Resolution: be more of an asshole not about crediting artists (who cares), but about crediting models.

People have talked about how when you excerpt porn it becomes even more difficult to verify that the image was produced consensually. This is also true with models! [I think about this a lot because 90% of my dash is supermodels/because I can still dream]. We know for example that Karmen Pedaru was not paid for most of the work she did with Next when she was underage! And that she was likely-fraudulently brought to the U.S. when she was fifteen and couldn’t read the contract she signed which said that she had no right to be paid for her work! Because she did not speak English! (I have this contract in its entirety if anyone ever wants to see it, Jenna Sauers emailed it to me when I was doing a research paper on this a few years ago.) And there are countless others like her that are a lot less famous and powerful. And, like, the Eastern European migrant model stream is directly connected to sex trafficking! (In South America it is as well but it’s slightly different and hint: think about German expats in the Andes and the sexualization of white-passing Brazilian models in the 1990s.) Or, like, what about Ali Michael? I luv her more than life but I get uncomfortable when I think about the cost of her distributed image. Etc. Sometimes when I see photos of these girls I’m like, yeesh, talk about consent. (And of course you remember this nonsense. Yes obviously fourteen year old models who don’t speak English invented sweatshops; yes obviously they make a million dollars an hour that’s not a completely fabricated number or anything; yes obviously it’s exclusively Westwood they make in Vietnamese sweatshops and not, like, underwear you buy at Target; yes this is all about selfish models.)

(Seriously love everyone of them more than anything though, to be clear.)

I bring this up every few seasons just because I’m like MY BABIES THO and because in my head I’m still Karlie Kloss Labor Organizing Superhero

For my final project in my Asian American Studies class, I’ve been reading The Beautiful Generation and compiling a series of pieces about fashion via different approaches. Right now I’m cross-referencing Asian-American designers, SS/FS12 collections which cite “Asian” influences, and models of East Asian or Middle Eastern descent who walked in New York, Paris, London, and Milan. It becomes really complicated to interpret ethnic identities of girls who were born in East Asian countries but began working in European and American markets (as a migrant, away from their families) by the time they were teenagers. Except! Actually! There are volumes and volumes of scholarship about just that transnational, migrant labor dynamic except usually they are written about the other end of the fashion industrial complex. What about this migrant labor?

Of his Fall 2012 collection, Jason Wu said “I suppose this hasn’t really been done before—an Asian designer tapping into the Asian side. Usually, culturally, we stay away from it.” In that show, as far as I can tell, three out of about 42 models claim Asian heritage: Liu Wen, who is from China but has worked internationally since she was a teenager, Tao Okamoto who is Japanese but has also been working globally for years, and Shanina Shaik, who is Australian of Pakistani and Saudi Arabian descent.

A question that I am also considering: what are the major structural differences between the traffic of East Asian models and South American or Eastern European models? Wen worked in Chinese fashion circuits before becoming famous in the U.S., Tao didn’t sign to Elite until she was 19. How much does the “undesirability” (and professionalization/tokenization) of unambiguously East Asian bodies contribute to a significantly smaller fashion body trafficking industry than exists in, say, Brazil or the Baltics? Where does the sex trade overlap with the modeling trade in Southeast Asia? Why does it seem less obvious that those two things are inseparable than it does when we’re talking about the Eastern Bloc? Take, for example, Karmen Pedaru (“discovered” in Estonia when she was fifteen), Zuzanna Bijoch (in Poland when she was thirteen), Erjona Ala (fifteen or sixteen, from Kosovo, “scouted” in Oslo), Ginta Lapina (sixteen, Latvia), Anabela Belikova (seventeen, Belarus), Alina Ismailova (fourteen, Russia), Daga Ziober (fifteen, Poland), Kristina Romanova (fifteen, Russia), Simona Andrejic (fourteen, Serbia), Tayane Leao (fourteen, Brazil).

NYmag’s model directory lists three Japanese models (none of whom were working in fashion before they were 19), thirteen Chinese models (none working internationally in fashion before the age of 17), seven Korean models (none of whom were working before eighteen, most of whom were not working in Western circuits until at least twenty), three Filipino girls (one who started working at sixteen, one at nineteen, one at twenty), one Indian model (sixteen), and one Thai model (nineteen).

