As much as I admire Tyra Banks, great beauty and brilliant business woman, in past episodes, she has gone over the top Big Time and in Many Ways. After 32 years in the Model Industry of NYC, I know this business well, and her latest idea, only petite models under 5’7″, which we will see on Season 13, will, I predict, be a disaster to two groups. Tyra and her production company, can then ignore the debacle, saying They, Tyra and Co. did not do it, but They, the Mean Model Agents and their Nasty Clients who want what they want, tall women who look like pretty heads on top of hangers with long, tall, graceful legs, are entirely to blame. Most hurt by this experiment, good for little more than Tyra’s ratings, will be the shorter women who will now have unrealistic dreams of being models, but also hurt will be the agencies, besieged by young women they must reject, not because they are not pretty, but because they are not the height the clients demand. And here is the bad news, Kate Moss not withstanding, Tyra is not going to single-handedly change the ever skyrocketing height paradigm of fashion modeling.
So who am I to have such opinions? In ’77 I started the first plus size model agency in the world and two years later the first PETITE agency, which many other major agencies added as a division. In 1988, I sold my business to a world-famous agency and have worked with them ever since- I retire next year, after 3, maybe 4 fashion books, 1250 personal appearances and 750 TV appearances- all in the name of making fashion more real. Plus size models did far better than petites because they were tall and the issue of sizism in America, a real discrimination, became political- I know, because I did my best to be the un-Jane Fonda with the rallying cry, “If everyone cold be thin, everyone would be.” The same rage that existed for sizism did not exist for height. Gymnasts, dancers and actresses are often diminutive in stature and it is seen as feminine and delicate- harder to dress than 5’8″, yes, but otherwise, lovely. So by 1990, the effort to make an impact with petite models was finito.
– The Author in this week’s hair color
When I started in the model industry, 5’7″ was the minimum height and 5’10 was the tallest we ever booked. Today, it is 5’9″ to over 6′. I chuckle at ANTM when they refer to catalog and commercial ‘types’ as something so much less than editorial model ‘types’, as editorial pays little, although it can make a model, while catalog/commercial pays a lot. Once a model’s staircase to stardom, today’s covers are SO dominated by celebs, that the old school romance of winning the sparkling eye of a Condé Naste editor, getting a cover and buying your first NYC co-op in a year is dreamland.
Watching the 2 hour opener, I was reminded of something I mentioned earlier, things about ANTM which are on my very last nerves:
1. Too much Tyra…everywhere, pictures of Tyra, Tyra’s career, Tyra showing the models how they should have ‘done it’, Tyra in another gorgeous outfit, with hair and make-up so do devastating, who wants to look at the contestants- (this is not the All-About-Tyra show, but who would know in some episodes?)
2. Too little thought about which model is actually going to work once she wins…Danielle, was the last straw; a major NYC agency gets an American model who cannot speak English, cannot deliver a script and does not take directions, and over the #2 contestant who looked like Grace Kelly (whom she thought was a dancer!) and was very good on film- not like they had no other option- why?. If you question what I say about the choice process and what agendas are going on behind them, which winner in 12 seasons, is a household name model??? Thinking of who has IT, as Eileen Ford always called that something special that makes a model, does not seem to be of consistent concern to the judges, especially Tyra herself.
“A smart model is a good model,”- Tyra Banks, so what was she thinking with Danielle, and others? In my humble opinion, Tyra needs to leave emotions and personal preference behind in choice and think all-business, as this is a business and setting people up to fail is bad business!
OK- I give up, and in my next life, will hope to be Tyra- who even turned down 2 juicy scholarships to model. BUT, in this life, let’s give the hopefuls, not to mention Miss J and Mr. Jay, more airtime!
Mary
