Jezebel: business models

Business Models

Dodai — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 10:45:00 EST

The UK "glamour model" Katie Price, also known as Jordan, is launching her own line of Jordan condoms and sex toys. The 29-year-old star and mother of three (Harvey, Junior and Princess Tiáamii) will also have a Katie Price line of haircare appliances, and is working on jewelry, clothing, cosmetics and riding gear like horsewhips and saddles. What's that, you say? You're ready to go out and buy all this crap but you don't have the cash? No worries: Jordan, who had her enormous breast implants removed in December, is launching a "pink and girlie" Katie Price credit card. [The Sun, Mirror]

Forbes: Models Are Starving, Financially Fucked & Computer Analyzed

Dodai — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 13:30:00 EDT

Kiri Blakely wrote a story for Forbes titled "How To Be A Supermodel." Yeah, Forbes. The article is actually about the many steps in the trajectory from regular girl to famous model: Contests, contracts, go-sees, fashion shows, cosmetics campaigns. Blakely spent time with Edythe Hughes, 17, who was discovered in a Columbus, Ohio mall, and recently moved to New York. The weird finances of the business for new model Hughes are put on the table:

Hughes is advanced $150 a week for expenses and probably won't see much more than that. But she doesn't mind: "Before this, I was working as a librarian, making $8 an hour." Last season, Hughes worked as an "exclusive" model for Calvin Klein and banked $9,500 for one show (and 15 hours' prep time). Of that, she thinks she netted about $5,000, but she isn't sure.

Blakely reminds readers, "Everything from cabs to airfare to the agency's 10% fees (20% if the girl is still signed with a local agency) is deducted from her salary, and many designers don't pay at all." Sounds great! But there's more: Forbes has an accompanying piece, "Top 10 Tops To Becoming A Supermodel," which including this helpful hint to wannabe mannequins:

Stop eating. Grow. Be at least five foot nine, weighing 110 to 120 Ibs. This would give you a body-mass index of about 16 to 18. "Models starve themselves, and we tell them to," says Richard Habberley, a top agent with Elite, which reps Victoria's Secret hottie Alessandra Ambrosio and Maybelline face Jessica White.

There are also slideshows for "A Day In The Life Of An Aspiring Supermodel" (Edythe eats breakfast! Edythe walks for a designer in his showroom!) and "The Five Most Important People In Modeling" (the dude who casts Victoria's Secret catalogs! Anna Wintour!) but seriously... What do people who read Forbes need to know this crap for? The only truly interesting part is how executives measure success at Victoria's Secret: "Computers track each photograph in every catalog. Not surprisingly, girls who move merchandise end up moving up the corporate ladder to supermodeldom." Oh right, a computer knows who the best model is, because it's all about the money. This is Forbes, after all.

How To Be A Supermodel [Forbes]

Black Fashion Industry Insiders Ask: Where Are The Black Models?

Dodai — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 10:30:00 EDT

Now that fashion week is over, today's WWD poses a question: Where were the black models? "Everyone is always talking about the weight issue," photographer and America's Next Top Model judge Nigel Barker says. "I think they should be talking about race." Barker says that the celebrity designers — not the ready-to-wear or couture ones — are willing to use a wider range of models. And, in our experience, it was the "outsider" shows, not held in the tents — Baby Phat/KLS, Heatherette — in which we saw black (and Asian) women walking the runway. Last Friday, at a panel discussion called "The Lack of the Black Image in Fashion Today," WWD reports that Bethann Hardison, a former model and founder of casting company Bethann Management, says "In the United States of America, this is the one industry that still has the freedom to refer to people by their color and reject them in their work. I came up in the Sixties. I feel it's the worst it's ever been."

The underrepresentation of black women on the runway comes despite the fact that, according to estimates by Targetmarketnews.com, black women alone spend more than $20 billion on apparel each year.

And though there is a lack of black models, designers and photographers, there is a noticeable increase in Asian models, designers and executives in the industry, says WWD.

