THE LOOK: MR HENRY HOPPER

Hopping from city to city across the globe, sometimes even across one state, it's always curious to see how guys in their early 20s choose to dress. Locations - influenced, obviously, by industry and climate, as much as by attitude - have their own unwritten dress codes. The more urban, edgier metropolises such as London and New York, for example, have their skinny-jeaned, bow-tied, shoe-scuffed dandies, while more beach-oriented hubs like Sydney or Los Angeles favour a more dressed-down - or sometimes barely dressed at all - approach to their wardrobe. And money or upbringing usually has little to do with it: it's more about looking as if you're bucking the trend not spending the bucks - even if the ripped jeans you're wearing cost a fortune and the hippie-like hoodie is made from fine cashmere from The Elder Statesman.

One young actor who favours this surf-sprayed, sun-kissed West Coast laissez faire fashion approach is 20-year-old Mr Hopper. He's one of those lucky men whose nonchalant approach to style looks enviably good. When he turned up for his MR PORTER shoot, near his home in Venice Beach in LA, he was sporting trainers with holes in the sides and the backs all trodden down, an odd pair of socks, scraggy jeans and a nondescript T-shirt. And, well, it worked a treat.

Mr Hopper, like his late father - the legendary actor Mr Dennis Hopper, famous for his iconic roles in everything from Easy Rider and Apocalypse Now to Blue Velvet and Speed - is making waves in the movie industry. His father died of cancer a year ago last Sunday and in that time he has filmed a Mr Gus Van Sant film, Restless, which premiered to mixed reviews in

Cannes two weeks ago. He turns up for our shoot with his mother, Ms Katherine LaNasa, and seems both nervous and shy - until, that is, he steps in front of the photographer Ms Tierney Gearon's camera. The two know each other, and have a rapport, and so it isn't long before he's jumping in the air, wading into the water - and despite the bitter wind - even laughing.

Mr Hopper has always been interested in the arts, but until recently hovered between painting and acting - much like his father, whose photography was critically admired. Mr Hopper Jr took weekend acting classes at the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute in his early teens, did some theatre work in LA, studied painting and sculpture at CalArts and disappeared to Berlin for a while to make films and art. And despite being approached for various big-screen roles over the years, he resisted until the Mr Van Sant project came along.

Restless is an offbeat tale of a teenage girl (Ms Mia Wasikowska) suffering from terminal brain cancer who meets a recently-orphaned boy, Enoch, at a funeral; their shared obsession with funerals and death brings the two close together. The role must have resonated with Mr Hopper as he had only just lost his father from cancer. He says of the experience: "I lost a friend early on in shooting, unexpectedly, and that kind of framed what I was doing. I was dealing with death in two different dimensions."

Mr Hopper, who looks the spitting image of his father at the same age, and whose ease and charisma in front of the camera - both in Restless and in our fashion shoot - reveals a raw talent that, if he chooses to let it, could take him far. And as for his natural ability to make some weathered denims and a pair of espadrilles (see above) look so easy and cool, well, that just isn't fair.