Australian model Fernanda Ly has bravely opened up about her own experience of being touched inappropriately by a stylist, as well as the mistreatment of young models more generally in a survey conducted by Models.com. Fernanda is the most well-known of the 13 models who opted to give their name publicly, with a further nine model respondents asking to remain anonymous.
“I was once shooting a lookbook where the stylist, helping me dress, used this chance to feel my body up much more than necessary and continued to do so throughout the entire shoot,” Ly writes. “Countless times have I had to undress in undesirable public situations, but even now I can remember the disgusting feel of this man’s hands tracing my body. There are too many who take advantage of a model’s young age and use this to their self satisfaction.” She notes that “a regular, normal-minded human should not be attempting to prey on a girl who is there to work and is afraid of speaking up (as being someone ‘hard to work with’ may cost you a job).”
Read: 10 things you need to know about Fernanda Ly.
Fernanda also spoke out about the ruthlessness of the modeling industry: “Success arrives exponentially as a model, however once your time is up, you are thrown away like used goods as another model comes to take your place instantly,” she writes. Ly also describes how hard it can be for models to actually make any money: “There are models who are trapped in very long, slave-like contract periods with very little to show for it. I personally know of many who receive almost no money after tax, agency commission, and conversion rates: These girls were fed dreams that instead became nightmares as agency debt piled up; who else is to pay for constant travel, accommodation, food, language classes, comp cards building up, but the model? These girls that I know of have, not surprisingly, disappeared from the industry only to return to their remote village without their promised success.” This point is reinforced by Ekaterina Ozhiganova, who writes, “…imagine, you are working for some big company and your job requires traveling and staying in hotels in different cities. If your boss were to tell you several months later, ‘You know, you have to cover it all yourself.'”
Among the other responses to the survey, one model claims they were dropped from a show when the designer discovered they are transgender, and praises casting agent James Scully’s name-and-shame Instagram post about the Balenciaga casting scandal. “Although it’s wonderful to finally have someone with power in the industry to address these things, it’s not sustainable to have a single spokesperson,” they add.
The pressure to stay sometimes dangerously thin is noted in many responses. One anonymous model (whose identity is marked as verified by Models.com) writes, “The agency said that they loved me but wanted me to lose a little weight, and they gave me a month to do it and then resend digitals. And so I lost a lot of weight in a short time and just got obsessed with it after that. I became anorexic and was extremely underweight, passing out in rehearsals. After the month they never got back to me and my mother agent.” Another model links the issue to age, writing, “One of the biggest problems with using girls under 18 on the catwalk is that they haven’t properly finished puberty and so if you’ve been modeling since then and then your body changes, the pressure that is put on you to return to your 14 year-old body is immense and I do not think it is healthy.” Echoing those points, another model adds, “We need diversity; all bodies, differently abled, shaped, colored, sized, gendered and aged. Diversity is so important. Representation is so important.” Read the full survey results at Models.com.
Look: Fernanda Ly stars in Fran Stringer’s first collection for Pringle.
Credits
Text Charlotte Gush