Fashioning Fat: Inside Plus-Size Modeling (17 page)

I am signed with an agency. They are wonderful to work with, and having an agent certainly helps expose you to clients that have the jobs that pay well. I am non-exclusive, so I am able to freelance, but I have found that since I am represented by an agency I can ask for higher freelance rates than I got beforehand.

Models may also be signed with different agencies in the different modeling markets. For example, one model used one agency for work in New York City, a second in Los Angeles, and a third in Miami.

Being represented by an agency is generally the best course of action, especially if the model is serious about pursuing a career in modeling, because of the hierarchical organization of the profession. Unsigned models working in this “underground market” at the local and regional levels in catalog and boutique showrooms constitute the lowest levels of the hierarchy, followed by models signed to specialized, boutique agencies. Those few models signed to large, international modeling agencies and, thus, more likely to appear in editorials for fashion magazines and on runways in New York City to Milan are at the top of the career ladder. While it is possible for a model to move up the ranks, her career prospects depend on a combination of chance and genetics, in addition to hard work and persistence despite continual rejection.

Overall, the agent’s role is to discover and market the strengths of his or her models. The structure of modeling, like many body-centric fields, is essentially a network of differential relations between social actors that involves both a highly developed canon of body techniques and those social actors who can synthesize these techniques.
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Focusing on the relationship between plus-size model and agent reveals a discourse of power and control. This is epitomized by the booking board, which is at the heart of the modeling agency.

Comprised of sleek shelving that holds rows of composite cards, this booking board is a tangible nexus of power for the agency, cataloguing the collective body capital of the agency, i.e., its roster of signed plus-size models. This instrument is centrally located within an agency and is continually referred to by the agents as they pick and choose which models to send out to castings.

Agents exude pride when speaking of their board. After an interview with an agent, he or she enthusiastically asked, “You want to see my board?” This pride also translates into how these agents perceive and work on their boards. As one agent described, she continually tweaks
the board, focusing on the color palate and the angles used in the photographs, because “it all speaks to my division. It is about the energy of the board, which clients read.” The agent personally picks the photographers used to shoot the models, designs the layout of the composite cards for her plus-size models, and chooses the layout, angles, and colors for printed booklet advertisements that the agency sends out quarterly to clients and photographers.

The board represents the agency itself and the kind of models it produces. In a paternalistic manner, agents take ownership of their models and their images. “Their girls” are their creation and their moneymakers. With strict standards of business, agencies demand much from their models because, as every agent insisted, they give one hundred percent to their girls.

Agents do more than manage the logistics. As an agent described, “We look into women’s souls. We show them [the models] how beautiful they are. We walk them through a process of awakening. We offer spiritual and emotional self-help.” This help can range from the type of critique Bobby offered regarding my test shoots or one that is focused on motivating the model during periods of self-doubt and rejection. Agents encourage their models when they do good work and offer constructive criticism when needed. For example, Bobby offered this motivational piece of advice to beginning models:

When you go to castings where most of the girls will have full portfolios, you don’t have that much in the book. The ones on your comp card will be the only pictures you have. At times, it could get a little frustrating. [But] it only takes one person to believe in you.

Beyond these types of motivational talks, agents demonstrate their confidence in their models by developing a close professional relationship with them.

Agents take their work personally and are protective over their business, expecting loyalty from their models. The agent-model relationship
is a partnership built and nurtured over time, which explained one agent’s disdain for models who switch agencies. He viewed it as an act of disloyalty to the original agency.

When I first met Bobby, he stressed that he required my full cooperation. He stressed, “Let me know what is up—your schedule and limitations, whether no nudity or not working on high holy days.” If we were to work together, I needed to be up-front about my level of comfort with different kinds of jobs, i.e., fit jobs, lingerie and swimwear, etc., because when he sent me to a casting, I needed to be prepared to accept the job. This was a condition that I understood. As a taller than average twelve-year-old, my acting manager would arrange auditions for me, often for the role of high school teenager. Many of the parts that I auditioned for contained profanity and sexual situations. One audition, in particular, involved the reenactment of a sexual assault. As a child, I was not comfortable with the scene and refused to audition. Afterward, my manager refused to send me out on auditions since she deemed me “unprofessional” and “immature.” Therefore, when Bobby said this, I understood the severity of the situation.

In this partnership, agents work closely with their models to build their careers, getting to know them personally and involving themselves in more private aspects of their models’ lives, from searching for an apartment after a model’s boyfriend dumps her, to helping with mortgage payments, or walking a model down the aisle at her wedding. As one agent argued, this personal connection is necessary for the professional process to work. Without this complete immersion into every aspect of a model’s life, he argued, she would not become a star. This agent needed to be aware of everything that could have a possible effect on his model’s capacity to work. Given this ideological stance, some agents blur the lines between public and private, as well as between mentorship and control.

In this close mentoring relationship, agents advise their models on how to present themselves to prospective clients. This, at times, involves learning the fine art of deception. Before my first casting for a fit client, my agent advised me to exaggerate the truth of my experience in fit
modeling. If asked by the client about my previous fit work, the agent told me to mention that my grandmother was a seamstress and to overemphasize my past in theater by saying that I had worked as a fit model for costumes. While my grandmother occasionally made me dresses, blouses, and skirts which required multiple fittings, and I had been fitted for costumes throughout high school and college for various musical productions, this “experience” had not prepared me for fit modeling work. In recommending me to present myself as a fit model with experience, the agent taught me how to market my particular set of skills and experiences. These kinds of lies run rampant throughout the fashion industry. Models regularly lie about their age, ethnicity, measurements, and level of experience—often at the behest of their agents. In her ethnography, Mears writes about how her agents instructed her to subtract five years from her age and either stress or ignore her Korean ethnicity to potential clients.
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The truth of the body used in fashion imagery is inconsequential as long as she can pass as the desired body. In the end, the façade (and not the substance) is all that matters.

