Congrats, Ana Halozan!

Ana Halozan

Height: 5’10″    Sizes (metric): 83-60-89    Age: 18

Based in Europe

2day in Milan, Seeking Representation in New York

This classic beauty from Slovenia is the winner of the Modeling Mentor Model Search for 2015! Already represented in Milan, one of Europe’s top markets, Ana is poised to hit her stride in the Big Apple—with legs that never stop.

Ana can seek advice from former supermodel Susan Miner during a free one-on-one Skype session to plot Ana’s course to both outer and inner beauty! 

Susan Miner, M.A., specializes in raising women’s inner beauty and peace, which is guaranteed to enhance outer beauty. See: Susanminerbeauty.com

People’s Choice Award: Congrats, Tanya Hendrickson

Garnering 169 likes, Tanya wins the popular vote! That gives us two 5’10″ beauties—one blonde and one brunette—for agents to consider.

A huge congratulations to all the contenders this year—what a stunning group, plus a couple of super cute kids! I’m excited to see where your careers take you in the future. Get in touch with your mentor—yours truly—whenever you have questions, doubts, or any news to share!

It’s time to kick off the 2016 model search. Get your submissions in for Model of the Month!

Fortunately—and amazingly—Carre dug herself out of the abysmal crater she wedged herself into during her teens and 20s and hugged herself better, with the help of Buddhism and intense introspection. For two-thirds of the book, it’s hard to believe this story could have a happy ending, but it does.

“There was an aspect of wanting to set the record straight, but there was also the need to tell this tale for those young women yet to fulfill their own journeys,” writes Otis.  ”Mine is every woman’s story but for a few differences. It’s the story of our right to say no, to not be silenced, to tell things like they are and, of course, to move on in the sweetest victory of forgiveness…”

It is a story for every young woman to read and learn from. It’s also a story that may scare any aspiring model far, far away from the catwalks! Never fear; almost none of my modeling friends fell into the pitfalls detailed in “Beauty, Disrupted” or encountered the outrageous treatment Carre endures. My book tells a very different story, but again, it’s one every young woman should read. (Yes, yes, you will know first when I have a release date!)

Stay tuned for the announcement of Modelingmentor.com January Model of the Month!

Enter the MODELING MENTOR MODEL SEARCH!

I’m going to run it again here, as a reminder to send your Dear Jill Questions (they need not be about male models, but those questions are always welcome) and as a test to see if my husband ever reads my blog. If you are a male model, you may want to skip this post. If you do read it, feel free to comment and defend your kind.

Tear Sheet Excerpt:

As this is the Male Model Issue, I decided to reach deep into the cobweb and skeleton-filled Tear Sheet archives—16 issues back—and resurrect the very first “Dear Jill,” a delicate and intricate analysis of another male model issue: Should one date a male model? My answer hasn’t changed much, since several years of hands-on research have only verified what I suspected all along.

Here’s the original version, with a few edits and improvements derived from experience (those passing years do have some value in the modeling world). Read it, clip it, frame it, and male models: don’t be offended. I’m sure devilish will continue to be desirable well into the next millennium.

Dear Jill,

I’m a 19-year-old model from Kansas, and I just arrived in South Beach. I met a guy, a big-time model, at a bar last night. He wants to help me out and take me to New York. He’s such a hunk! Should I trust him? (He doesn’t know I’m only 19.)

—Dorothy, Miami Beach, FL

Oh Dotty, Dotty, Dotty, Earth to Dotty,

OK, I’ll skip the “You’re only 19; you should be home playing fetch with Toto, not out in bars flirting with the big dogs” spiel. After all, you’re older than half the models guzzling beers faster than they can grab for the next free drink pass.

Onto the core issue: the guy. Four years ago my answer would have been simple: No male models ever! My new answer? NO MALE MODELS EVER, NEVER EVER, NO EXCEPTIONS, ABSOLUTELY NOT, NO, NEVER!!!

And who said he was “big-time”? Him? He’s either a conceited liar or a big-time model—both of which are bad news. Mix the Scarecrow, the Lion, and the Tin Man together; put this scary combo on the yellow brick road walking backwards away from Oz and Gwendolyn and all things good; gradually extract bits of brain, courage, and heart, along with lots of young girls’ reputations torn up like tornado-struck towns; and, voilà, you’ve got the path of the male supermodel.

