ew England prep-school fashion by brands like J. Crew, Ralph Lauren, and Vineyard Vines has become a staple across the East Coast, but few models embody the culture quite like junior heavyweight men’s rower and professional model Joe Baker.

In a TikTok posted by J. Crew, Baker was asked to rate how “East Coast” he is on a scale from one to 10. Baker replied that, in spirit, he’s probably an eight or nine on the scale. Although he hails from Gatlinburg, Tenn., Baker’s prep-school background, rowing profile, and classic fashion give him the Northeast aesthetic.

Baker was recruited to Harvard’s heavyweight team during his senior year at St. Andrews School in Delaware, back when he was an avid rower and had never considered walking in fashion shows or modeling. His chance opportunity to start modeling came during a crew practice his freshman year in Cambridge, when photographer Theo Wenner visited campus to photograph the men’s heavyweight rowers. A year later, Baker was on his way to shoot for Dior in Paris.

He credits the intrigue around Harvard for his unique opportunity.

“I would say that a lot of the jobs I’ve gotten have been because of being a rower at Harvard,” he said. “I think casting directors think that it’s cool.”

“There are so many people who are better at modeling stuff than I am,” he added. “I’m still relatively new to it, but I think we’ll take off where we can get it.”

Baker intertwines his rowing and modeling careers on social media, where he posts regularly and has gained popularity in recent months after spending the summer modeling for J. Crew in New York. He has more than 69.2 thousand followers on TikTok, where he posts videos of his morning athletic routines, a day in his life as a model, and edits of him rowing.

In general, Baker said he doesn’t spend much time filming, and editing takes no more than a few minutes, making it a fun and creative pastime rather than a full-time focus.

“It’s about keeping the main thing the main thing, and right now the main thing is rowing,” Baker asserted.

In 2026, the Intercollegiate Rowing Coaches Association named Baker a national scholar-athlete, which requires maintaining at least a 3.5 GPA and competing in the team’s top competitive boats or at the IRA National Championships.

He also founded Erg Matters, a program that offers specialized coaching from Baker and 2012 Olympic rower Zach Vlahos to help rowers get recruited to prestigious institutions.

Baker noted that it can be easy to feel that every single ounce of his energy needs to go into his sport or career. However, he said Harvard offers a unique opportunity to explore multiple areas through its liberal arts curriculum.

“You’re here to develop in as many ways as you can,” he said. “I see myself as trying to spread myself thin and get into as many kinds of unique places as I can.”

From Baseball to the Boat

Baker said that his rowing career has progressed much like his father’s, as both were sidelined from their initial sport due to an injury.

His father played football at Georgetown before getting hurt. Rather than quitting athletics, he joined the Hoyas’ lightweight rowing team.

Baker, meanwhile, started playing baseball when he was younger and originally made it his primary focus. After throwing out his shoulder, Baker realized he wouldn’t be able to pitch again, so he decided to try his hand at rowing.

“My aim was always to go to an Ivy League school and row, or to go to an Ivy League school and play a sport,” he said. “But baseball was no longer an option, so I started using my dad’s rowing machine, and I had a small opportunity at my all-boys school in Tennessee to get into it, so I started rowing there.”

Soon enough, high school rowing wasn’t competitive enough for Baker. Although he had some great coaches and friends on the team, Baker was looking for a prep-school program that would adequately prepare him for the Division I level.

Baker used his rowing experience in Tennessee to “slingshot” himself into St. Andrew’s School, a boarding school with a program that frequently sends students to top institutions. Baker credits St. Andrew’s for helping him get faster on the water.

“It was pretty serendipitous,” Baker reflected. “I got recruited to Harvard. Very fortunate, very lucky, but also lots of hard work.”

Baker earned Washington Metro First Team Rowing honors in 2024, won the 2024 Warwick MVP Prize, and secured a victory in the 8+ boat for the Pennsylvania Barge Club during the Summer National Championships in Bethel, Ohio. Just months earlier, Baker demolished the St. Andrew’s 2k record with a time of 6:09.9, less than two years after picking up the sport.

