The modelling industry.

Eve_Dublin

This is great.

I just found this interesting and hilarious article in The Guardian just there and had to post it up for you chicas. Have a look first...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/fashion/fashion-blog/2011/aug/25/real-model-poses-yolanda-dominguez


Coincidental as I was half watching America's Next Top Model with my sister tonight and we were discussing what drives women to want to become models because to me, it seems so shallow and vacuous. I don't mean to offend anyone who does this for a living, it's more of a lack of understanding the industry that I'm commenting here and a desire to understand. I'm definitely not set on my views completely and am open to understanding. There's so much bad press surrounding the industry and it seems that it promotes the idea that women can get very rich by being very beautiful, very thin and possessing the ability to pull awkward stances for long periods of time. And that's about it as far as I can see.

When I was 21, 10 years ago, I was asked to model for a hair show by a randomer on the street. I'd no idea until the day arrived that I'd be dolled up and sent down a catwalk in front of a large crowd in the Mansion House and broadcasted on telly. I felt like a fecking eejit if the truth be known and the only reason I didn't run away when I found out what I'd be doing was for the sake of the girl who was using my head to model her haircut and I didn't want to leave her stuck at the last minute after all the prepartion. My original incentive was free haircuts for 6 months and of course the flattery of being asked in the first place. I felt like a piece of meat as I practically hobbled along the catwalk and gave the crowd a big wave and a smile (not what I was supposed to do)because I was not used to wearing heels and I was mortified and self-concious and covered in a greasy, thick layer of fake tan wearing a ridiculously short, white skirt. I felt cheap and used by the end of it. (By the way, my hair won the contest.)

I want to know your feelings on the industry and what do you think drives women to become models? Am I missing something? Is there more to it than meets the eye? What do you think of the article and video above? Would you be tempted to get into it yourself? Is it a form of art? Are these women artists? Are these women narcissists? Does it promote unhealthy attitudes to our body image? What are your thoughts generally?

strobe

Strike a pose: real women take on the models

Got this far, lost the will to live...

Eve_Dublin

strobe wrote: »

Got this far, lost the will to live...

I think they just mean non-models and not real in the Dove sense of the word. I think. Have a look at the video. It's funny.

strobe

Eve_Dublin wrote: »

I think they just mean non-models and not real in the Dove sense of the word. I think. Have a look at the video. It's funny.

Ahh no it is funny in a Trigger Happy TV kind of way. But stick a guy playing golf with no golf club or ball in the same places or a woman sitting at a desk pretending to be a secretary but with no phone or computer in the middle of a busy park and you would get the same kind of "wtf" reactions, I think.

"absurd, artificial, a hanger to wear dresses and bags, only concerned about being skinny, beautiful" I mean I have a friend who has been modelling since she was 16, she's one of the nicest, most down to Earth people I know (many of the girls she works with that I have met I could say the same for) and I just think implying (not your implication I know) that kind of stuff about people you know nothing about is a bit rich.

Plus the whole 'not a real woman' (what are they then, exactly?) thing, I just find very...

baby and crumble

The video is awful. The music is way too loud to be able to hear what the person is actually saying.

As for the premise- I don't understand it. You can't take art (and fashion photography IS art, whether you like it or not) and transpose it to a ridiculous location and go "hah, see it's silly!" Of course it is. You're taking a pose, a construction of a human which is design to make a certain type of cloth drape right and look good and you're doing it in awful jeans in a farmers market. Of course it's going to look dumb. The poses aren't designed to be natural, they're designed to make clothes good and desirable, and also they are usually part of an overall 'concept', and need to be viewed within that concept to make sense, just like any other art. If you started booming out Shakespearean soliloquies in a massive Simon Callow voice on Henry St you'd get similar reactions to the women in that video. It needs a context.

Yes, the majority of women in fashion magazines and on runways are very slim- and are therefore not representative of the majority of women on the whole. But they are there to do a job, which is to make clothes look nice. Clothes will drape better on certain frames.

Also, some of the greatest photographers have shot fashion. Like I said before, most of the spreads are art, or at least aspire to be.

Have any of you been watching Dirt Sexy Things on E4? (link) It's really interesting because it shows you how hard the models and the photographers work to get the image across.

Miss Olenska

Models are real women, let's just get that out of the way.

I think the modelling industry is hugely exploitative. We don't hear the half of it. But here are a few examples:

- former model Sara Ziff made a documentary a few years ago about the sexual abuse young models are subjected to: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/jun/07/sara-ziff-teen-modelling-fashion Shocking stuff.

