After graduating from Bucknell University, Mr. Warfel “went to Europe for a few years where I was a model in—let’s see, can I say, the ’80s? Late ’80s.” (His age of course is a great mystery. ) “It was Milan in the spring, early summer. And then in the fall you went back to Paris and you stayed through the winter, and then Barcelona of course was your last stop.”
After three years, he said to himself, “‘Well I went to university to go to medical school, got a little sidetracked, but it’s time to go back.’ So I started in Chicago.” But after a semester, he got frustrated. He returned to modeling. “We used to go to the Les Bains Douches, where we’d see Brian Ferry,” he said. “It was a very exciting time. Lot of great nightclubs and fashion things, Grace Jones.” He ended up going back to medicine, and got his degree from the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine. He had an inkling that he wanted to go into cosmetic surgery, and a professor said: “‘Listen, Mark, time goes by, so six years from now, you’re gonna be somewhere, you might as well be in plastic surgery.’”
Summertime is when Dr. Mark flourishes. He has a house on the North Fork of Long Island on a bluff overlooking the beach.
“I usually have a lot guests,” he said. “So we get up and we’ll have breakfast. We’ll go down to the beach. We might set the crab trap or the lobster trap or we might do a little snorkeling. I have an aquarium that we stock with local fish. Right now I have starfish and a conch, a Channel Whelk, which, when it gets hungry, it stands up out of its shell. I had a pipefish in there, which is a relative of a sea horse, but they like to eat live food, so I’ve released them. I had a live scallop, which also likes to eat live food.”
(Earlier this summer, his client Jamison Ernest, who owns the clothing company Yellow Fever, dropped by Dr. Mark’s beach house. “We walk into the house, and all these perfectly sculpted Brazilian boys, like a harem, like six of them, are all lying around on the deck,” said Mr. Ernest. )
During the week, Mr. Warfel likes to go to parties and art openings. He is a co-host of a week gig at a bar in the East Village with other social gays such as Peter Davis, Michael Musto, Kristian Laliberte.
He recently returned to Paris for an anti-aging conference. He went on Facebook and connected with some of the models who are still there. “I went to a dinner party and there was Bridget, who was very famous at the time and she still looks great at age 50. And John Armstrong — he’s American, but he’s still living in Paris, since those days.” He added, “It’s not as exciting in Paris anymore.”
How does he take care of his own face?
“I use the scrub in the shower,” he said. (He has his own line of products.) “I shave, then do the toner, which gets all the junk—including that Teflon that’s on those blades—off, along with any dead skin. Splash with cold water, get that off, close all the pours. Then I do a vitamin C and E treatment, let it soak in, then put on the alpha hydroxy acid lotion. And that’s the moisturizer, and that’s it.
“People think I’ve done everything, but the truth is I’m the last person served here, because it’s busy and at the end of the day I’m tired,” he said. “I need Botox right now, but will I do it today? Probably not. I do it on myself. I ice down the area and have my assistant hold the mirror.”
smorgan@observer.com
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