A day in the life of Yannick Do

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As Yannick Do opens the door to his lush apartment in Paris’ 19th arrondissement, our first instinct is to ask him whether his surname predestined him to work in the music industry. Following audio-visual studies and a position as art director for French record label Because Music, Yannick now works as Nike’s retail brand manager. “The brand scouted me 10 years ago for the 25th anniversary of the Air Force One. They were looking for someone young who could embody the model’s history” he remembers. “This was before social networks had really taken off in France, the notion of influencer barely existed; people were famous for what they did rather than what they showed. These days everyone claims to be the next best art director.”

Just DO it

Yannick prefers a more subtle approach to exercising his talents throughout the fashion, music, and nightlife industries: “I’m fortunate enough to have all my activities fit well together: for the past year and a half I’ve worked at the French Nike HQ from Monday to Friday, and I host a music show every second Sunday on Rinse radio. The work I put into preparing the show also enables me to keep up-to-date on music I might play at the parties I’ll be deejaying at”.

For the past five years, the 35-year-old multi-hyphenate who’s always comfortable in his own (Nike, obviously) shoes, has even organised his own events called “97% Africa”. “It’s quite easy to find EDM and hip-hop parties, but what was really missing to me was African music, which I’ve listened to my entire life” he states, bringing up memories of time spent between his native France and Togo, where his family comes from. “It started as a sort of joke with a friend to whom I was explaining that we should ‘start a 100% African party’! But we didn’t want to scare people off so we settled for ‘97%’ to leave a little room for other kinds of music, and also as a cheeky references to the average electoral percentage rate of notorious African dictators”. With complete disregard of musical variety quotas, Yannick’s exotic parties bring crowds together to listen and dance to tracks that are still relatively unknown in France.

Early sleeping DJ

In order to sustain his busy lifestyle, Yannick Do has his daily routine down to a tee. Contrary to what one might expect from a DJ, he goes to bed early on weekdays - at approximately 10:30pm - and wakes up naturally at 6:15am. He stays in bed for an hour, mentally planning and preparing for his day, taking notes, checking emails and social network activity before getting up for breakfast: an espresso and a cereal bar. “The bare minimum, just enough to avoid passing out for lack of energy”.

In the shower he uses “traditional Marseille soap or shower gel with a plastic net which is used a lot in Africa as a replacement for a puff”. Before brushing his teeth with Marvis whitening toothpaste and the Horace toothbrush, he chews on a miswak stick for ten minutes. The point of this manoeuvre is to remove the stick’s bark over a centimetre or so by chewing it, thereby breaking it down into soft bristles which you can use to brush your teeth. The medicinal benefits of miswak are well-known, and its cleansing and antibacterial effects, as well as its fluoride content have been acknowledge by multiple studies and the World Health Organization.

While his skin needs no specific care in Togo where the water and climate are considered ideal, the Parisian hard water and pollution dry out his skin. “The only durable solution I’ve found is to apply extra moisturising body milk to my skin. It’s oily enough for me to not have itchy, tight skin by the end of the day. I don’t think I’d ever used a face moisturiser in my life” he confesses. Not because he has anything against face moisturisers, but simply because he never managed to find a cream which suited his skin; mainly due to a lack of information. He’s recently started using the Horace balancing face moisturiser with success.

“I never really felt like brands targeted me. While black women can easily find products to satisfy their grooming needs, black men are still struggling. There probably are some specific brands out there but they’re definitely not easy to find”. By lack of any other option he’s stuck to the same products he’s used since he was a teenager, with little to no changes. Some hair wax, a shirt, a pair of chinos, Nikes - or later Converses - on his feet and Yannick is ready to drive to work.

‘Straight to the point’ is how to best sum up the music and branding aesthete’s approach to grooming. The only other product he uses is a supermarket-bought cream for ultra-dry, borderline chapped hands. As far as his hair is concerned the 30-year-old has a weekly appointment at his barber’s on Sunday evenings. “In my opinion, the height of style is when people can’t notice you’ve been to the hairdresser’s. If I fail to make my weekly appointment, I have to wear a cap! His fade has become something of a fixture over the past 15 years. True to his role as a grooming counsellor, his barber also takes care of Yannick’s fledgling beard while giving out valuable advice.

“Image is incredibly important in my line of work. Your appearance speaks volumes, it’s the first thing people notice about you, so I pay extreme attention to what I’m wearing” states the man who’s confident demeanour and consistency only strengthen his reliable, good guy image. “Over time my style has evolved, and these days my sneaker rotation consists of 15 or so pairs of retro running trainers, versus the 150 pairs I owned 10 years ago”.

The final touch to his style is his perfume. “I’d been wearing nothing but niche fragrances for years, the latest of which was Baudelaire by Byredo.” But for the past few months, he’s started wearing high-end perfumes that were all the rage back in the 90s, and which he loved. Think Kouros by Yves Saint Laurent, Fahrenheit by Dior, and Tsar by Van Cleef & Arpels. “Nowadays most men have completely given up these classic fragrances for niche perfumes but somehow still manage to all smell the same. You can barely walk down the street without smelling Dior’s Bois d’argent, although it’s allegedly a private collection… Niche fragrances are the new mainstream perfumes.”. Take it from Yannick; he clearly has a nose for these things.