MANILA, Philippines – It wouldn’t be fair to portray Marvin Kiefer as average or dull. This model’s mysterious hooded eyes, the lean 5’10” physique, and the mischievous toothy smile make him a standout.
Marvin was born in Switzerland and raised in Cagayan de Oro City. He is half-Filipino and speaks fluent Bisaya, Tagalog, English and a little bit of Swiss German.
Playground
Except for some other kids trying to bully him as a “white boy” while growing up, Marvin found Cagayan de Oro the perfect playground for his sporty and adventurous character.
He lived only 30 minutes away from the beach, while the family farm sat on a mountainside. In school, Marvin was part of one varsity team too many, from table tennis, track, volleyball to football, and still managed to maintain hobbies like skateboarding, wall-climbing, skimboarding and parkour.
“I just like adventure,” he says. “I mean, what else is there in life? I don’t wanna be sitting in a couch watching TV, texting people. I don’t wanna be that guy. I wanna be that guy who people think, man, this guy does too many things, he’s gonna get himself killed.”
Travelling is one passion Marvin constantly pursues. “My dad travelled the world for 25 years and all his stories got to all of us,” he explains.
These days he contents himself with backpacking, partly because of a knee injury from a skateboarding accident. He prefers going around and talking to the locals as opposed to carrying too much luggage or “renting expensive hotel rooms and getting all the perks, but you don’t really get to go into the culture.”
True to form, one of Marvin’s recent adventures involved trekking for two hours up a mountain in Kalinga to visit a local tribe and getting his brother a tribal tattoo. This traditional process made use of a pomelo thorn as needle and ashes or soot from a cooking pot replacing standard ink.
Marvin is also a vegetarian and very much concerned with environmental issues. The farm he grew up on, by the way, is fully organic, complete with free-range animals.
“When you touch really fertile soil, you can feel the energy,” he says.
Marvin moved to Manila after finishing high school. He pursued modelling, following his older brother’s lead.
“Actually, until I started modeling, I had no knowledge about fashion or cleanliness or anything. I would go to school and people would call me yagit (poor),” he recalls.
Independent
Nowadays, 18 year-old Marvin is proud not only of his mad commuting skills around the Metro, but also of his blossoming career. While completely independent and without any allowance from his parents whatsoever, he still likes to say he does modelling for fun.
“I do it for fun, so I can keep a happy mood in a shoot, instead of saying, ah, it’s my work or it’s a job.”
Currently, Marvin hosts a teen magazine show called “Flo” on TV5, and was chosen as the image model for Viktor Jeans’ young and edgy Vik line after besting other aspiring models in a reality TV job search.
According to Ino Caluza, owner and visionary behind the brand, “When it came down to the last two competitors, [Marvin] stood out.”
Need we also mention his 3000 CD collection, how he digs Jostein Gaarder’s novels, how he does composting in his Pasig residence, his infatuation with indie films, or his explanation of the symbiosis between the mango tree and the ginger root?
What have they been feeding kids in Cagayan de Oro?
