First of all, there is no ideal weight. It depends on your height, your bone structure, the market you are working in, the type of modeling you are doing, and trends. Regardless of all that, your measurements are more crucial than pounds on a scale and being realistic about what size you are or can be is also crucial.

Photo – Luxuo on France Banning Ultra-Thin Models

Do Models Have to Starve to Be Successful?

No, unless your body’s natural size is not conducive to fashion industry standards. Most bodies have a set point, below which keeping weight off is difficult. For me, at 5’10”, that’s 127. Even at that weight, people outside the modeling business would chide, “Oh, you’re so thin!” They said it even when I was five or more pounds above that and easily within a healthy weight range for my height and body type. I think it’s an automatic reaction to anyone who is a model, and to the majority of models who are naturally slim or approach weight maintenance in a healthy, moderate manner, it’s really annoying. Whether accusing someone of being overweight or underweight, body shaming is not nice, so be careful. There is sickly thin and then there is genetically thin (even extremely thin), so sensitivity in your comments—including on social media—shows human decency.

Then again, there are models who subsist on lemon wedges, coffee, and cigarettes, and they give us all a bad name. I only encountered one admitted bulimic, but I always felt like non-fashion people were timing my trips to the bathroom and wondering whether I was upchucking the sizable meal I had just eaten. I wasn’t. Most models in my era weren’t either. If you think someone is, then that is the time when a caring heart to heart or intervention is in order. We can only hope that agents and clients act as part of the solution on this front, not part of the problem. (Former Vogue Editor: The Truth About Size Zero.)

Kate Moss admitted she followed a coffee and cigarette diet and conceded it ruins your skin. Photo: Anthony Devlin

Thin Is In… Usually

In this century, the industry has periodically leaned toward an even thinner norm, ushered in by the Heroin Chic phase in the late 90s. Lately there has been more movement toward including—even revering—more shapely models. But you have to face the fact that most models will need to maintain the measurements that are required to fit into the clothes clients use for shoots and shows.

Ideal Model Measurements

For women, the “perfect” measurements are somewhere around: 34-24-34. If your waist is a couple inches bigger (mine always was) and you can suck it in, OK. If your waist is smaller, lucky you. If your hips are 36, it’s not a deal killer. If your chest is 32, that’s fine. (Read my post: How Modeling Agents Take Models Measurements.) But if you are way outside of this ideal and can’t approach it without being unhealthy, the modeling industry may not be for you. At least not in front of the camera. There are plenty of fascinating roles behind the scenes, with way more longevity than a fleeting modeling career.

Patrick Demarchelier cover collage. Read about Patrick Demarchelier’s Photography Career here.

Fashion Biz Jobs – Weigh Whatever!

See the many articles and interviews in this section of my site — Tear Sheet articles — with scoop on being a photographer, agent, hairdresser, makeup artist, fashion stylist, fashion designer, and more. No scales or tape measure needed!

Stay tuned for a new development in my Getting Back on Set in Covid-19 story!

April Model of the Month… Congrats Logan!

Logan Morris, shot by Debra Somerville

Hair: Red    Eyes: Green    Age: 14    Height: 5’7″    33-26-34    Shoe: 8

Represented by the Johnston Agency in CT

Logan is a gorgeous girl from Connecticut, and the first redhead to make Model of the Month. It’s about time! She has the inviting all-American look of a commercial model, but her perfect heart-shaped face also reminds me of a “shorter” girl who took the fashion world by storm: Kate Moss. Keep an eye out for Logan, who is the lucky winner of this stunning pave diamond bracelet from Lera Jewels.

Watch for exciting prizes in months to come. There is no limit on how often you enter the contest. If you have updated photos, try again!

