Hey there!

I always had Jezebel on top of my feed list and your pieces are my favorites. But I never thought even you, even Jezebel, forsakes its sources. Amateurish behavior like this is more likely to run into on a daily basis on scrappers websites or anonymous websites looking for nothing and expressing nothing but their own personal babbling.

On the other hand, it really is flattering to see you sourcing down my website, but, as you previously had, you could've mentioned it (I remember many of your articles that linked to a source, no matter how unimportant the website).

Hoping this has some kind of meaning to you (in case you really read it), I'm sure you'll find just to ethically mention (at least next time) my website.

Keep up your great work! I enjoy every single post!

Kpriss from Stylefrizz.com

Hi Tatiana,

I recently had the pleasure of reading your piece "Dear models of the world are we all too busy starving ourselves to form a union already" on the wonderful Gawker. Your thorough and brief look into the lives of models is a great perspective and I think your ideas are
marvelous. As the Media & Marketing Director for the Canadian International Modeling Agency (CIMA) in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada (a very young and not too established agency), our company's mission and vision statement is to work hard in order to build ethics within our agency and within the fashion industry as a whole.

Our models do not have weight issues and we are always concerned with the lives of our models. We care for them and maintain ethics and respect within the company. Any wrong move by a staff member (whether taking out an underage model alone with a staff member without
advising the head agent) can lead to that staff member being released. Parents accompany their children (under 18) wherever and must sign off on everything before we pursue. Agents are not legal guardians of models under eighteen; CIMA stresses the presence of parents.

Most of our staff members are not the quintessential stereotype of the modeling industry: white, middle aged males. Actually, none of us are white or middle-aged men. The CEO of the company is a 23 year old non-white male; however, most of us, like myself, are females, born in
non-Western countries. CIMA's oldest employee is 27, and we treat our staff (including models) the way we were raised to treat people, ethically and with respect. Furthermore, we do not believe in placing or booking a model for a job she doesn't feel comfortable in. This
factor is essential to how we do business. CIMA also believes in education. Since 98% of us are university students or former university students and many of our models are either in high school or university, we seek to remind them that education comes first.

At CIMA, we are also concerned about what is affordable and what is not, which is why we have reduced the price of our portfolio work. Our models are now able to afford the services we provide to them and get somewhere in the industry. And no, we do not reduce the value of the work.

I am basically writing this email to you in order to tell you that I admire your courageous idea (s Linda Evangelista did try and advocate for higher wages and model unions with her "I don't wake up for less than $10,000 a day" quote back in the 1990s) and I strongly
believe you should pursue this, as you are, I can assume, a full time professional model.

The reason I went in depth about our agency is simple: I wanted to let you know that you are not the only one and we are possibly also not the only ones working for this goal. Although it might be a longer process for us, eventually, our voices will be heard and the industry
will change.

You can break down stereotypes and educate those six feet tall, fourteen year old foreign girls who are starving looking for their big break before they get caught up in a web!

Be well,
--

Danah Abdulla
Media & Marketing, Director
Canadian International Modeling Agency (CIMA)
391 Bank Street, 2nd Floor, Ottawa, Ontario
danahabdulla@cimaonline.ca
613.255.0764
www.cimaonline.ca