The Laporte Twins are Coming for the Throne
New York City’s flyest twins are turning heads in the fashion world and on the dance floor.
Photography by Sancho Smalls
LAPORTE are not your average twins. Whether it be spinning at an afterparty, hosting events, or hitting the runway, Aaron and Drew Laporte have an authentic style that makes you do a double-take. If you’re scrolling through their socials, you’ll see them jetting off to cities like Paris and Rome and the Cayman Islands, but offline, there’s a giddiness and playfulness that radiates off of the Brooklyn-based creatives.
They’ve released tracks like “90210 - Travis Scott (LAPORTE Edit),” which recently racked up over 100,000 streams on SoundCloud, and Lil Wayne’s “A Milli (LAPORTE Edit).” LAPORTE sat down with 1202 MAGAZINE to discuss their next chapter, their humble beginnings, and the one thing that annoys them about being a twin.
You’re both multi-hyphenate artists by nature, but what was your first love?
Drew: We didn’t really grow up with a lot of money, so our biggest passion in life, I think, was always success. My first realization was that I might be successful in basketball, and then it extended to modeling and music.
Aaron: I have a different answer, because, yes, we’re twins, but obviously, at the end of the day, we’re two different people; he’s gone through experiences I haven’t, and vice versa. I didn’t know what I was passionate about until the senior year of high school, when I first walked into it. It was a music tech class, but I remember that was when I first realized that this is what I want to do. I want to produce music. I want to do something with music. It has to be music.
What made you both want to move to New York to pursue modeling?
Drew: It was a little bit of like, ‘Let’s just shoot our shot’ type of thing. We were here for a baby shower, and one of us said, ‘Yo, while we’re here, we might as well try to find an agency to see if anyone would pick us up.’ You know, we’re in a modeling fashion capital. Why not try? So that’s basically how it started, and we went to every single agency we could Google by walking, walking, walking everywhere. Then we stumbled upon Major Model Management, and we’re with them now. Every other agency had said, ‘No, you can’t just walk in, and you can’t just walk into any agency.’
Photography by Sancho Smalls
If only it were that easy.
Drew: When we knocked on Major’s door, a woman answered the door and told us pretty quickly that they don’t do walk-ins. As she’s closing the door, she opens it back up and asks, ‘Wait, are y’all twins?’ We respond with a synchronized yes, and then she says, ‘Well, actually, come on in.’ We didn’t know at the time, but that was the vice president of the agency. We were lucky she opened the door and saw us because anyone else would have had to make an appointment or go to an open call. We received the contract that day.
As you both know, New York City is so expensive. What did you do to get by before the success?
Aaron: When we first moved up here, Drew was working at Diesel, and I had no job. Why don’t you tell the story, Drew?
Drew: When we first moved here, we were living in Connecticut with our dad at the time, and I was traveling every day on the Metro-North to go to the city, to work in Diesel in SoHo. A month or two into working there, someone from Rick Owens came in. I went in for an interview, and then I ended up getting Aaron’s job there, too. That lasted for a month before we were fired for no reason. We had just signed our leases in Brooklyn, too, so that was an extremely rough period. I remember crying in the basement of Rick Owens.
Who were your influences growing up?
Aaron: When I first had an interest in music, it was definitely because of Metro Boomin. I had just started producing, and I remember I went to Metro Boomin’s show, and he was DJing. He was playing only tracks he had made. I’m like, ‘Hold on, this is crazy. I’ve never seen a DJ really do this. If I hadn’t gone to that show, I don’t even know if I would have started DJing.
Drew: I always did admire basketball players in general because of the amount of hustle and grind that you really have to put in in order to make it to the NBA. I always thought that people who were in the NBA had a crazy work ethic, like LeBron James, Kobe Bryant—that crazy work ethic that inspired me.
Can you talk a little bit about what it’s like to handle the wins and the losses together?
Aaron: Struggles and gains just feel better when you have someone to go through both with you. His win is my win, also. So, when it comes to wins or losses, especially here in New York, it’s about always having each other and always holding each other accountable.
Photography by Sancho Smalls
Do you ever get frustrated if people can’t tell you apart or get you guys mixed up?
Aaron: This is something that we’ve experienced throughout our entire lives. Yeah, it feels natural, and we know it’s not intentional. Yes, someone doesn’t get our name right. If I were them, I would probably mess it up, too. I think it can be annoying when people walk up and say, ‘Wait, wait, stay right there,’ and then they make it a guessing game. I’m not here for your entertainment or to be a puzzle.
What does this next chapter look like for both of you?
Drew: We’re about to drop our first song on Spotify with our managers at Moodswing. We want to do a lot more DJ sets, putting ourselves out there, and being in front of the camera because we want to connect with people. We just want people to see us for who we are, not as mysterious people you see DJ and see here and there on Instagram.
What has been your biggest, ‘mama, I made it’ moment so far?
Drew: For both of us, that moment was, ‘Wow, really, really fucking doing this,’ when he and I both booked a New Balance campaign. I think that was a really huge moment for us, because it was a campaign. We got flown out to San Diego, and there were really cool pictures. We were in Tokyo last year, and we saw one of the photos in the store.
Aaron: We uprooted our whole lives—we went to a place where we didn't know anybody, and struggled like hell. We were hiding in train cars. We didn’t pay the fares, all kinds of stuff, dollar slices, all of that, just to look back and like, damn. Maybe we had the right idea, you know?
