– By Khahlil Louisy
In the nineties and early aughts, men like Evandro Soldati, Tyson Beckford, Mark Vandaloo, and David Gandy, were part of a group of male models who personified everything the world expected, from those rare creatures of masculine beauty, who managed to generate excitement and fascination both in and out of the fashion industry. Those men were statuesque and with defined, if not slightly exaggerated physical features. And because this was before cosmetic procedures were rampant and easily attainable, their bodies were natural and obtained through a mixture of genetics and hard work. Their lifestyles were extravagant, often dating their female supermodel counterparts, celebrities, scions, and moguls, and enjoying all the lavishes and excesses that their worlds offered. They made people around the world dream, creating illusions through the images in which they were featured, through which many escaped the realities of their own existence. The clothes those men wore evoked desire in other men who aspired to live similarly extravagant lifestyles. The life of the male model was a fantasy that people chased. And isn’t that what fashion is supposed to do? But those rare men who stood slightly taller than most other mortal men, with their square jaws and chiseled cheekbones, are now being replaced by regular, unrefined boys and with that, the fantasy is being extinguished.
Men’s fashion is becoming excruciatingly drab. There is little excitement around menswear designers and the shows they stage at the various fashion weeks, but also, the thrill of seeing a collection that challenges our thoughts are no longer. In fact, most collections are melding into a mosh-pit of singularity, reflective of the current mood in fashion, which seems to be anti-everything: anti-beautiful, anti-design, and anti-establishment. And to communicate that message, male models are being replaced with anti-models – young boys plucked from the streets and with no distinctive physical attributes. The male model is increasingly being wiped out of castings and replaced with very young and unremarkable teens, who seem to be perpetually moody. When that is not the case, casting directors and brands turn to so-called social media stars to model the clothes, with the expectation that an increased number of eyeballs will land on the brand and convert into sales. But these social media stars possess almost no real talent in front of the camera and therefore, not able to create the kinds of images that could transport one into a different world, the way Markus Schenkenberg, Mark Vandaloo, or Alex Lundquist could. As a result, fashion imagery is increasingly becoming surface, which vanishes from the ether within a few hours of publication. So now, not only are we are left with collections that are insipid, but also castings that lack depth, with models who are incapable of bringing life and excitement to the clothes.
The fashion industry is increasing its demands on talent, which has led to a number burn outs in recent years. Models can no longer be just models, appearing on runways, in advertising campaigns, and sometimes becoming spokespeople for brands. They are now expected to be marketers, content generators, and publishers. Those who fail to conform to this new direction, are simply discarded. Major brands like Dolce & Gabbana have largely replaced their casts with the offspring of celebrities and social media stars. Their shows have become spectacles of selfie-taking teens, who distract from the collections – but maybe that is the intention. Other shows are increasingly going in that direction with their casting or bring in young men directly from the street.
Models must now have considerable follower counts on social media to book jobs. Some have said to me that when they attend casting calls, increasingly, they are required to state how many followers they have on Instagram, which acts as a screener of sorts for who will be seen by the casting director. This has led to agencies advising their models to use various application programs to purchase followers and engagement, including comments and likes on images posted, across their social media platforms.
The considerable demand lays not only on the models but also on the designers, who must now find ways of increasing their social-media following, in order to remain relevant among the teens of the world. Many are now social media stars themselves, including Balmain’s Olivier Rousteing, who has a whopping 4.6 million followers on Instagram, due in large part to his close association to the Kardashian clan and Karl Lagerfeld who boasts 4 million. In addition to having to design multiple collections per year, they are now tasked with thinking about social media and content strategy for their brands. It is not surprising therefore, that these designers choose to cast people who already have large numbers of followers.
Many designers are beginning to photograph their brand’s advertising campaigns themselves, perhaps to more accurately reflect their vision for the brand and their personal view on the fashions they are creating. While Karl Lagerfeld has been photographing Chanel and Fendi campaigns for a number of years, the recent uptick in designer-turned-photographer can be attributed to when Hedi Slimane who, while Creative Director at Saint Laurent Paris, began photographing the brand’s campaigns. Domenico Dolce followed, photographing ads for Dolce & Gabbana, with Stefano Gabbana on styling duties; new comer Brandon Maxwell has also been photographing his own campaigns; and this season, Balmain’s Olivier Rousteing took the camera into his own hands.
So what does this transition and disruption in the fashion industry mean for models and the agencies who represent them? As the industry evolves, so too are the business models of the agencies, many of which now represent talent outside of modeling, to include social media stars and bloggers, because their mainboards aren’t booking enough jobs to sustain their businesses. In New York, there are whispers of an agency who operates partly like an escort service, booking their male models on dates with wealthy men and women, though no concrete proof has presented itself to corroborate those rumors.
Models, especially male models, need to find innovative ways to remain relevant, which may mean repackaging themselves as multi-hyphenates, which is what designers are now becoming. From current trends, it appears that models need more than just a face, they must also possess the ability to create and market content, because the rapidly evolving industry demands it of them, as norms are being challenged. One thing is certain, the fashion industry isn’t likely to return to that era of beautiful and statuesque models who used only their bodies and lifestyles to sell clothes and represent brands. Unless something drastic happens to change the current course of things, the true male model and everything that he once represented, will simply be a relic of the past.
but I wish the modeling industry was more inclusive indeed so the girls don´t all have to be a size 2 or 0 in fact and 5,10 to be considered a high fashion working model.
