Model agencies promoting non-standard beauty
Olesya Iva
Streetcasting, search for models through social networks, participation in shows and advertising campaigns of trans-divs and people with disabilities - in recent years, the fashion industry has increasingly become closer to real life, and instead of ideal faces and figures, personalities with character come to the fore. The erosion of the standards of beauty is followed by the phenomenon of the next door models: it is easier for us to associate ourselves with the brand, if things are represented by those who resemble us. Behind the changes are model and casting agencies, promoting atypical beauty. We talk about the five young and important.
Anti agency
British Agency Anti Agency in 2013 was founded by fashion editor Tank Magazine Pandora Lennard and stylist Lucy Green. Their friends became the first models, and then ordinary Londoners joined them. All wards Lucy and Pandora are looking for without leaving home - on social networks. The agency’s website says: “Anti Agency models are not just hangers for clothes, but individuals with character and individual style.” One of the rules in the agency is that the “anti-model” castings do not come in all black, as is customary, but in the clothes that they like. In addition, the guys do not bring with them a portfolio, but instead they freely chat with the customer. Today, "anti-models" are shot in campaigns and participate in Nasir Mazhar, Marc Jacobs, Topshop and DKNY shows, and also appear on i-D, LOVE, Purple, Tank Magazine, The Pop and Wonderland.
JAG Models
The market of agencies working with plus-size models is still just emerging. Significantly, some of the most popular plus-size models like Tess Holliday, Gia Genevieve, Felicity Hayward, Barbara Ferreira and Victoria Lee have contracts with the most common agencies MiLK Management and Wilhelmina, which have a division called Curve.
The most promising agency of plus-size today is New York JAG Models. It was founded in 2013 by Jacqueline Sarka and Gary Dakin., former Plus Plus executives at one of the most influential modeling agencies in the world, Ford Models. By the way, it was Ford + that opened the world to Crystal Rennes, Tara Lynn and Candace Huffin, which appeared on the cover of Italian Vogue in June 2011. Ford + now boasts a contract with Kim Kardashian's daughter-in-law - Kaela Humphries and Mile Dalbezio, who recently starred in the Calvin Klein campaign.
JAG Models say they work with girls of any form and are not going to limit themselves, because, according to Gary Dakin, "the fashion industry should not drive anyone into the framework of standards." The agency boasts a Jenny Rank shooting in an H & M swimsuit advertising campaign. The girls in JAG Models hope that one day they will be called models without the plus-size console, and one of the wards, Michel Olson, promotes the idea that the woman is beautiful regardless of the size of the clothes. JAG Models compete with the British Agencies 12+ and Hughes Models, Italian BeautyFull Models and Australian BGM Models.
Lorde Inc.
The agency of non-standard models Lorde was founded in 2013 by the Indian Nafisa Kaptaunvala. Her idea was simple - Captaunwala wanted the castings to reflect the variety of human types that exists in real life. The stumbling block for Nafisa was the dominance in the industry of white models and the weak desire of fashion houses to work with models, for example, of African origin. So the priority for Lorde is the promotion of African, Indian and children of other races. To draw the attention of designers to the problem, Nafisa created the ironic hashtag #allwhitecast, which puts photos of her models on social networks. The hashtag is accompanied by signatures like "Designers hire models of African descent to show street culture and fashion, not real beauty diversity." Nafisa believes in change, and her very young agency is already called one of the brightest and most promising market players.
AM Casting
Angus Munro began his modeling career in one of the most famous agencies - Elite. Here he hunted for new faces and helped to build a career for young supermodels Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer and Christy Turlington, and also promoted Anna Rubik. In 2010, joining together with another strong player, the casting director of Dazed & Confused, Noah Shelley, Angus founded one of the most influential casting agencies, AM Casting, in New York. It is worth explaining here: casting agencies are an intermediate link between a model agency and a customer. This season AM Casting is well known. They are responsible for the casting of the Kanye West collection for adidas Originals in New York, for which they collected more than fifty models of different gender, race, and not always standard model parameters. Among other things, the latest shows Kenzo and Rick Owens, Matthew Williamson, Joseph also work AM Casting.
Lumpen
The only and the first Russian agency of non-standard models was invented last year by a young film director and student of VGIK Avdotya Alexandrova. Almost all the guys from Lumpen go beyond the generally accepted standards of beauty. For Avdotya, it became important to create a database of people who like herself and who might like someone else. At the same time, Lumpen is looking for models not only for fashionable shootings, but also for movies. For a short period of existence, Lumpen managed to grow into several branches - from St. Petersburg to Arkhangelsk and Rostov-on-Don. The Lumpen already attended the Vetements show in Paris, participated in the presentation of the young ZDDZ brand, worked with Gosha Rubchinsky and Lotta Volkova, were filmed for Kuznetsky Most, Document Journal and Re-Edition, Poster and Look At Media publications.