Once in Cambridge, Baker had success in the 2025 spring duel-racing season in the four seat of the Crimson’s fourth varsity boat. He helped Harvard claim the Robinson Cup against Cornell, the Compton Cup against Princeton, the Smith Cup against Northeastern, and the Adams & Cothier Cups in a clean sweep against Navy and the University of Pennsylvania. Last year at the Head of the Charles, Baker rowed in the two seat of the club eight boat, which won third place.

From the Drive to Dior

Wenner’s visit to Newell Boathouse sparked Baker’s modeling career. Just before the 2025 Head of the Charles, a casting director reached out to Baker and offered him the opportunity to shoot for Dior in Paris. The casting director said that Wenner, who has photographed for Vanity Fair and Vogue, had recommended Baker for the project.

Baker couldn’t believe it at first.

“I thought I was getting scammed,” he said.

Baker decided to play along and agreed.

“But they sent me a plane ticket. I was like, okay, whatever. I’m just gonna go to the airport and try it. It worked,” he said.

Dior was just the beginning. Baker also walked at Paris Fashion Week and did other shows, including one for Montclair in Aspen, Colo.

“I’ve been doing some of that work along with rowing now, and it’s been fun,” Baker said. “It really is a big privilege to do — super random, but I’ve been loving it. It’s a fun way to be creative or express myself a bit differently than I do at school.”

J. Crew has taken a particular liking to Baker, heavily featuring him in its Summer 2026 collection.

In a TikTok video posted by J. Crew in front of its Vintage Shop in Boston, Baker said that rowers in particular had a tendency to become very intense about one thing, a trait he also ascribed to himself.

Baker admitted in the video that his teammates occasionally poke fun at him for modeling, but said the friendly taunting is worth it because he enjoys the work.

The Volunteer State native has largely done advertisements and runways, though Baker said he’s mostly interested in doing jobs for the “experience” and the artistic expression, rather than choosing the most reputable brand or highest-paying opportunities.

“If a runway show is in a cool location and I like the designer and I feel comfortable with what I’m wearing, that’s cool,” said Baker.

Baker asserted he would not do jobs that make him uncomfortable or that go against what he wants his brand to represent.

“I don’t want to expose myself too much, if that makes sense,” he said. “There’s not really a number I could get paid to do stuff that would be quote-unquote ‘embarrassing’ — and not to say that that means that that type of work is bad. That’s just not what I see.”

After the “Morning Routine”

Baker’s social media fame followed his rowing and modeling success. He attributes his position as a Harvard student to propelling his content through the algorithm.

“I think there’s a pretty unique opportunity for people to create content on social media while they’re here and to build up a pretty strong following,” he said. “I don’t know exactly where that’s going to take me, but I’m interested to see, and hopefully I’ll continue developing it.”

His most viewed video is titled “Morning @ Harvard,” and consists of him getting out of bed, preparing for the day, and then getting early morning reps on the Charles River.

Much of what Baker posts can be classified as get-ready-with-me content, in which he showcases his morning routine as a Harvard athlete, complete with rowing sessions and shots of olive oil.

Baker also posted content over the summer about staying fit during the off-season, walking his audience through his workout routine and complimentary after-practice sky bar. He has dabbled in lip-sync videos and posts about his life outside of modeling and rowing.

But Baker’s life is not all erg sessions, social media, and flights to Paris fashion shows — he is also a full-time Harvard student concentrating in Theater, Dance, and Media. He said he’s currently taking a junior tutorial in preparation to write a screenplay for his senior thesis. Baker said that he’s also enjoying his dance studio on contact improvisation, despite having no prior dance experience.

Because of his practice schedule, Baker wakes up at 6:15 a.m., giving him plenty of time to film, exercise, and study. When Baker’s days get busy, he said that his top priorities are rowing and school.

“So if something kind of interferes with those priorities, then to me it’s not worth doing,” he said.

“It’s more about how I see myself growing while here, and I think that’s the great privilege of being at Harvard and getting this kind of education,” Baker added.

—Staff writer Alexa M. Schmitt can be reached at [email protected] or Signal at alexaschmitt.15. Follow her on X ​​@alexa_m15_s.