Modeling Mentor Blog » Coco Rocha

Modeling Tip: To Tan or Not to Tan?

jill — Thu, 16 May 2013 23:44:54 +0000

The temperature hit 80 degrees in New York today and soon Sheep’s Meadow and beaches everywhere will be strewn with bronzing bods. Should yours be one of them? Not if you’re a model. Not if you care about your skin. Not if you don’t want your face to resemble a prune when you’re 50. Those latter reasons are self-explanatory, but why shouldn’t a model be tan?

Model Coco Rocha

1. Tan lines can get you fired (I lost a catalog job when I showed up with strap marks on my shoulders after failing to apply sunscreen the day before at Volleypalooza in South Beach. Getting up at 5:30 AM, going to the location, having my hair and makeup done, and then being sent home, minus the $2000 I would have earned, was like rubbing salt on my sunburn, I’ll tell you that.)

Sheep’s Meadow Sunbathers

2. Wrinkles and sun spots will shorten your career.

3. Winter clothes are shot in the summer; a model sporting wool looks weird with a wicked tan.

4. If the client wants you to look tan, that all can be done digitally these days, and if you want to look tan, use a self-tanner—no cancer risk necessary!

5. Healthy, porcelain skin is in.

Self-Tanner Ratings from ABC’s Good Morning America:

Estee Lauder sunless super tan $25. Model’s Ratings: Color: 9 Application: 8 Smell: 9

Coppertone endless summer sunless tanning lotion $12. Model’s Ratings: Color: 8 Application: 8 Smell: 9

Clarins self tanning instant gel $24.50. Model’s Ratings: Color: 7 Application: 9 Smell: 7

Neutrogena sunless tanning foam $10. Model’s Ratings: Color: 6 Application: 9 Smell: 3

Which self-tanner is your fave?

(FYI, for some reason, Tuesday always ends up being insanely busy, so I’m shifting my tip day to Thursday. It doesn’t have quite the same ring to it—Thursday Tip—but I promise the content will be as helpful as the advice I doled out on Tuesdays!)

Modeling Tip: Contemplating Posing in Lingerie

jill — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 01:21:43 +0000

In college, when I modeled in Denver, I recall that few of the girls at the agency modeled lingerie. At the time, I wouldn’t.

Miranda Kerr, Backstage at the VS Show

Now when I watch the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show (which aired last week on CBS and airs again tomorrow on CW), I wonder if refusing to pose in panties is considered overly prudish today. In an era when the VS Angels have replaced Miss America contestants as role models for girls, does all that bare skin even faze anyone? Do the erotic blown kisses, taut tushes, and sizzling bedroom eyes make teens squirm if they’re watching with their parents?

VS Show 2012

I don’t have the answers, as my kids are all too young to watch. I do know that Coco Rocha has a policy of no lingerie, not even swimwear or revealing couture, and she has 425,000 Twitter followers, so she must be considered pretty cool.

I also know that decisions are swayed by cultural norms. At age 22, I headed to Germany—where hanging out naked in the park was no big deal to the locals—and within a month I found myself in front of a camera in a bra and panties. Here’s an excerpt from my book about that shoot:

I’d never done a lingerie booking before and wondered if there would be an audience of male photographer’s assistants present, or worse, boxing brief-clad models—maybe even guys I’d face later at the gym, who’d smirk knowingly at my padded sports bra.

Bettina Putzkammer’s studio, in the basement of the photographer’s home on the outskirts of town, turned out to be testosterone-free, but I still managed to humiliate myself. I didn’t know that the robes and slippers offered to lingerie models are not to make them feel cozy, like guests lounging at the Four Seasons; rather, they provide coverage so the model can remove all of her undergarments to ensure there are no lines on her skin when the shoot begins. I put the robe on over my bra and underwear and neglected to take off my socks. So I felt doubly stupid when I was reprimanded for the lines my socks had left on my calves and for the tan lines from my bikini top.

“Oh, you Americans,” said Bettina, referring to our resolve to keep our boobs modestly under wraps, unlike all those swinging free among the sunbathers at the Englischer Garten. Gawking at bare bodies in the park was a highlight for the American guys who came to visit their model friends in Munich. In the Schönfeld meadow, men and women, of all ages and sizes, tanned and frolicked in the buff.

Other than the novice upkeep of my skin, which for 250 DM (about $150) an hour ought to be seamless, my initiation into panty posing went smoothly. This type of job was considered racy in Denver but it was no big deal in Munich. Maggie didn’t even ask whether I “did lingerie” or not. Anyone who had the right body (not too skinny, not too flabby, and a 34B/C, pre-Victoria’s-Secret-Extreme-Cleavage era) did, even though these skin-revealing shoots didn’t pay double-time as they had in Denver. The significant decrease in the likelihood of family and friends seeing the pictures of me in my skivvies made up for the lower rate, not that I would complain about $500 for a morning’s work. If I never got another booking, I had airfare home.

I don’t regret deciding to model lingerie. These days, teenage girls go to prom wearing less (have you seen band-aid dresses?!).