This disparity has everything to do with markets, marketability, and whose bodies perform different types of labor in this industry. Still, there is so much to be unpacked about white exploitation of marked bodies and their ages, and it’s not just about transnational migrant labor. Consider this: under the American model listings, there are only a handful of models that I know claim Asian heritage. Chanel Iman and Devon Aoki are exceptions—they started modeling as children and preteens—but the average starting age for American, British, Australian and Canadian models whose bodies “read” as Asian bodies is noticeably higher than that of white-passing models. How are we transposing age ideologies onto bodies in ways that create differentiated patterns of exploitation? Briefly: why are thirteen-year-old Chinese girls sewing D&G while thirteen-year-old Estonian girls are wearing those clothes in Vogue? The answer is obvious, maybe, but it also bears enunciation.

I should add that there are very, very few listed models of Western nationality who claim East Asian and Middle Eastern heritages, and most of them are multiracial black women. What else can we say about fashion’s refusal to incorporate black women who are not ethnically “ambiguous,” and Asian women who are not sufficiently “alien”? Where are the Asian-Americanmodels? And what does it mean to even claim a hyphenated identity when you’re swept into the model migrant stream so young?

ourcatastrophe:

…a cosmetics company specializing in mineral makeup, has a new ad campaign that hinges upon how it found “the world’s most beautiful women…without ever seeing their faces.” Models and actresses showed up at the casting call and filled out questionnaires about themselves… The company then cast the campaign solely on the basis of the questionnaires, choosing models not for their looks but for their “inner beauty.”

…On its face this seems a logical, even praise-worthy, response to the constant barrage of unrealistic messages hurled at women every day about what appearance they should aspire to. But in so doing, the campaign commodifies women’s inner lives in addition to their beauty. …The same labor that has always gone into looking attractive — the labor that models have professionalized and monetized (smiling, appearing natural in front of the camera, speaking the company line) — is now applied to “being yourself,” which has been turned into a field of commodified emotional labor.

this is interesting to me because I have a lot of feelings around social justice discourse re: models. i.e. people generally position them in opposition to workers, rather than recognising that modelling is work — and unless you’re in the very top ranks of the industry, it’s poorly-paid, exploitative, dangerous work, targeting very young women who are often isolated and far from home.  one anti-sweatshop campaign I saw compared the hourly rates models were getting paid to the hourly rates manufacturers of the clothing were getting, with the implication being that models were representative of the privileged First World.  this comparison is misleading because modelling is typically occasional work, and like other occasional workers, models get large lump payments when they actually snare a gig, and spend the rest of their time penny-pinching, looking for jobs, and maintaining their skills/body/appearance.  nobody thinks circus performers (say) are rolling in it, but they operate on a very similar payscale.  it’s also misleading because models pay large expenses for agents, accomodation, etc that often eat up the bulk of their pay packet.  but mostly, it’s misleading because it positions models as the people with ultimate power in the fashion industry.  A more appropriate comparison would be between the pay of sewing machine operators and the pay of the creative directors of the company, or shareholders, or even, dare I say it, paid anti-sweatshop campaigners. 

so how does this relate to the linked article?  basically, there’s this perception that the image models are paid to present — carefree, privileged, effortlessly beautiful — is the reality of their lives.  and we should know better by now than to get sucked in by those images. 

What you just said was basically the thesis of a research paper I wrote last year.  It’s something I’m super super passionate about and interested in.  (Ashley Mears does a lot of research and writing about modeling as emotional and aesthetic labor.)

I remember that campaign you were talking about, and it was so upsetting to me.  Aside from all the things you’ve said, it’s misleading because it was flat-out false.  It said something along the lines of “the average model at LFW makes $65/hour” which, what, even?  That’s not even remotely true or verifiable.  London is a little bit better than New York (by which I mean, they have a minimum wage for models), but everyone who is even remotely involved with NYFW knows that the average model makes $0/hour.  It’s not just that it’s poorly paying, it’s that it’s not paying.  Sometimes you get a pair of pants.  Sometimes the money goes to the agency, and, as we have seen with Pedaru this past year, the model never sees it.  And, let’s not forget, Karmen Pedaru is a top-tier model.  She was also “recruited” from Estonia when she was fifteen, signed a probably-fraudulent contract with her agency that said that they didn’t actually have to pay her and that she had no legal right to sue them if they didn’t.  It’s not even known if she spoke English at the time.  Top-tier models make $200 for being on the cover of Vogue Italia.  I know that doesn’t sound like $0.65/hr or anything, but it does come out to just around NY minimum wage when you consider all of the time and labor (and expense) that goes into shooting a cover and Jesus Christ do you think they pay Rihanna $200 for the cover of Vogue?  Right.

