Garrett Neff

Garrett Neff is an American model whose athletic build and open, masculine features have made him a recurring face of American sportswear and European luxury. His photographs suggest an ease with the outdoors that suits swimwear as naturally as a tailored jacket. As the founder of Katama, he has also translated that image into a design business shaped by his own family history.

Raised in Delaware, Garrett was discovered at Miami International Airport in 2005 while returning from a study-abroad trip to Barbados. Recalling the encounter in Vogue, he described an agent approaching him with the promise of work for Ralph Lauren and Abercrombie & Fitch. Within a year, both names were part of his career.

Calvin Klein brought him international recognition. Garrett became the face of Calvin Klein Man fragrance in 2007, followed by jeans advertising alongside Kate Bosworth and a fall 2008 underwear campaign photographed by Bruce Weber.

The association placed him within a recognizable tradition of athletic American male beauty, while his subsequent fashion work extended into the more formal territory of designer menswear. His Neiman Marcus photographs show the same physical ease applied to tailoring and luxury casualwear.

Garrett launched Katama in 2015, drawing on childhood summers on Martha’s Vineyard. Speaking to The Daily Front Row, he explained that old holiday photographs of his father and grandfather had prompted the idea. They wore swim shorts that worked for an entire day outdoors, a practical quality he wanted to recover. He took responsibility for design and production as well as appearing in the label’s imagery, extending his involvement in fashion from the finished photograph to the decisions behind the clothes.