his exclusive interview conducted just days before he jetted off to Saudi Arabia with Reigns to play, all the way across the world, to another sold-out stadium filled with rabid fans. “Since the proverbial beginning of time, fashion has led the way. Whether it’s music; politics; sports; corporate aura; or determining who are the cool kids in school, it’s always judged and defined by what you wear, how you wear it, which way it hangs, leans or drapes; and if everyone else wants to look like you, or even more dramatically, whether everyone else wants to avoid looking like you!”
“I’ve seen Summer Soderstrom walk into the room with some of the most spectacular looking women in the modeling world today,” Heyman boasted. “They ALL want to look just like her!”
If you haven’t followed Heyman’s career, it’s difficult to explain the enormous impact this man has made on not only the sports entertainment industry but on television itself. In the 1990s, Heyman’s ECW television product was twenty years ahead of its time. Edgy, contemporary, testosterone-filled, music-driven, anti-establishment, no holds barred reality-based storylines playing out in a professional wrestling ring on a television show that shook up the entire business, and as the branding would suggest, took the entire genre of Combat Sports “to the extreme!”
Even to this day, with his ability to be the person representing WWE’s top heavyweight champion (whether it’s been Reigns, Brock Lesnar or CM Punk) for the past eleven years, Heyman has an enormous influence on the very culture of the worldwide marketplace domination of Vince McMahon’s unstoppable needle mover. His goal, as he demonstrated in Vegas at the Hard Rock, is to shake up the modeling world in the very same, forgive the pun, fashion.
“When Paul went into Vegas, the modeling world was in the process of curling up into its own shell,” offered Ary Dalton, a documentarian whose behind the scenes videos constantly go viral. “Sports Illustrated caved into the cancel culture’s demand that even a swimsuit magazine featuring the world’s most beautiful women now go all-inclusive. And, at the very same time, the world’s biggest intimate apparel brand, Victoria’s Secret, started making the moves that led to them abandoning their most famous asset, their exclusive roster of the sexiest supermodels in the world who were so above the competition, they were bigger than supermodels, they were called Angels!”
Heyman, according to Dalton, saw it all coming.
“Paul saw the earthquake happening under the feet of the industry,” Dalton told us. “He didn’t listen to the critics. He listened to the audience.”
So Heyman turned the Hard Rock into the Sin City version of the Playboy Mansion, presenting collaborations between some of the most well-known photographers in the world and fashion models (like Laken Romine and Ines Trocchia); bikini sensations (like FHM’s favorite cover model Miss Lynnie Marie and Playboy Playmate of the Year Kari Nautique); fitness gurus (like Whitney Johns and Ali Lee); YouTube provocateurs (like Nienna Jade and Miss Ali Drew); and even the “World’s Most Beautiful Athlete,” paddleboarding champion (and mom of 4) Jala Sue.
The title of Heyman’s concept?
#HustleBootyTempTats supermodels.
Yes, the hashtag is part of the branding name. “Watch that become the in-thing to do this decade,” Dalton laughed. “Paul has a way of beating everyone else to such anti-influencer influencer concepts.”
There are no temporary tattoos. And no, it has nothing to do with “the booty.” So, think Gwyneth Paltrow’s “Goop,” right?
“It’s a ridiculous name, isn’t it?” Heyman laughed. “But it flows. And it’s a conversation piece. It’s not there for a deep dive into the significance of the name. Who is Victoria? What is her secret? The swimsuit edition (of Sports Illustrated) illustrates exactly which genre of sports? About what in Paul Marciano’s empire am I supposed to Guess? If you’re contemplating the answer to these questions, you’ve totally lost the plot!”
Heyman was pontificating these very thoughts the day Summer Soderstrom walked into the Bel Air, California estate Heyman has rented for the season’s fashion shoot collaborations. “It was a record-scratch moment,” Heyman exclaimed. “Everyone’s head immediately turned straight towards this charismatic personality who just stole all the oxygen in the room.”
Ah, the classic Heyman hyperbole. Promote, promote, promote. And one would believe Heyman was exaggerating the attention Summer Soderstrom can attract merely by walking into a room until you witness it for yourself.
“She’s Marilyn Monroe, Margot Robbie and a Barbie doll, all rolled up into one mesmerizing beauty,” Dalton stated. “Adding Summer Soderstrom to the #HustleBootyTempTats supermodel brand was a top priority!”
So photographer Elm Diaz was contacted to exclusively shoot Summer’s cover feature pictorial. “I didn’t even have to think about it,” Elm noted. “How could anyone turn down an opportunity like that?” With each look displayed, Summer Soderstrom, as they say, rocked it. “Summer can top the charts on every sub-sector of the modeling world,” proclaimed Elm. “Fashion, swimsuit, lingerie, editorial, portrait, Summer masters them all!”
I have a confession to make. The original concept of this story was to feature the amazing work being produced under the #HustleBootyTempTats brand name and explain how it will be near-impossible for Heyman to take it to the very top of the mainstream consciousness in the modern-day modeling world. Yet, after spending the day on set, watching this collaboration in action, and seeing the results of their work (as you too can see, by viewing the magnificent images that go along with this article), the premise of this feature is no longer “the upstart brand that is capturing the attention of the modeling world.”
The premise of this feature is now “the modeling world has been disrupted by the #HustleBootyTempTats revolution!”
When I ran that piece of information by Heyman, he laughed out loud. Not “lol” with an emoji or two. He burst out laughing. And then, as if the WWE Smackdown cameras zoomed in for their closeup, Heyman’s entire demeanor changed, and he exclaimed, “I love the line the modeling world has been disrupted by the #HustleBootyTempTats revolution! But I would humbly suggest you need to close with the fact that Summer Soderstrom is leading the charge!”
OMG. He’s so right. That’s a much better conclusion to the article. So, with healthy dose of hype and backed by the analytics that dictate such claims, please allow me to wrap this up with the following:
The modeling world has been disrupted by the #HustleBootyTempTats revolution, and supermodel Summer Soderstrom is leading the charge!
