The ‘Outlander’ star and former model speaks out on a proposed state bill that would reform modeling agencies, creating, she says, “basic protections for fashion’s creative workforce.”
Long before I started acting, I spent almost 10 years working as a fashion model. I walked the runways of brands such as Victoria’s Secret and the fashion houses of Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, Chanel and many others. But despite my success, I still experienced the detriments of working in a largely unregulated industry, like not getting paid on time, if at all. Everything changed when I became an actor, but it’s still the same grind in fashion — and worse.
On the surface, acting and modeling have a nearly identical business structure: Agencies book gigs on your behalf as talent. Why, then, do these two industries have totally different responsibilities to their creative workforces?
Well, for one thing, fashion is an industry largely made up of young women and girls. To many, the labor of models is not seen as “work” but rather the benefits of winning a genetic lottery. So, models are perceived as being privileged, with no talent or skill, and therefore unworthy of basic protections or even empathy. That’s contrasted with actors who are seen as talented — and even get an entire, widely televised awards season celebrating those talents — on top of the protections they enjoy from being part of a heavily unionized workforce.
But the real issue here is that many modeling agencies have created and benefited from a system in which they take zero responsibility for advancing a model’s career or financial interests, but yet they dictate terms for those models. That’s vastly different to the relationship I’ve experienced with my agency as an actor.
Unlike talent agencies, which are considered employment agencies, modeling agencies are instead classified as “management companies.” Many contracts hand over “power of attorney” to modeling agencies, allowing them to accept payments and negotiate pay rate on behalf of the model without her knowledge; deposit checks and deduct unexplained expenses on top of a hearty commission; force models and creatives to sign multiyear, exclusive contracts that auto-renew, without any obligation to book them jobs; and they even can give third parties permission to use a model’s image or collect royalties without having to pay the model for that usage.
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