Fashion Models

Fashion models are hired to promote and display clothing, footwear and accessories. Because fashion is a visual business, models are its visual aid: the people through whom designers and clothing companies display their products to the world, at live events and through photography, in magazines, catalogues, websites and newspapers.

The Types of Modelling

Modelling is not one job but a family of them. Types include fashion and runway models, glamour models, fitness models, fine art models, body-part models, promotional models and commercial print models, with celebrities — actors, singers and reality television stars — often working as models as well. Plus size models have become an increasingly important segment as the industry has recognised that models represent the general population in all sizes.

Two easily confused specialisms deserve separation. A fitness model displays a healthy, toned physique. A fit model is something else entirely: a living sizing aid who works with designers and pattern makers, giving feedback on the fit, feel, movement and drape of a garment being produced in a given size. The names differ by one letter and the jobs differ completely — and a fitness model can, of course, also work as a fit model.

Agencies, Trade Shows and Becoming a Model

Most professional work flows through modelling agencies — companies that represent fashion models to the fashion industry and earn commission on the projects they arrange between models and the companies searching for them. The model agencies directory linked from this page lists agencies working in the clothing industry, and fashion model schools offer training routes for newcomers asking how to become a fashion model.

Not all modelling is glamorous magazine work. Trade show and promotional models are hired to drive consumer demand for a product, service, brand or concept by interacting directly with potential customers — informing journalists, clothing store buyers and consumers at trade shows and conventions, where the apparel industry does much of its business. Runway selection has its own craft too, covered in the guide to selecting fashion models for runway shows linked below, alongside resources such as Models.com, and Vogue and Harper's Bazaar model coverage.

Models and the Camera

A model's working partner is the camera, and the relationship is a craft in itself. Photographers and models develop an intimate working understanding — of angles, light, movement and how a garment behaves at the instant of exposure — which is professional rather than personal, and which separates experienced models from beginners more reliably than measurements do. The fashion photographer summary linked from this page covers the other side of that partnership. For aspiring models the lesson is encouraging: posing, movement and garment handling are learnable skills, practised in front of mirrors and test shoots long before they are performed at fashion week.