'Half-price' budgets drive top models off catwalk
February 8, 2009
Free designer dresses, an army of admirers and $15 000 (R150 000) to stroll down a catwalk: no wonder teenage girls aspire to be a top model.
But at the haute couture shows in Paris, the leggy blondes in silk dresses are finding their world turned inside out by the economic crisis.
"Half price! It's half price everywhere: in Milan, even in New York," cries Anna Chyzh (23) from Kiev, who has just changed out of a Stephane Rolland haute couture gown into jeans and is headed to the next show.
Like many models from Ukraine, Russia and the Balkans, Chyzh regularly sends money home to support her mother, a freelance interior designer who has trouble finding work because of the downturn.
Shunned by scrimping shoppers amid rising unemployment and fears of a long, deep recession, retailers across the board have cut profit forecasts and marketing budgets.
At last month's fashion shows in Paris and Milan, a prime advertising opportunity for luxury brands, designers hired fewer models than last year. Models and agents are both feeling the pinch.
At Premier Model Management in London, an agency that has represented Claudia Schiffer, clients who used to pay a daily rate of $4 200 are now arriving with a budget of half that size, says director Aidan Jean-Marie.
To weather the crisis, agencies are adjusting their mix of so-called "commercial models", who attract a steady stream of low-key jobs such as catalogue shoots, and pricier "image models", who appear on catwalks and magazine covers.
"You need both sides to survive the downturn, but the balance shifts slightly towards the commercial models," says Jean-Marie. "The catwalk girls are … anomalies, with measurements they had when they were 16 and still have at 18."
Karen Diamond, a director at Models 1, the agency of supermodel Agyness Deyn, expects the full impact of the crisis to hit later this year, since advertising budgets and show schedules are planned far in advance.
"Clients will go with established models rather than giving new faces a break, and it'll be tough for new girls," she says.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the arrival of the internet, modelling has turned into one of the most competitive and globalised job markets.
Diamond said half of the models her agency hires do not make it to the next stage as their teenage bodies fill out.
Georgina Stojiljkovic, a 19-year-old Serbian model, says: "If there is no more money, maybe I should go back and focus on my studies." She put her degree in political science on hold a year ago to work full-time and shares her fees with her family.
"I earn more than my parents. It's kind of sad - they went to school and have worked for years," says Stojiljkovic. She says the crisis may be a good thing if it forces her to finish her degree. - Reuters
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