Modeling Biz: What Makes an “It” Girl?

The parameters of what constitutes beauty are shifting, finally, opening the doors of the modeling industry to faces and body types that don’t fall into the typical looks that have traditionally populated the modeling agencies, runways, campaigns, and editorials for so long. While the definition of what makes a girl a beautiful model is changing and broadening, there is no denying that the models who rise to the top in a sea of long-legged women with squared off shoulders, high cheekbones, and wide-set eyes, have to possess something more, something that can only be described as “it”.  So what is “it”?

Ask industry pros and they will all tell you something different, be it a unique look that can be transformed while the model remains recognizable, a model with a great personality, personal style, drive and determination, or simply a “spark”.  Maybe it’s a combination of all of these, or even a model with a look that symbolizes where culture and fashion are that that moment in time. 

However it is defined, there is no denying that there is always some unique quality that makes one model special amongst thousands.  Naomi, Cindy, Claudia, Christy, and Linda, supermodels of the 80’s and 90’s, became so famous that the world refers to them to this day by their first names.  No two were alike or interchangeable, and all had “it” in spades. 

Kate Moss is perhaps the most famous model who embodied “it” as she broke nearly all the beauty standards of the early to mid-nineties with her boyish figure, her short stature (5’6”), wide-set doe eyes and freckles.  She was the antithesis of the Amazonian supermodels with womanly beauty and bodies.  Discovered at age fourteen by Sarah Dukakis of Storm Models UK in the JFK Airport, she must have stirred something in the agent’s gut that this girl would change the industry and turn it on it’s ear.  How else to explain her interest in a small, thin, girl barely in puberty?  Because, she had “it” and Dukakis felt it. No matter where the fashion industry was at that moment, Kate Moss changed it forever, ushering in the entirely new era of the waif, youthful sexuality, and a stripped back, uncontrived, raw beauty that endured until the arrival of the Brazilian bombshells of the late 90’s.

The best scouts and agents are always on the lookout for the next model possessing this elusive quality, knowing that they might, if they are lucky, find just one in their entire careers.  Many models have “promise” but rarely “it”. “It” cannot be cultivated, taught, or created.  “It” is often so out of the scope of traditional beauty standards that it triggers a gut feeling that there are models where to whom the beauty standards of the business do not apply.  But to think having “it” is a golden ticket to success would be a mistake.  Without the best agency that has the right industry connections, without a strong work ethic, without a great support network, without amazing timing, “it” doesn’t matter.  “It” takes a village to succeed.  Every single day in every corner of the world, scouts, agents and casting directors are on the hunt for that elusive girl that has “it”.  She is so rare that the chances of finding her are slim.  But when they find her it’s like catching lightning in a bottle. 

                                                             XOXO  Shelley 

#modeling business #what makes an “it” girl? #model scouting #what makes a supermodel? #getting into modeling #how to break into modeling #modeling 101 #facethis.blogspot.com #Shelley Goodstein