On the printed page modeling looks glamorous, filled with luxury products and fashion, gorgeous makeup and hair, and most people think the model was pampered into these looks and just had to show up and be beautiful, and then get paid. The reality is, it takes so much to actually get to the point where a photo appears in a publication or a model walks down the runway. Rather than just having a rant about the injustices and abuses in the modeling world, I wanted to share with you some of the cringe-worthy stories I have heard from my model friends over the years. We laugh about these things now but they were anything but funny when they happened.
It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt, right? One model friend was working on set in Japan and had a large light fall on her head - ouch - and on another occasion had to work with a very nasty monkey that wanted nothing to do with her - yikes. Another friend became sick with a high fever while on a shoot for a magazine in Algeria, but the shoot went on. Only when the magazine came out did she see that in one shot she was standing bare foot in broken glass, in a shot she can’t remember even doing. Noticing a trend here? It can’t be overstated enough how important it is for models to have travel health insurance. It is as important as your passport and ticket!
A couple of my friends who worked with Armani had equal parts reverence for the famed fashion house and fear, both of the casting process and of the actual work. Armani has it’s own showroom complete with runway which is lit from underneath. Models of all shapes and descriptions on the casting were provided with a sheer bodysuit that they had to wear without anything more than a small g-string underneath, and walk the runway barefoot in front of the casting directors and often Armani himself, all of whom sat under lights at the end of the runway to conceal their expressions. The models in the dressing room waited for their turns while trying to maintain their modesty, everyone looking down or away and feeling intensely awkward. Let’s be clear that models are often down to their strings in front of stylists and dressers, but when they are actually being paid for a booking, and not just in front of a bunch of other models on a casting waiting to seal their fate with a barefoot, nearly naked walk down a runway in front of people you can’t even see.
The casting wasn’t the only situation the brought fear to these models. One had to wear shoes that were two sizes too large for her and naturally one shoe fell off while walking on the runway in front of a group of Japanese buyers – she smiled, picked up the shoe and continued her walk – what else could she do? Armani himself came charging into the dressing room raging at her and the dressers and before the model could pack up to leave, her agency had been called and she was in hot water. When it was realized that the model was only given shoes that were clearly not her size and forced to wear them even though it was impossible, she was reinstated. Imagine the feeling walking into the salon the next time to work, receiving glaring looks from the dressers?? Nerves of steel!
Sometimes a model doesn’t even get to the set before a drama unfolds. Nearly all my model friends have had a hair stylist who burned the tips of their ears or their neck with a hot curling or straightening iron, another had one hair stylist actually coat her hair with Vaseline to glue it down (she thought it was gel). It is no easy feat to remove Vaseline from hair and it finally took repeat washings with a grease-cutting dish detergent to remove it from her hair. Stylists who pinch, poke pins into a model, or mumble about her or him under their breath, or editors and art directors who talk about them thinking they are deaf and can’t hear them, are all hazards of the business and woe to the model who lets these things ruin the experience for her. For every horror story there are lots of great experiences models can have working, traveling, and learning about the fashion, beauty and branding businesses.
There are as many modeling mishaps as there are models and I will share more in the future. On-set horror stories from the point of view of photographers, make-up artists, and stylists are just as numerous and I will share those too.
Next time you look at those glossy pages with those stunning unicorns in gorgeous fashion, consider that there might have been a nightmare casting before the model actually booked the job, a stylist who brought the wrong sizes, a hair stylist who had too much caffeine, a makeup artist who didn’t clean their brushes and had pink eye herself, and maybe even an editor who had a vision they couldn’t express and no one understood. These images don’t come easy – they are just supposed to look like they did.
XOXO Shelley
#modeling mishaps #nightmare castings #modeling business #getting into modeling #fashion business #modeling isn’t as easy as it looks #facethis.blogspot.com #Shelley Goodstein