Herve Leger Band-Aid Dress

The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show is airing again tomorrow, Wednesday, December 12 at 9/8Central on the CW. If I were walking that runway, I’m not sure what would scare me more, the tiny bikini bottoms or the towering stilettos!

Enter the Modeling Mentor Model Search!

Are Most Models Competitive Backstabbers?

jill — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 16:25:33 +0000

I read a story yesterday about how model Coco Rocha recommended Karlie Kloss to Grace Coddington at Vogue, saying “this girl is good, and so sweet, and you’re gonna want to use her.” It made me think about the misconception people have (at least I think it’s a misconception) that most models are catty and backstabbing. I decided to quiz some model friends to see what they have to say about their photographic peers: nasty or nice?

Coco Rocha

Karlie Kloss

For the first installment of what may become a series, here are answers from three wise women on my Official Model Advisory Board (ok, I just made that up, but I may run with it and actually make it official):

-Audi Martel, house model for Carolina Herrera, who has been modeling for two decades but just keeps going and going like an Ever Ready gazelle. (Sorry, Audi, if I’m blowing your cover on still being 25. Luckily, as long as you look 25, your real age doesn’t matter.)

Audi Martel (Photo by Yoko Inoue)

-Leslie Wayne, a model who always knew the best test photographers and always shared them with me, and once subleased her apartment in New York to me for half price because she’s just that generous.

Leslie Wayne

-Ricky Haas, part of a famed Munich model trio (I’m using some poetic license here, though certain bier garten bike crashes she, Leslie, and I were involved in are the stuff of legend now), and a friend who always openly shared her modeling contacts, from agents to male models.

RIcky Haas

In general, were your fellow models backstabbing or supportive?

Audi: I feel that models are less backstabby than other people, because we are always traveling around alone, and could use a real friend or a sense of family wherever we are…so we are more inclined to be nice cuz we’re aching for a clan, so it’s a misconception to a certain extent…BUT…models are people too. Some are kind and helpful, some are insecure, a few are selfish *unts. I’ve only met the latter about 3 times in 18 years. And of course, I had to set those ones straight.

Leslie: In general, I felt most models were very supportive.

Ricky: Very supportive. I think this has a lot do with who you run with.

Can you give an example of how another model helped you out?

Audi: I myself am the queen of helping girls out. I’m not patting myself on the back, but I’m not threatened by my friends’ success and I am in a fortunate position as the house model for a huge designer, so I often suggest models to hire. Although I have to admit, it’s about 20% for selfish reasons, because if I work all day with someone I want them to be nice.

Leslie: I had many models give advice on where to seek out work next, which country, etc., or advice on clients to seek out that were looking for “my type.” I also had many models advise me on how a particular client liked you to work, which was always helpful. Of course there was the occasional lending of a tampon in an emergency situation.

Ricky: In general, all models and model friends I knew or worked with were just good all-around people. I felt like they were always supportive and helpful with bits of advice. The models I worked with were always giving tips on the best countries to travel to, where the best bookings were, clients to see, photographers that were good to test with and so on. I always felt we were in the same boat, just a bunch of traveling gypsies on the same team!

Can you give an example of a model being nasty to you/trying to sabotage your career in some way?

Audi: I once had some trouble with a model, she actually wanted to come to fistacuffs. We were at a show, lined in front of the sender and being sent to walk out. She was a teenager, who was drunk (at work), from a poor country with a bad childhood and drug problems. Luckily, I was mature enough to recognize that. My 16-year-old self probably would’ve socked her in her gorgeous (young Brooke Shields) face. In the end, she was fired, had trouble with the agency, and apologized to me. Besides her, I tend to be the person standing up for someone else getting sabotaged. Like dethroning a bully model who had taken control of a models’ apartment in London, locking girls out of certain areas and acting as if she owned it when it belonged to the agency. She was just taking advantage of younger naive girls who were afraid to stand up for themselves. I had to get New York on her…I have a friend at work who calls me the “Joan of Arc of models.” But that’s not really a career threatening story.

Leslie: I was seriously backstabbed when a model was trying to steal one of my major accounts. I was under personal stress and having a hard time keeping weight on (editor’s note: don’t marry a French guy looking for a green card, but that’s a whole other blog post). She told the client numerous times that I was anorexic. I was nowhere near being ill, just simply stressed and depressed. You will always have a few backstabbers trying to get your clients, but in general, if you work hard, remain professional, and don’t get caught up in any drama, it is a very rewarding career.

Ricky: I think the only model I ever came across that I felt was nasty was just the one who would not talk to you on a very long trip, or would speak in another language to the client knowing I didn’t speak the language.

When I saw Ricky recently, I caught her up on a run-in I had with some PTA women last spring. She’d like to note that “we never ran into mean girls like that in the modeling world.” They are lurking in suburbia—who knew? (That’s another blog post also…or book.)

Stay tuned for more responses on “Models: nice or nasty?” Be sure to comment if you have a story or opinion to share!