Of the 101 shows and presentations posted on Style.com, 31 appear to have no black models. Most of those who did use black models opted for one or two. However, Heatherette, Diane von Furstenberg, Charles Nolan, Tracy Reese, Yigal Azrouël, Philip Lim, Marc Jacobs, Jenni Kayne and Sue Stemp were among the designers who used more than two. Heatherette, von Furstenberg and Lam each opened their shows with a black model. In fact, von Furstenberg closed her show with the opening girl, too, and the first 10 models at Heatherette appeared to be women of color.

Naomi Campbell, who flew in from London for the panel discussion, recalled how Christy Turlington once told Dolce & Gabbana, "If you don't use Naomi, you don't get us," referring to herself and Linda Evangelista. Designer Tracy Reese, who is black, was also on the panel. She said that her booker has to request certain (black) models, otherwise the agencies will not send them.

Cosmetics industry mogul Iman said she felt strongly about organizing a union for models, noting it's the only huge industry that does not have one. "Models don't have a union. They don't have a voice. No one speaks for them. Thank God I'm not a model anymore."

Not one to let a subject like this pass her by, Tyra Banks is working on a segment for her show about race in the fashion industry, according to Fashionista. Chanel Iman, who opened the Heatherette show (and was sort of on the cover of Vogue) will be a guest on the Tyra's program.

The defense of designers who opt for girls who all look alike is often that they want the focus to be on the clothes and not the models. But when a designer sends out a collection on a runway, he or she is offering up a vision of an ideal world. However you feel about the fashion industry or modeling itself, is it not disturbing that so many designers consider a perfect world to be one without any black people?

Where Were the Black Models? [WWD]
Little Diversity in Fashion: African-Americans Bemoan Their Absence in Industry [WWD]
Tyra Hearts Chanel Iman, Heatherette! [Fashionista]

Earlier: Death Of The Black Model?
Chanel Iman: Just Your Regular 16-Year-Old 'Vogue' Cover Model
Magazines Targeted To Black Women Suffer & Die
Crashin' Show: Heatherette

Death Of The Black Model?

Dodai — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

We haven't purchased Ebony magazine in years. But we picked up the September issue, because, look! Tyra, Iman, Kimora Lee Simmons and Alek Wek! Also, the cover line: "Black Is Back." We were dying to find out where "black" went, and with whom! Unfortunately, the story inside is rather depressing. Tyra, Iman, Kimora and Alek are extremely successful. All have parlayed their name as models into other businesses: Tyra produces two TV shows; Iman has a global cosmetics operation; Kimora runs Baby Phat and has a TV show; Alek has a handbag line and a children's educational program. But what about the next generation of Tyras, Imans, Kimoras and Aleks? Tyra has ended her 16-year modeling career, and some fashion insiders say the industry is backing away from black models. "I think runways have a blackout right now, White seems to be right, the image of what beauty is," says Veronica Jones, owner of Grand View, a Nyack, NY women's apparel store.

In the 90s, the industry gravitated to celebrity models while its appetite for African-American women waned in favor of women from Africa and Eastern Europe, Jones says. To be sure, the fashion industry has never really been the province of American girl-next-door types of any race, favoring instead women with exotic looks not commonly found in the heartland or the hood.

The writer, Keith Reed, goes on to point out that this year, Beyoncé became the first non-model to grace the cover of Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue, a decade after Tyra made history by becoming the first African-American model to land on the cover. Other black women land covers, but they are usually entertainers: Halle Berry, Janet Jackson and Jennifer Hudson. Where are the black models?

Audrey Smaltz, a former model who now runs a company which handles backstage preparations for Fashion Week, says the industry doesn't embrace black models. "They like exotic-looking blacks, African-born blacks," she says. "They're blacks born in Somalia and Sierra Leone, very few blacks from America. Why?"

Good question. We can only think of one current black model: Chanel Iman. But in the past, several worked at once: Naomi, Tyra, Veronica Webb, Karen Alexander — and more recently, Oluchi and Liya. Tyra's show, America's Next Top Model, may showcase American black girls who want to be models, but do they make it in the fashion industry — and on a real runway? Where are the new black models, and why don't we know their names?

This Month In Ebony [EbonyJet.com]
Earlier: YSL's Stefano Pilati: Eugenicist For The 21st Century