By CAITLIN STOWER
There are plenty of young women who dream of becoming models.
The stuff of those dreams probably includes strolling a runway for big name designers, appearing in campaigns wearing dresses of the value of a small house and gracing the cover of Anna Wintour’s Vogue (although maybe not actually meeting Anna, that be scary).
What those dreams probably don’t include?
Being swindled by their ‘agency’ and forced to choose between starvation and money. But in an industry that values thinness, fame and dollars above health and happiness – that’s exactly what’s happening…
Founder of the Model Alliance (a not-for-profit labour group for models, based in New York City), Sara Ziff, has written a piece for The Guardian, where she revealed some of the shocking truths about what really goes on in the ‘glamorous’ world of modelling.
Ziff describes an event the Model Alliance held recently to welcome the fresh faces in the New York modelling industry. She says one woman, who was quiet throughout most of the lunch, began to speak of the mistreatment she was suffering at the hands of the agency.
Ziff writes:
Her modelling agency was withholding her earnings, she said, until she lost inches from her hips. She just wanted to get paid the money that she was owed and move to another, better agency, but she’d signed an exclusive, multi-year contract to the agency and they were sponsoring her work visa. It was either diet, or go broke.
According to Ziff, some agencies classify models as independent contractors, not employees, which means they don’t even get minimum wage protection and they can’t sue for sexual harassment.
“Most working models… have no leverage to negotiate a contract or make demands of the agency, so contracts are almost always one-sided, giving the agencies a huge amount of control over models’ careers – and, in some cases, even their diets,” Ziff wrote.
This isn’t the first time shocking stories of the treatment of models have entered the public consciousness.
A few years ago, a model named Hailey Hasbrook claimed she was paid in clothes rather than cash when she worked for Marc Jacobs as a model. Before that, stories of models who were starving and exhausted from being flown in and out of countries for fashion weeks around the globe surfaced in the news.
Sara Ziff says it’s easy for the public to criticise the models – a young, beautiful woman who seems to ‘have it all’ is an easy target – but really, it’s the industry that’s to blame. She says the modelling industry relies on exploiting young – mostly foreign – girls who start their careers already in debt to their agency.
Thankfully, the Model Alliance have fought for new laws that will protect models under the age of 18 in the United States. As of last November, child models now have working papers, maximum working hours, lunch breaks, trust accounts and educational requirements. For those under 16, they will also be given a chaperone.
Despite this legal advance, change comes slowly and painfully in the crazy arena that is high fashion combat. According to Ziff, many shows at Fashion Week events around the world still pay their models in clothes – perhaps this sort of unfair trading was even going on in Australia at Melbourne Fashion Week last week.
Designer Alex Perry speaks to Today about a previous ‘skinny model scandal’ in Australia last year.
It seems as if everyone has an opinion on the weight of a model; some, like Mamamia Publisher Mia Freedman, say they’re too thin and we need to address the issue. Others, like British Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman, say thin models are needed because “nobody wants a ‘real’ person on the cover of Vogue”.
But the mood seems to be changing and with it? The voices. For the first time, we’re starting to hear from those who are truly in the know, and sadly, those who have the most to lose. And that is the models themselves.
Here are some of the catwalk models who have been labelled as ‘too thin’ by the media and experts in the past:
How do you feel when you see ultra-thin models on the catwalk? Does it make you want to buy clothes? Have you ever heard negative stories about how models are treated?
Top Comments
Personally I am sick of the 'naturally thin' argument. It misses the point entirely - they are still underweight. I naturally carry a little extra around the middle due to genetics and metabolism, and my doctor still insists I watch my diet and exercise to maintain my health. Why is it different for walking sticks? - Sure they may be naturally so, but that still does not make them healthy role models. Any doctor would advise they could put on a few pounds to reach an optimal weight. A friend's daughter was raped and suffered bulimia as part of ongoing post traumatic stress disorder. Only when she really shrank down did she get offered work from a very high profile Australian modelling agency. Her mother obliged saying, 'its the only good thing in her life.' Recently she has been in a clinic and I was told she was being signed out for photoshoots, then returned in the afternoon. An eating disorder clinic! I was so concerned I rang the agency who said, very nonchalantly, 'Oh, but her anorexia has nothing to do with her modelling. Her eating disorders existed before she was signed'
The same girl has done high profile campaigns for fashion shows and festivals nation wide. She is painfully thin. I don't care for what reason the girl is too thin. Natural or not. This madness needs to STOP.
All I see when I look at the picture at the top of this article is a sick woman. Dry lips, staring, sunken eyes, black under her eyes. She looks very ill, not naturally thin. My mum has been thin to the point of emaciation all her life, but she has never looked sick and lifeless as this girl does. Mum's eyes are alert, bright and sparkling, her lips are moist and pink and her skin is not pasty. I must add that she has had the appetite of a bullocky all her life - would that I could eat like that! Cassi Van Den Dungen has sunken cheeks, wasted eyes and her knees look like she can barely stand straight. I hate to think of the damage she has done to her poor body (and yes, she has done it, she used to be a lovely girl and looked a healthy size) and how it will affect her in later life.
But you cannot know for sure! I am not thin, but I have dark shadows under my eyes which make me look sick, but there's nothing wrong with me. These models are also heavily made up, perhaps to exaggerate this look. They may also have a condition which makes them thin which they take advantage of. You cannot judge an a persons health by photographs! The issue is the promotion of this image by the industry, not the health/apearence of possibly perfectly healthy models