TREVOR BELL, 25, turned his love of superheroes — and their costumes — into a career, allowing him to turn his back on his nine-to-five finance job

Words Tim Heap

Trevor wears Spider-Man costume, his own

Photography Taylor Miller

Trevor wears briefs, by Calvin Klein Underwear, trainers, by Fila, socks, by Nike

“After a year in corporate America, I was bored”

You’re an influencer, a cosplayer, a model, you’ve got an apparel line and you act — that’s a lot going on. How do you describe what you do?

I started off just being a content creator; I always start with that. I guess you can consider me a social-media influencer, although that title can have negative connotations around it. Initially, I posted fitness content, and that evolved into fitness and modelling, then fitness, modelling and cosplay. On the side, I own an athletic-wear brand and do a bit of acting.

You’re obviously extremely fit. Were you a sporty kid?

Growing up in Texas, I played [American] football and ran track, then at Columbia University in New York. After graduating, I pursued a career in the National Football League [NFL], with the New York Jets and the Houston Texans. It didn’t work out but I was invited to the private workouts with their coaches and was training with the team for a while, so it was a pretty cool experience. I had offers to play in the Canadian Football League but decided that it wouldn’t be worth it because the pay is a lot lower than in the NFL. I hung up my boots and decided to work in corporate America, to use my education for something. I worked in a finance job for two years, and after one year I thought, “Holy crap, what am I doing? This is the most boring thing I’ve ever done. I’ve spent 10 years of my life working out extremely hard and competing, and now I’m doing this.” So, I started using Instagram as an outlet for fitness, to do cool stuff and to entertain because the things I found I really missed from sport were entertaining, competing and inspiring people.