Jeff Buoncristiano

Jeff Buoncristiano is a creative, through and through. He’s a motion graphics artist (or VFX artist), photographer, videographer, and model. And when it comes to style, Buoncristiano says his creative background and lifestyle is the thing that inspires him the most.

“For me it’s about asking ‘What can I do differently? What haven’t I tried before?'” he says.

“If you’re trying to find your own style, the basic question is: What are you obsessed with? What is it that you can’t stop thinking about? Maybe it’s a movie, maybe it’s someone’s clothes or style. Find that thing and run with it.”

“Running with it” is something Buoncristiano has done plenty of times in his endeavors, whether it be in fashion or in his professional life. In 2014, Buzzfeed featured Buoncristiano in an article entitled “This Man Got Stupidly Hot After He Spent A Year Growing a Beard” and suddenly he found himself at the center of not only a ton of social media attention, but the new wave beard revolution as well.

So he ran with it.

Stepping in front of the camera he became a model and brand ambassador for companies who he vibed with and respected, one of which is Beardbrand.

And now he’s running with it again in one of his newest projects – Buon Neon. A creative outlet that was heavily inspired by the visuals of films like Nicolas Wingding Refn’s Drive and the new Netflix series Stranger Things, Buoncristiano says that these types of art pieces and influences have an impact on not only his work, but his style as well – an area he recently felt was lacking in inspiration.

“Lately I’ve felt pretty uninspired by style, but I’m starting to feel a change coming. I was scrolling through my own social media feed recently and just felt like ‘There’s something I don’t like,’ and I realized it’s because my style was kind of dated,” he explains.

“I like to try to be ahead of the curve, mainly because I hate being lumped into a category of trends, it’s just a pet-peeve of mine. It got to a point where people stopped asking what boots I was wearing, or commenting on my style, and I realized ‘Oh man, I have to reboot things a little bit!'”

He feels that with Buon Neon and his recent visual inspirations – as well as his being tasked with creating a curated collection for Urban Beardsman – his style inspiration has gotten a shot in the arm.

“I’ve never done anything right the first time, ever,” he says.

“I recently decided to get a new pair of glasses and the first pair I got were really tiny and meant for reading and they looked terrible. But I kept obsessing and looking at glasses and researching, and now I found the pair that’s just right.”

His advice to those who sift through his collection and want to mimic it is simple:

“When you see someone’s style that you really like and say ‘I want to give that a try,’ you really have to see if you can work it into your own style or not,” he says.

“But it comes back to that obsession. Take it and run with it. Maybe even go to the extreme with it. Then you know where the edge is, and you know how and when to dial it back to perfectly fit your image.”