Becoming the Industry Standard: The Underbelly of The Modeling Industry

As a young woman, I glance at the modeling world with admiration, somewhat unsure why. 

I write this as an outsider, but one with a pretty good view of peeking on the other side of the glass. I have no personal anecdote to share, besides the ones I have observed, no quarrel or vengeful impulse motivating me–other than witnessing injustice. In investigating The Industry, I will be focusing on women and girls, which is always trans inclusive, but I will not attempt to write about trans-specific issues as a cis-woman.

A career in modeling promises a lifestyle of glamour, surrounded by and embodying beauty with an almost unlimited access to luxury. Still, this portrayal in metaphor disregards, or attempts to distract from the material realities of the modeling worlds. We cannot talk about modeling as a verb unconjugated from The Industry that dominates its purview.

Often we hear the sensationalized story about ‘a’ girl who was spotted (scouted, I think is the official term) out on the street: her beauty at once so organic and impossible to ignore: profitable. This beacon of beauty is often a young girl who then repeats it was “totally unexpected,” when asked about her serendipitous moment in interviews about it a million shows later. It could happen to anyone is the message carefully baked into this narrative: as long as you fit the mold. 

The politics of exclusion in the fashion and modeling Industry are strict, eurocentric, and not very flexible. Notwithstanding the seasonal claims to advent or innovation, The Industry is more of a pendulum than an institution dedicated to progress.

Measuring the Fit

Modeling campaigns have become increasingly exclusive of anyone who does not fit the standard, the climate of which is regulated by the veneration of thinness and eurocentric features. As of late, and with the popularization of weight loss drugs like ozempic or wegovy, it is impossible not to notice we have swung back to the early 90’s low rise jean dieting culture. In fact, the sizing standards have largely remained the same since– and are easily accessible online. Naturally these standards are only that: standards. Leniency is given, though rarely. Models are categorized rigidly by body type, the categories of which are mid-size, plus size, and… normal? In making a standard out of thinness, The Industry is able to fabricate it as a normativity, which then seeps into the mainstream.   

Vogue reports on the decreasing number of body representation, remarking that the “body positivity movement has lost steam in mainstream culture as the pendulum has swung back to the glamorisation of thinness” (Vouge, 2025). I appreciate their honesty in describing the culture concerned with fashion as a pendulum. 

It is important to remember that The Industry does not exist in a vacuum, but in conversation with the cultures that it inhabits, and that seeks to fuel a rhetoric of desirability; at the end of the day, even haute couture needs customers. The return of the dangerously thin model is not then, solely setting the standard for beauty, it is also responding to cultural aptitudes that are too shaped by social and political phenomena. Especially when young girls are told it could happen to anyone… 

Feminist scholars have argued that oppression is lived in the body; the restriction and control of these measurements is not separate from a culture that systematically strips women of our rights, autonomy, where trans-rights are under attack, and the definition of womanhood is interpreted and vulnerable to legal definition by cabinets of men. It is not strange then, that malnutrition, and disordered eating habits are proliferating amongst young women– and the modeling industry follows suit. 

The infrastructure that determines the quality of a model is based both on the talent of the aforementioned, and their capacity to fulfil the aesthetic desire of the campaign they are working on. This aesthetic desire more prominently excludes models who are not thin, fixing the rhetoric of high fashion, glamour, art, with thinness – giving it cultural and social value.

Pay to Work

I once again remark the fact that The Industry is as much a cultural institution as a business.  There is a power structure and power dynamic in how The Industry is organized with agencies, agents, designers, those in charge of casting, etc. Whereas men mostly occupy the administrative areas of The Industry, modeling is increasingly a women-dominated field. 

Notwithstanding the glamorization of the field, modeling is neither particularly easy to break into, or glamorous. Indeed, earning high paychecks is difficult, especially for rising models. The requirements for models by casting directors, including test shoots, traveling and general upkeep is expensive: some experienced in the manner recommend aspiring models to have at least 10 thousand dollars in savings before embarking on the feat. Those hopeful are usually signed to an agency, who will front the costs of travel, test shoots, and living costs, including model apartments– an investment they expect to be returned, though without explicit demand. In addition to incurring huge amounts in debt, agencies charge fees over 20% of a model’s earnings, making it all the more difficult for models to pay their debt, even when they do have work. Some have described “advancing and recouping costs as the nature of the business,” quintessentially explaining that The Industry runs on a debt based system. In addition, most models are legally considered independent contractors, which determines them not eligible for most benefits like minimum wage, a guaranteed dignified working environment, etc, and makes them legally liable for any business expenses.  

These dynamics are highly suggestive of an industry premised on exploitation. 

It is not the first time a Western institution rhetorically fashions itself to appeal to glamour, exclusivity and produces elitist abuses of power that replicate power structures already existing in society. It makes one wonder, or at least it did me, how the modeling industry may replicate other power structures, given that it is a multinational industry, records show it is a big winner- and demographics are heavily skewed to the West.  

Survival of The Fittest 

The modeling Industry has, as of late, sympathetically positioned itself as a humanitarian power. Industry hard hitter Matteo Puglisi, who spearheads one of the most prolific modeling agencies Select Model Management, claims that his scouting models in refugee camps (in Senegal, and Kenya most specifically) is a humanitarian effort. Despite claims from officials like Puglisi himself that models who are scouted are not required to pay agencies back for their ‘investment,’ those, mostly women, who have been scouted recount stories of debt, of large sums going to agencies as commissions and the process as disheartening and disorientating. 

Naturally, those who are scouted must meet the Runway requirements. Some accounts report the proliferation of modeling culture in refugee camps as a beacon of hope – wherein youth (mostly young girls) will work to fit the standard in order to obtain the lifestyle of glamour and wealth, as an opportunity for the marketed ‘better life.’ This rhetoric would only be available if models who have been scouted in refugee camps had achieved the aforementioned dream; which some have, though not the bulk of those who try. Nyawal Puot Chuol, a resident of Kakuma refugee camp, shares her experience in a 2023 article in The Times. She explains that notwithstanding having been flown to Paris to participate in castings she was told she was “too weak to work,” and told she would be considered once again  if she gained weight and practiced her walk. She did not indicate that her agency or the fashion labels offered her any assistance in regards to her health, notwithstanding they were privy to her living situation, and instead flew her back to Kakuma. 

Indeed, some women who had been scouted, and even walked in major Fashion Week Runways, have returned home with little to no earnings and some even indebted to the agency that recruited them. The Industries interest in scouting models in refugee camps mostly in African countries comes from a desire to remain in Vogue, as Carole White mentioned in 2023: “It’s very in-fashion at the moment to have an African model.” 

So, what rhetorically appeals to the international humanitarian community as a positive is born out of a desire to include, or have,  women who are economically and politically disadvantaged in an already exploitative system to fulfill a Western fantasy of exoticism. Indeed, I argue,  can true humanitarianism be premised on someone’s success in an industry based on beauty? Is this a new age of aesthetic humanitarianism?