Leather dress shoes clack against glassy floors and bright lights reflect off the bold, black pants with metallic embroidery. His snow-colored hair is cleanly slicked back, and his strut is slow and careful, making sure not to lose balance on the runway in front of the crowd. Somewhere far away in London, a familiar face at THS is on his new side gig, walking the runway as a fashion model. He is nothing short of cool and an unexpected modeling pro, but who is he? He is…
…a substitute teacher?
On April 16th, Mr. Walter Yotka traded his usual New Balance sneakers for Oxford dress shoes as he traveled to London to walk the runway for his daughter’s fashion show.
What’s it like being a sub at THS?
I’ve been here for quite some time… over 15, around 20 years. Oh, wow. And what I find is that it sounds kind of trivial, but in a way, I get to hang out with teenagers. And you give a lot of us really good advice. That’s one thing I do. I don’t have to, in a way, teach anything. But I do get the opportunity to tell you about life experiences that maybe will affect your life in the future, and give you a head start on something.
Do you like being a sub?
Yeah, I do like coming in. May sound like a habit, but I do enjoy it.
How did you get to walk the runway?
If you saw the video, you know that my daughter’s in the fashion business. She has a contact with these people. We’ve talked in the past. They met me. I met them. It was a social thing at first, and then all of a sudden, they kind of got the inclination that I had some sort of vibe, okay? And they told my daughter that I could be in the show, which we both thought was kind of just them being nice. But it turned out to be something reasonable. And, well, once your daughter asks you to do something, you’re kind of in, and I don’t mind doing that. I thought that was pretty fun for me.
Where was the fashion show held?
It was in London. And we—my wife and I—did make a little bit of a trip out of it. Once in London, we went to France. We got on that train, the new shuttle that goes under the channel, and we went right to France. Spent a couple of days there in a nice hotel right by the Louvre. It was nice.
How did it feel walking the runway, and will you do it again?
How I felt was a little intimidated, because I hadn’t done it before, and it wasn’t a straight runway. It wasn’t like run down, run back, so to speak, or walk down, walk back. It was more or less going into each room and coming out, and then walking and going to another room and coming, which made it a little cumbersome, because the audience was almost right at your feet. But other than that, it was great. It was kind of throwing it away. You get to see all the background information of getting fitted. You have people doing hair to makeup. It was kind of funny; people doing my nails. It was fun. Yeah, it was great. You get to see all of that.
Did anyone come up to you at school after and ask you about it?
Yesterday was one of the most interesting days I’ve had at Tenafly High School. Numerous students have asked me, Are you a model? Are you famous? Or pointed at me and said, I know that guy! It was kind of a nice little ego boost for me, and it was a lot of fun.
Mr. Yotka is clearly a natural and we can’t wait to see what is in store for his possible modeling career.