- Elite Europe president Gerard Marie resigned over allegations that he planned to seduce finalist from the Elite Model Look contest, whose average age was 15: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/537643.stm http://articles.nydailynews.com/1999-11-25/news/18123853_1_model-agency-macintyre-agency-official

- Terry Richardson has had allegations of sexually exploiting young models made against him: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/mar/19/terry-richardson-fashion-photography-pornography

Most models starting out are teenagers without chaperones and are in a very vulnerable position as they are naive and eager to earn big money and are attracted by the supposedly glamorous lifestyle. Many are from former Eastern Bloc countries, poor backgrounds. Many of them will never earn big. And some of the ones who do have had money withheld from them by the agencies: http://jezebel.com/5701608/exclusive-lawsuit-reveals-what-vogue-actually-pays-its-models I also believe huge pressure must be applied to these girls to lose weight. Of course many will be naturally willowy, but the accepted required measurements to get anywhere as a model are 34-24-34, a size 6. I believe there are plenty of size 8 model-height girls out there, but anything lower must be getting into statistical anomaly land. Even most tall willowy girls you or I might know probably would be too "big" to model.

I can just imagine that the fashion industry has a seamy underbelly of which we only ever catch glimpses. These girls are treated like lumps of meat, chewed up and spat out.

Here's a wee song about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bgg_gi7AAI

Malari

I'd echo all that Baby & Crumble has said. It's crazy to take these poses out of context and in some way try to "prove" that the modelling industry is fake. Do I want to see a slightly overweight 40 year old woman in a worn Dunnes t-shirt modelling the latest Anya Hindmarch handbag? No I don't! The ads are designed to draw the eye - be spectacular, alluring, unusual, beautiful. Art basically!

I don't watch the Top Model shows, but I've seen episodes here and there and it is not just a case of "sit there and look thin and pretty". They are asked to do very difficult stuff someties. It seems bloody hard for only a major payoff for the very top few who make it big.

There are a lot of other jobs that would make me feel self-conscious and mortified - door-to-door sales, radio or tv work, professional athlete, teacher. Some are suited to it, some aren't. I don't think it's a case of narcissism necessarily, any more than other professions where you might be in the public eye or earning a big salary.

CathyMoran

My daddy was a fashion designer so I grew up in the trade - I found the models to be lovely, intelligent women doing it on the most part to earn a few (then pounds) to get themselves through college. I did a small amount of moddeling myself but when someone asked me to go below a healthy body weight to get more jobs I gave it up (I had a bmi of 18.5 at the time). I find the obsession with being ultrathin upsetting. It is all very well that they are "clotheshorses" but real women wear these clothes so they should be designed for real women. Am still not big (a size 8).

gargleblaster

Didn't read the blog because from the descriptions it seems worth a pass.

I suppose it can be considered vacuous and shallow. They're not curing cancer or helping to educate special-needs kids or striving to address or alleviate poverty or anything - but lots of things don't do that. I like sports but it's not high art, and it's not deep and meaningful (well, in a way it is but that's beside the point). Anyway I don't care for fashion or understand how the modeling shows stay on the air but other people feel that way about sports, so for me it's all just a matter of what you find interesting and engaging, not whether it can be considered vacuous or shallow by someone who doesn't care for it.

As for the negative aspects regarding body image, that's a good point. Unless some country passes laws to stop it I don't think there's much anyone can do except try to raise girls to know that what matters in respect to how you view your body is not only a matter of looks, but also and most importantly health. So many people don't focus comments about weight on health, but on appearance. If the goal is just to be thin, then the means to get that way doesn't matter, and all kinds of problems can crop up.

And my opinion about what drives women to seek out modeling careers - well it seems to me that many women want to be thought of as beautiful, and what better way to do that than to make appearing beautiful your job? It's the ultimate validation of beauty.

Kevin Duffy

Just a counterpoint to some of what's been said - I fell into modelling for a short while a few years ago and I have to say I had a ball, earned good money and was treated very well (well fed at shoots, photographers and crew were all lovely, to the extent that when I shot an ad for a product my mother really liked,they organised a close-up just for me ) and overall it was a great experience.

I'd imagine that being an adult when I started and not depending on it for a career or income probably contributed greatly to it being a positive experience, but regardless of the why, the fact remains that it was a great thing to do for a while.

vicecreamsundae

I don't doubt most models are 'lovely girls', but I think the whole model industry is a crock of ****, basically.

i don't think there is anything "artistic" about seeing yet another incredibly thin, conventionally "beautiful" woman posing unnaturally in an uncomfortable stance. i see thousands upon thousands of these images a year.

valuing women for their looks, and using them to sell stuff to "normal" women who aspire to look like them? barf.

parker kent

It depends what type of modelling really. Catwalk/high fashion modelling weirds me out. They basically want young androgynous teenage girls (massive generalisation I know, of course there are exceptions etc etc). But there are other forms of modelling that use girls/guys who just happen to look fantastic.

Logical Fallacy

vicecreamsundae wrote: »

I don't doubt most models are 'lovely girls', but I think the whole model industry is a crock of ****, basically.

To be honest with you, the second something becomes an industry it tends to become a crock of ****.

Music, movies, telecoms, computers, finance...the whole kit and caboodle...every one of them a crock of ****.