Don’t forget to “like” the page of your favorite Model of the Month

Joan Smalls, the first Latina face of Estee Lauder

I don’t think all this rejection is a bad thing. In the real world, everyone is not the Most Valuable Player on the team and feelings are not protected by a fabricated culture of ultra fairness, as is the case often in school these days. What a model must recognize is that the rejection is not personal. By and large modeling is about superficial characteristics: your figure, your hair color, your petite nose, your symmetrical face. Aside from taking care of yourself—working out, eating healthy, getting enough sleep, plucking your brows, maintaining your highlights, dressing in flattering clothes—you have little control over how much you will work. Personality plays a part. It can help to be cheery, agreeable, funny, and interesting, but those qualities alone will not make you a supermodel. The genetic lottery will.

Lauren Hutton, one of the most enduring models

The hardest part is determining when to believe the naysayers and perhaps pursue a different career, and when to soldier on and keep chasing the dream. Plenty of models have defied the odds and proven that determination pays off: gap-toothed 5’7″ Lauren Hutton (she lived on pot pies while spending months trying to get an agent in New York), Kate Moss (a midget next to the supermodels on the scene when she started modeling), Puerto Rican supermodel Joan Smalls (rejected at first in New York for being too “dark,” until IMG’s Ivan Bart accompanied her to castings as her cheerleader. Now rated the #1 model in the world on models.com). Heidi Klum was originally relegated to catalog modeling at Metropolitan until Elite reinvented her as an editorial girl.

Heidi Klum, hardly the catalog girl she was originally labelled

The bottom line: Models need to have a thick skin. The great news is, the color of their skin doesn’t matter so much anymore.

There’s still time to be considered for June Model of the Month! ENTER now—it’s easy, just e-mail a snapshot and some stats.

SUBSCRIBE to my free monthly newsletter and be the first to see the finalists! Also remember to “like” the page of you favorite model(s) of the month.

I ran into very few bitchy models during my decade on the international circuit, but certainly they are out there—just in much fewer numbers than people would imagine and condensed at the top of the food chain. Bottom feeders are just trying to earn enough to feed themselves; there isn’t much room for attitude!

While I didn’t have many nasty girl run-ins, I met a show-off or two. They inspired this “Dear Jill” column, which reveals what’s beneath the bragging.

One more week until I pick May’s Model of the Month. Enter NOW!

The Key to Christy’s Impeccable Posture

The easiest way to prep for good posture on castings, catwalks, and on set, is to get in the habit of having good posture ALL THE TIME. If just thinking about carrying yourself like a ballerina doesn’t work, then consider some dance classes (ballet guru Finis Jhung has some excellent DVDs you can do at home). Yoga is also a great activity to teach you to be mindful of your body and posture, and unlike many forms of exercise, yoga lengthens, rather than shortens, muscles (my favorite yoga CDs are by Nantucket Yoga Rooms’ Shannah Green). This makes for a gorgeous, lithe model bod.

Kate, getting away with hunching. Don’t try this at home.

While slouchy poses may have worked at the height of the heroin chic era, standing tall is the safest—and sexiest—stance. Did you see any hunched over models on the Victoria’s Secret  runway? No way, not even a heavy pair of wings could weigh down the shoulders of these pros…

She’s not just winging it. This takes practice!

Victoria’s Secret’s Confident Elves

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I always had trouble with booking out. You may pound pavement for years as a model and only make enough money to live on pasta and ketchup  (that’s what Sophie Patitz and I ate most of the time in Paris). During the slow ascent out of blue-collar model status, I never considered booking out. I would have shot a catalog on Christmas day if my agency asked me to. Then the jobs started flowing and I could afford to book out, but I rarely did. Maybe it was a strong work ethic, or maybe it was the recognition that one day I would age out of modeling, so I ought to work every day until I couldn’t anymore.

My advice: If you are a new face with an agency, don’t book out if you can help it. You have to show them you have the drive and determination to do anything it takes to make it. However, once you have a strong book and some steady clients, take a break when you need it.

I’m looking at about 50 unpacked boxes, but I’m on the sofa with my feet up. Maybe I’ve finally learned to relax. Or maybe it’s the fact that no one will pay me $200/hour to unpack them.