Models and agents engage in an intimate working relationship, where private matters of the body are subject to public scrutiny. Individual body projects, such as a simple haircut, become subject to public debate. A model needs to present any desired body modification to her agent, who, in turn, evaluates the proposed change based on fashion trends and employment potential. Any physical changes that affect a model’s appearance need to be approved by her agency. She surrenders herself to a collective of aesthetic professionals who makes decisions about her body.

Models are not only subject to an agent’s gaze on matters of the look of her body but also on what she does with her body. At my first meeting with Bobby, he warned me to refrain from drugs, alcohol, and salt, lest I become bloated for a photo shoot or casting. One of his former models failed to heed this advice. This lucky young woman booked an advertising campaign with a popular American retailing company. On the day of the photo shoot, she did not appear for her call time, which is
the meeting time arranged by the client. After several frantic calls from the client to the agency and Bobby to the model, Bobby discovered that the model was too embarrassed to go to work because she had a hickey. Bobby urged her to go anyway, be friendly to the makeup artist, and pray that the shoot was a fall or winter scene involving scarves. Afterward, he dropped her from the agency due to her lack of professionalism:

She must have been drunk, high, or willing to get a hickey the size of Rhode Island. I won’t work with someone who doesn’t treat this [modeling] as a job . . . She made me look bad. I take it personally if it doesn’t work or she’s not professional.

This incident illustrated that a model’s behavior reflects back onto the agency that represents her. At each casting and booking, both the model’s and the agency’s reputations are in jeopardy. By signing a model, the agent is, in effect, betting on the model’s potential to book jobs. The agent, in turn, depends on the model to behave professionally at castings and bookings, namely by showing up promptly and ready to work at the scheduled call time. If a model fails to comply with these expectations, she will be asked to seek representation elsewhere. Modeling is a job, not a right, as Bobby explained during our first meeting:

From my past experience, I like working with actors. They know how to do the business. Pure models think they are better than everyone else and privileged. Remember, this is a business.

While I told Bobby that I was a sociologist, my educational credentials did not appear to affect his evaluation of me, except that he approved of the flexibility my academic schedule provided. He was more interested in my past as an actor and its similar emphasis on body work and aesthetics. Bobby highlighted the professionalism needed to work in fashion. It is not about being trendy, “cool,” or popular. Models do not just stand in a position and look pretty. Modeling, in his view, is work that requires
trust in one’s agent, dedication to improving one’s bodily capital, and fearlessness to do what clients ask.

Building a successful modeling career requires active involvement on the part of a model. Once a model signs with an agency, she needs to maintain a visible presence. As an agent from an exclusively plus-size agency recommended:

You don’t want to fall through the cracks. You need to call or email to check-in with your agent at least once a week, just to see if anything is happening. Most of the time, there won’t be anything happening at the moment, but it is good to keep you fresh in your agent’s mind. It shows your interest in your career.

Frequent contact with an agent boosts a model’s chances of getting sent out to castings. As one model recommended, “Be charming. Remember names. Send thank you cards and gifts. Most importantly, kiss ass!” In order to succeed, these women become entrepreneurs, commodifying their bodies and engaging in emotional labor to sell their product.

As much as they promote the use of larger bodies in fashion, agents are not goodwill ambassadors for size acceptance. They are business professionals who rely on specialized management tools and practices, e.g., firm contracts, elusive accounting practices, and scheduling controlled by model bookers, to protect their investment. These institutional texts and discourses that coordinate the work processes within modeling agencies serve to connect the macro-level of the modeling industry with the everyday life of the plus-size model. They also serve to control their models’ careers. Ultimately, the model is subordinate to the agent.

Agencies control the financial end of modeling work. They negotiate modeling rates with clients, process work vouchers, and schedule a model’s bookings and castings. Relying on a commission-based system of service,
if the agent does not find the model paid work, the agent likewise does not get paid. In terms of the employer-employee arrangement, models are independent contractors. They are not employees of a modeling agency. Since models are self-employed, they do not receive health insurance or other employment benefits that usually accompany a salaried position. If contractually signed with an agency, the modeling agent becomes the authorized representative of the model and receives a negotiable 15–20 percent commission from the model’s earnings for services rendered. Their services include arranging “go-sees” and castings and negotiating terms of compensation with potential clients for the model. In this commission-based scheme, the agent receives a 20 percent cut of the model’s fee (the New York modeling market standard) and charges the client—the designer, advertiser, retailer, or other individuals or company that requires the services of a model—an additional 20 percent on top of the negotiated modeling fee. In total, the agent receives 40 percent for being a middleman. One model offered this frank illustration of the role of the agent as a middleman:

Agents are pimps, the clients are the johns, and models are prostitutes. The clients don’t know what they want. They are just a bunch of out of touch higher-ups. Once they have a model, get used to her, they don’t want to change her. The models are used by the pimps, I mean the agents, who try to get more money out of her. She’s just a commodity. The agent collects 40 percent, for what? It’s me [as the model] that makes the connection with the client. [For agents] It’s all about the money.