A bit harsh? Maybe, but never mind, it’s all irrelevant. You can’t keep your age from him forever. As soon as he finds out you’re 19, he’s going to start looking for someone younger.

—Jill

***********************************************************************

Bonus question: Are most male models gay? I’ll answer that later this week.

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Former models who have won TWO Best Actress Oscars: Ingrid Bergman, Vivien Leigh, Jane Fonda and Halle Berry.

Ingrid Bergman

Vivien Leigh

Former models who have won one Best Actress Oscar: Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, Susan Sarandon, Jessica Lange, Ellen Burstyn, Jennifer Jones, Geraldine Page, Joan Fontaine, Sophia Loren, Julia Roberts, and Charlize Theron.

Jane Fonda

Clearly, using modeling as a bridge to acting is not a new concept.

Halle Berry

Shirley MacLaine

Incidentally, during my research I noticed that many actresses who have Oscars on their mantles come from broken homes. Children of divorce must find escaping into imaginary worlds therapeutic and/or they have more raw emotions at the ready. Since people with divorced parents are more likely to divorce themselves, perhaps all those celebrity break-ups aren’t entirely due to fame, fortune, media hounding, and the temptation of hot co-stars. Stay tuned for a look at “model” marriages (both lasting and fleeting) and their correlation to vows honored or broken in the generation before.

Looking for a model with more heft than a toothpick? In a recent New York Times article, Guy Trebay declared that designers and editors finally are, in male models anyway. The scrawny skate-rat look is out. The strong man with suits in his closet and stubble on his face (or at least enough testosterone to sport bristled cheeks on the weekends if he wants) is in.

Naturally, images of strong women should follow. Models as distinctive, powerful, and enduring as the supermodels of the 80s. Models who—get this—eat.

I’ve always asserted that most models have naturally high metabolisms and lean bodies. When I walked Fashion Week catwalks in the 90s, I had 127 pounds on my five-foot-ten frame. I ate. My model friends ate. We vomited when we had the flu, not after dinner. Okay, maybe once too many drinks came up, with a slice of Ray’s inadvertently mixed in.

Sorry for the colorful imagery, but it’s not nearly as gross as the emaciated figures I encountered in New York during Fashion Week this fall: wide-set-eyed girls being robbed of their late-night pizza bonding moments, their energy to enjoy the adventures of modeling, of youth. I, seven years past my last runway strut (or waddle, since it was a maternity show forLive With Regis & Kelly) should have been eyeing these models in their prime with envy; instead, I felt sorry for them.

Worse yet, today’s mannequins are in and out of fashion as fast as the latest iPhone model. All that starving for a millisecond of fame and no chance of being known the world over by their first names. Bring on the next Cindy, Christy, Claudia, Linda, even Naomi (if the new version has a tad more self-control). It’s been long enough since a sylphlike girl named Kate Moss ushered in the era of Heroin Chic, which laid the foundation for the era of Skeletal.

The trend has bottomed out. Limbs with zero muscle definition, jutting hip bones, the absence of womanly curves—it’s no longer novel. These bony clothes hangers can’t go any lower, except six feet under, which is exactly where several anorexic models have ended up.  The subsequent BMI minimums on Madrid and Milan catwalks didn’t eradicate the “size-zero” models—the girls who are barely there—and models born with a tendency toward a low BMI, no matter how many Big Macs they eat, got upset. I knew girls like that, so I can see why they’d be peeved to hang up their pumps. A size 6, maybe a 4 in the odd generously sized couture gown, I would have passed even if I were newly in love or freshly broken hearted (the crush and crushed diets were the only kind I ever went on).

A few years later, the paper-thin girls linger. The health of these young role models and the masses that look up to them doesn’t seem to be a cause that influences the fashion set. It’s all about what’s in and out. That’s why now is the time. The weedy guys are out. Their female counterparts should exit with them. Editors, designers, photographers—come on, it really only takes one trailblazer. Hedi Slimane single-handedly sparked the wimpy boy era with the models he booked for Dior. Now all these muscular “real men” are back. It’s the perfect time for a Marilyn Monroe moment on the female front.

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