Models, the modelling industry, and the potential transformative power of it all

This was originally published at Oranges and Apples - please visit Franca for more thoughtful fashion and feminism!

by Franca Eirich

I love anything to do with models. I will watch any old reality TV show if it has models in it, I used to be majorly addicted to America's/Britain's/Germany's Next Top Model so much! I dislike the manipulative editing that makes it seem as if everyone is constantly bitching or fighting or crying, but I will watch it anyway. What I like best is the bits when they are working, particularly the photoshoots.

Lately, I've been watching Channel 4's The Model Agency. It's more about the agents than the models, and the majority of it isn't very interesting, watching office politics in a place run by a boss straight out of the management-techniques-to-avoid textbook. But I like watching it because of the glimpses into the model's lives.

Unfortunately, the things I have found out about professional modelling are not so encouraging. Here's just a few things I remember off the top of my head:

What all of this really brought home to me is how profoundly unglamorous the life of a professional model is. It's basically all indeterminate amounts of waiting, short bursts of frenzied activity, minimal sleep and minimal food. Being alone or shoved in with random strangers. Sexual abuse being common. Agents only looking out for you if it threatens business. And so many of these girls (and boys) are aged 15-16, an age where most people already lack confidence anyway, without being isolated, starved and judged by powerful strangers.

There's no denying that modelling pays well, and I'm sure there are models out there who are able to get exactly what they want, and are happy with everything about their job, but it seems that overall, the models are pretty low down the fashion industry food chain. It's a shame that something like Erin O'Connor's Model Sanctuary is even needed, but it is.

I wish modelling was just treated as a job with pros and cons like any other, but I just find it so weird that it's this thing that so many young girls aspire to to the extent that they will completely screw their life chances in other areas such as education to pursue it. I can understand why it appears glitzy, since models are the public face of the fashion industry, the most visible jobs there are in it, and the ones that don't need any formal qualifications, but surely everyone *knows* that it wouldn't be much fun in practice, that the chances of success are slim (no pun intended!) and that even if you do 'make it', it's only going to last a few years anyway?

On the flipside of that, I've written a bit in the past about using 'real', non-model models, (I won't go into that here now) and researching those posts, I was struck by how much of the vitriol that bloggers were dishing out when writing about size zero and diversity in fashion was aimed at the models themselves, who surely are just as much victims of the fashion industry's twisted standards of beauty as the 'normal' women who are made to feel inadequate by them.

It seems models are always talked about as heroes or villains, hardly ever as people.

So why then am I so interested in all things modelling? I'm not even into high fashion that much, and my fascination definitely goes beyond the clothes.

The best I can explain it is that I love is the transformation: in ANTM, on the film camera's you see a studio or an outside location with millions of people wandering about, clothes strewn everywhere and the model looking nervous and awkward, the photographer spouting incomprehensible directions or bland encouragements. It's all pretty mundane and not so nice. But then you see the photo coming out at the end, and it's like magic. A whole aspirational world is created. I *know* that that model is the same awkward and nervous teenager I saw on film, but here she is looking a strong and beautiful woman.

Another thing that struck me about the Model Agency programme was that none of the editorial models actually looked conventionally pretty. They mainly looked fragile and knackered. Many look androgynous and angular. If I had passed any of them in the street, I would never have thought 'oh, she/he's stunning'. I probably wouldn't even have noticed most of them. But when I look at the pictures of them, I get it. They do look stunning.

And somehow I take heart from the fact that gawky teenager with thin short hair can end up as internationally renowned symbol of beauty. Somehow despite the fashion industry and it's obsession with unattainable thinness, I think it opens the doors for the possibility of a more diverse definition of beauty. It recognises that beauty is a matter of stand point, of expectations, a creation, not a natural status.

It seems I am an optimist at heart after all!

What do you think? Anyone share my obsession with models?

Photos via here.