Supermodels on the Effort of Modeling:

Kate Moss in 1990, by Corinne Day

“I’d go on the train to castings, changing from my school uniform on the train. I carried on like that for a few years, getting jobs in bits and pieces.” —Kate Moss

“[On days I'm not working], I have to hit the gym. I have beauty appointments. I have to work toward my next job. . . just like an athlete.” —Linda Evangelista

“A girl who is interested in becoming a model must first accept the fact that she is the product. She must be ready to deal with a lot of rejection.” —Karolina Kurkova

The countdown to January Model of the Month is on: Enter the Modeling Mentor Model Search!

Crystal Renn gave me a lot of food for thought in her memoir, Hungry (written in collaboration with Marjorie Ingall).

Her struggle with anorexia and exercise bulimia, fueled by her modeling ambition, is painful to read. She subsists for years—tender teenage years—on undressed salad, plain steamed vegetables, sugarless gum, Diet Coke, and the occasional protein drink. (During those same years, Pizza Hut occupied all corners of my food pyramid.) She works out for up to eight hours a day. She joins two gyms, so people won’t suspect she has a problem. One glance at her 95-pound 5’9″ shadow of a body must have given that away. I’m not sure how her mom stood by and watched all this without scooping up the half of her daughter that remained and whisking her away from New York and all things fashion for a while! Instead Mother Nature stepped in. Renn’s body outsmarted her.

I agree with Renn’s theory: a body has a set point and will fight like hell to stay in its natural range. For me, that’s 125 to 135. I could stay around 127 as a model without resorting to anything more extreme than eating healthy food (a lot of it), exercising regularly (nothing obsessive), and not drinking too often (i.e. about three times a week—oh, those were the days). Bad luck for Renn that her set point is 30 pounds higher…or, as it turns out, good luck. Her story has a fairytale ending. But let me chew on some other thoughts first before getting to that.

Renn’s anorexia is not the average model’s story. And she is fair in not blaming the industry for her obsessive-compulsive approach to reaching for the supermodel brass ring. She did, however, open my eyes to how out of hand the skinny standard has gotten in the editorial world in the past decade. Renn makes the point that in the early 90s, Kate Moss seemed “shockingly skinny. Now Kate Moss-level skinny no longer seems novel. So the girls had to get skinnier.” Check out shots from any of the big shows, most editorials, high fashion ads, and you’ll see she’s right. These girls are sporting toothpick appendages. (Re. Renn’s claim that models are much taller now than several decades ago—I don’t get it. Lauren Hutton started modeling in the 50s and, at 5’7 1/2″, says she was always the shortest. See my “Lauren Hutton” interview.)

I asked my longtime modeling friend Audi Martel, fit model for Carolina Herrera and Zac Posen, about this weighty issue. “Yes, editorial models are way skinnier than they were a decade ago, and the most frustrating part is that clients won’t admit there’s anything wrong. ‘Oh, she eats,’ they’ll say, about a paper thin model they’ve booked. But I’ve been watching, and, no, she does not eat.”

Does this change my opinion where weight comes up elsewhere in my blog? (Note to self: write a blog that does not contain the word weight.) No, the bottom line is always the same. Don’t go leaning so far out, desperately grasping for that supermodel brass ring—you’re liable to land flat on your face (passed out on Madison Avenue if you’re as malnourished as Renn was). The skinny-mania is most rampant at the top. The catalog world, the smaller markets, less prestigious editorial, regional fashion shows—they accommodate models who don’t disappear when they turn sideways.

If you’re as lucky as Renn you’ll have the best of both worlds. After all those bland vegetables, torturous hours on treadmills and pacing hotel hallways, she gained back those 70 pounds…and her happiness andbecame a plus-size supermodel—something that didn’t exist when Kate Moss trudged onto the scene. Emaciated duckling turns plump swan—bravo!