I never cared about modeling. As a model, you’re powerless. —Karen Gillan
If you’re looking to make a career out of modeling and don’t already have a fat bank account, you might want to think again.
Back in 2005, when I first considered moving to Indianapolis from Atlanta, I naturally wanted to make sure that I would be able to have sufficient income. I did a little digging and was able to make contact with four different modeling agencies here. Three were delightfully quick to say yes, they would be happy to utilize my services. The fourth, Helen Wells, wouldn’t commit but at least was open to discussion. I had similar phone calls with ad agencies with similar results. So, I put the majority of my belongings in a storage unit (which would later flood), packed the rest in the back of a rental car, and headed North feeling somewhat optimistic about the future.
Within two weeks I knew I was wrong in my assessment. One modeling agency packed up and moved the very next day after I met with them, taking all the models’ earnings with them. Another told me how much they paid for a model’s comp card session, but they only had one model due to a disagreement over pay. They were gone within 30 days of that conversation. The third was more difficult to pin down, never quite having time to schedule a meeting and when we did was suspiciously non-committal. By the end of the summer, a lawsuit had been brought against the agency for withholding models’ pay. The models won the suit, but the agency owner fled the state without paying anyone.
I don’t know how many times  I’ve talked with aspiring models who just wanted to make a little extra money while in college. Modeling sounds like it would be an easy source of cash for anyone who is reasonably attractive. The common perspective is that all one has to do is show up. Someone does your hair and makeup, someone else provides your wardrobe, then you just stand in front of a camera and pose for a few minutes. Boom, instant easy cash. But that’s not the way modeling works at all. Not even close.
Modeling has always had its shell games and money rackets going all the way back to the 1940s when professional modeling began. The industry runs loose with absolutely no one overseeing it in any way. Some states have laws concerning how long models can work if they’re under 18, and a few European countries have some form of law designed to protect against eating disorders, but for the most part, modeling agencies do whatever they damn well please and models almost always end up feeling more like victims.
CNN Money recently started airing a five-part investigative series called Runway Injustice, taking a detailed look at the dark and dirty side of modeling. Only two parts have been released so far, but it is obvious from the title that the cable news outlet isn’t taking a positive view of the modeling industry. They’re looking at the con games, the slow-to-pay problem, and how many agencies make money charging models for expenses. One former model even goes on record as saying her agency charged her for the flowers they sent her on her birthday.
When one watches a fashion show and sees all the long-legged girls parading past in next season’s fashion, one might get the impression that these models are doing quite well for themselves, but the truth is quite different. While designers might pay the Hadid or Jenner offspring outrageous (and unjustified) amounts for showing up, most labels still pay less than $5,000 per model. I know, that still sounds like a lot, but from that travel, hotel, and food expenses are deducted, on top of the agency’s standard 20% commission and administrative fees. Many models walk away, after months of waiting, with less than $500. Some end up actually owing the agency money. Even Cara Delevigne, who has been at the very top of the game, doesn’t have anything nice to say about the industry and how it treats models.
Increasingly, the value of an agency, or “management company” as many like IMG prefer to be called now, is being called into question. More casting agents are looking at sources such as Instagram and other social media outlets, choosing models with exceptionally high numbers of followers, which virtually guarantees success for whatever ad campaign or runway show in which the model appears. Unrepresented, or independent, these models have difficulty keeping the work flowing. Most end up signing with an agency and find themselves right back in the same traps that more traditional models experience.
All this begs the question that, if modeling is such a horrible career, why would young people want to even consider doing such a thing? The answer is that not everything about modeling is horrible. For many, just the fun of being in front of the camera, getting to play dress-up with the wardrobe, the opportunity to travel (even if it’s on their own dime), and sometimes meeting really cool and famous people is sufficient. Some use modeling as a way to explore their alter ego, being in front of the camera what they cannot be in their private lives. Others use modeling as a means of escape from other horrible conditions. Â For many, just the chance that they might become part of the .05% who actually make a fantastic living is enough to risk everything.
I’m sure that, at the end of the CNN investigation, there will be someone advocating greater oversight of the industry and legislation to protect models from various forms of abuse and deceit. Don’t expect anything to actually happen, though. We’ve heard all these complaints before. Nothing I’ve seen in the CNN report so far is new or different from what I’ve seen and heard for 30 years. The sad fact is models are not an organized group, therefore they are not able to present a single or unified voice. They don’t have, and can’t afford, lobbyist speaking to legislators on their behalf. No one sticks up for them and, once the spotlight of the CNN story fades, everything will almost certainly continue on the way it has.
Modeling is fun, sometimes, but there are a lot of other times when it just plain sucks. If someone wants to do it for the fun and adventure, great. Go for it. Have fun every step of the way. Don’t expect to get rich, though, and watch your back at every turn. While being a model can present some incredible experiences, it’s not likely to leave you swimming in cash. In fact, you’ll be needing your own gas money. Always.
Good luck.
