The life of a model – walking in fashion shows for Prada and Givenchy, shooting for Vogue – can seem, from the outside, like a dream come true.
I was scouted and signed to a modelling agency when I was 16. It was a heady experience, but still confusing – I had had no idea that a trip to Kent’s Bluewater shopping centre could result in a total life change. Then, the week before I was due to enter the first year of sixth form and begin my A-levels, my agent asked if I would model at London fashion week. They said I’d only be out of school for a week, so of course I said yes. That week turned into two, which spiralled into five as I was swept off to Milan and Paris to walk in Jil Sander, Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton.
I was extremely fortunate that my career started like this, and I was even more fortunate that it continued. After that first week of work, I went on to shoot magazine editorials, walk runways and travel fairly consistently over the next four years. For a 17-year-old, I was making decent money, too – even after learning that when my agent said they were taking me out to lunch, this would later be deducted from my pay. To observers, I was some sort of star, which wasn’t a totally unwarranted view given that publications such as Harper’s Bazaar, British Vogue and, bizarrely, the Sun named me a “face to watch”.
Of course, it’ll be a surprise to precisely no one that the modelling industry is, by design, exploitative. It capitalises on women (although this afflicts male models, too) who are often foreign (sometimes non-English speaking) and, as I was, very young. I was 16 when I was first told to lose weight and, throughout the four years I was modelling, this “advice” was never too far from the tip of my agent’s tongue.
It wasn’t just the pressure – to which I succumbed – to force my body into becoming a weight it wasn’t designed to be that warned me of preordained disaster. I was 17 when I was going out to dinner with a friend, who also happened to be a casting director – and in his late 30s. He texted saying he needed to finish some work, and invited me to his house. I went, made polite conversation, then he kissed me. I froze. I had to be friendly – there’s an unfair but nevertheless direct correlation between success and being liked – but, equally, I had been violated (though I didn’t have the courage to use that word at the time). I texted another model friend immediately afterwards, to which she replied: “Dude, ur young and hot. sucks, but was bound to happen.”
By the time I was 20, it felt like everything – my career, social life, relationships – was imploding. Unhappy and overweight in fashion terms, I had to make a decision. I could do what my agent urged and go to a weight-loss camp for models, or quit. I chose the latter. I told my agent I intended to go to university, but since I had to wait until September for the academic year to start, I wanted to travel first. My agent didn’t mind as I wasn’t making them much money. I was, quite simply, out of fashion.
Oh spare me, you might think – yet another thin, white, conventionally attractive, young woman talking about the burden of being attractive. I get it, it is galling and exasperating to be told how heavy the cross of physical beauty is to bear. To be clear: I’m aware of the privileges that being attractive affords me. I’m also aware that commodifying and profiting from my own body and beauty via the fashion industry doesn’t absolve me of my own complicity in allowing such an industry to continue. But it is possible to capitalise on and fall victim to the perils of beauty. Is there a way of reconciling the two? Possibly. I haven’t found an answer for it yet. If you have, send it my way.
I’m too far removed these days to know how much the industry has truly changed; from what I see on magazines and runways, it looks as though casting is more inclusive and diverse. But I’m unsure of the degree to which these are merely acts of tokenism. I’m sceptical that these diversity optics actually convert to any meaningful changes in the power dynamics behind the scenes. Nepotism and a strong social media following seem to be more in vogue these days, so I wonder if brand exposure is considered more valuable than diversity.
There is strength in knowing when to quit. With hindsight, leaving modelling was the best decision I could have made. Last year I obtained my master’s in English literature from University College London and have since become a journalist. It’s sad to see how many people try to emulate models, so many of whom are deeply unhappy, and it’s this cruel and unnecessary cycle of imitation and disappointment that I hope to break in my writing about the fashion industry. Until then, I’m now much happier having my piece of cake – and eating it.
Zoë Huxford is a writer and journalist based in London
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