The other major issue with positing models in the fashion industry as a first-world counterparts to third-world labor is that most of them are not actual first-world women.  They are children (children, more often than not) who have been, yes, trafficked into the NY fashion circuit by major international companies which are never held accountable for their labor practices because everyone likes to call models shallow and dumb or whatever. 

Also, again, most of them are children.

modelsrocksrightnow:

with K.Kurkova!

I wasn’t so hot on JPG’s clothes on the runway, but I can totes empathize with Coco’s cocked-in-beehive-and-disco-turtleneck-with-ma-lady mood.  These dresses aren’t for fashion week, these dresses are for lounging against walls, drinking sloe gin and watching The Nanny with your girls.

Cocorobrowspoblog for 2011.

Karlieeeee. 
I love you always forever and lots.
Hung your face on my dorm room door,
taped Lola over Miss Dior.
(Dior sux.)
Wrote a research paper about how your labor is exploited
and so many times I’ve defended your walk.

Karlieeeeeeee. 
When I beehive my hair and spritz my morning Lola, I’ll forever pretend I am you.

Karlieeeeeeeeeeeeee. 
Are you a pouter?  Did you bite your cheek?
Whisper ‘prune’ when you smile for the cameras?
Or is that just the way your face is?

Karlieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. 
You are better than Jean Paul Gaultier. 
Will you someday make fashionz, too? 
Heavy-handed pretty dresses?  Cone boobs?
When you are old, will you dye your hair blue,
make teen girls walk in pleathers like JPG did to you?
Couches on their head, cats behind their ear
(or maybe just marry a Stroke and write pomez).

Alternately:
She was Karlie, plain Karlie in the morning,
standing seven feet two in McQueens.
You get the idea.

This isn’t creepy because she was fifteen when she first walked in Paris!  It’s clever because of Lola.  Lola in slacks.  She’s an adult now!

Also, the Bureau of Labor Statistics takes its wage and employment statistics during May.  Fashion week is in February (or September).  Most of the models working in the off-season in the U.S. are doing commercial work because, you know, there aren’t many fashion shows happening.  Commercial work, or print work, actually pays money (median $13.18/hr, according to these mostly meaningless statistics).  Median $13.18/hr during the month of May, except for the ones that “receive free or discounted clothing instead of regular wages.”  For some reason, those aren’t counted in those numbers.  They either made $13.18/hr or they made nothing, and the Bureau won’t tell me which.

Also, apparently for 2009 New York state didn’t even report its labor statistics on modeling.  Wonder why!  Meaning, of course, that these statistics mean nothing to anyone.

Actually, fuck it.  Here’s a list of offensively gendered language and sexist cliches Jeannette Catsoulis uses to describe Sara Ziff and/or models in general and/or Picture Me.

1. “Diary”
2. A “models don’t eat!” joke
3. “poor me, I was a supermodel”
4. “tender age” (this kind of relates more to the discussion of childhood, but still)
5. “bathtub breakdown, girly dishing, and teary confessions” (I’m not kidding.)
6. “Juvenile”
7. “Amateurish” (Okay, “amateurish” is always fair game in a film review, except maybe when you follow it with “[because] Ziff’s strutting pals shot their own confessionals.”)
8. She doesn’t possess “the maturity or  the intellectual heft to shape the material into something substantive.”  So creative!  No one has ever said that about models before!
9. “clueless”
10. “shallow” (actually, fair.)
11. “superficially”

I’m done.

So after I write this research paper about underage girls working as models, I’m going to write something (for tumblr, even!) about the obnoxious public reaction to models who organize or dare to regard their work as, well, work.  Because, um, this New York Times movie review?  Pissed me the fuck off.

Plus there’s that whole, “oh, you want to make a documentary about females who labor and their hardships!  That’s cute, girl, go write it in your diary” thing.  I mean, Picture Me isn’t perfect, but it’s a whole lot more credible than the New York Times movie review of Picture Me.


I was reading NYT earlier (I believe this article about models for online retailers), and I was like, “I get why NYT writes at a 7th grade reading level, but I’m not sure why they have to write like my 7th grade book reports!”  The ones we had to put on cereal boxes?  Yeah, those.