A Mother’s Beauty
Mother’s love is peace. It need not be acquired, it need not be deserved. —Erich Fromm
Mother’s Day brings plenty of memories, but we forget the beauty sacrifices mothers make for us.
I typically avoid the topic of mothers on Mother’s Day, partly because that’s what everyone is talking about and I’m not sure I can, or should, compete for your attention. Mother’s Day is also a little sad now that my own mother is gone. Some days it is better to let others do all the talking.
We romanticize our mothers in a sense, not that such a perspective is inappropriate, but our love for our mothers sometimes keeps us from seeing the depth of a mother’s sacrifice for her children.  She wouldn’t bring it up, of course, mothers rarely do. But what we remember of our mothers is seen through the perspective of a child. We don’t see what all went on in a mother’s life before she had children and everything she willingly gave up for us.
There aren’t many pictures still around of my mother when she was young. Her family was dirt poor and didn’t have a camera so the only pictures are those someone else took and gave her. What I see in those few pictures, though, is someone with a quick smile, sparkling eyes, and curly jet-black hair. I can understand why Poppa found her attractive. She was petite, like her other mother, with her father’s slim build; enough curve to be feminine, but not so much as to appear inappropriately sexual, which was apparently a thing back in the 1950s. She wore bobby socks with loafers and heels and gloves as was common at the time. Poppa said she was very prim and proper, very strict in her etiquette, but more than anything, he said she was beautiful.
Sure, everyone thinks their mother is beautiful, but we don’t see the same beauty that our fathers did. We see someone who is loving and caring and made sacrifices for us so that we could have everything we needed. Remember, though, that our fathers knew our mothers before we did and they saw her beauty in a different light. Â They saw a side of a mother’s beauty that we’re not all that comfortable discussing. Despite everything that might have happened later, all the arguments and divorces, the illnesses and emotional issues, before we were born our fathers thought our mothers were sexy. They wouldn’t likely use that word in front of us, but that’s what they were thinking.
I occasionally come across someone who has nude photographs of their mother taken before they were born. We don’t often think of artistic nude photography having existed much before Helmut Newton, but it most certainly did, and was secretly very popular. Â The difference was that they kept those photos to themselves. There was no Internet or social media on which to share them, so rarely did anyone else ever know they had been taken and it certainly wasn’t something they would just show to the kids. Typically, the photos are found by the adult child while helping their mother go through things later in her life. They elicit all knew stories about a side of our mothers we never considered: they were sexy.
Then, we came along and spoiled it all. The effect might not have happened immediately. Some women’s bodies handle childbirth better than others. Others, though, never lose the weight they put on carrying you. Hips that widened to facilitate your delivery didn’t snap back in place. If you kicked the wrong thing while you were swimming around in all that amniotic fluid, you likely created a physical problem your mother had to endure the rest of her life. She was thrilled to nurse you and cuddle you close, but because of that her breasts sag and she never looked the same in a swimsuit again.
You gave her stretch marks and those dark circles under her eyes from 18-plus years of never getting enough sleep and worrying about the trouble she knew you were getting into, even if she didn’t know exactly what it was. You killed her arches as she ran after you in shoes that were not meant for running. Her joints eventually became stiff and arthritic from all the times she put herself in unnatural positions to find that toy you had just dropped, or teaching you how to play leap frog, or picking you up and carrying you from the playground after you fell from the swing, again.
Before you were born, that lady you now call your mom paid more attention to how she looked when she went out. Her ensemble was carefully put together, even if it was more bohemian and less Chanel. She might have even worn makeup and had her nails done. After you came along, though, she was happy if what she was wearing didn’t have any fresh stains and if everything matched it was more by coincidence than design. Your mother’s stylist thought you were cute, but secretly hated you because your mother went from trying out different cuts and colors to short and easy-to-manage.
After  you came along, your mother didn’t go out with friends as often, didn’t travel as much, gave up on trying to fit into Gloria Vanderbilt jeans and damn sure wanted to make sure there was sufficient coverage between her and her Calvin’s. Almost everything that had gone into making her so physically desirable to your father either you ruined or she had to give up to care for you, except for one thing: Love.
And that’s what we remember on Mother’s Day: her love. After all, that’s what is important, right? Nothing else matters, at least, not now. A mother’s beauty isn’t defined by how “hot” she looks, how many heads she once turned, or how many hearts she once broke. A mother’s beauty is defined by how she could kiss a boo-boo and make the pain go away, or how she knew exactly when you needed her to make those special pancakes, or how she could mend a broken heart then help you plot revenge. She likes that definition.
Mothers don’t care about what they’ve given up for you. The love you and, in the vast majority of situations, would do everything all over again (with the benefit of a little wisdom from the experience). She loves you, you love her, and that makes everything beautiful enough for her. But don’t you ever forget that she did make those sacrifices. I’ll tell you what she might not: you owe her. Big.
A poet, whose name escapes me at the moment, once said that a mother’s beauty is defined is defined by the grace and compassion of her children. Your mother gave up a lot for you. Make her beautiful, damnit.
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