Model Casting F/W 11.12

[LiranYana]

^
I just looked up Daria S. and she has modeled since 2007 ?
she seems to have her big runway break this season though
wasn't she No. 15 rank before at models.com she's now rank 19

I was hoping Katie doing shows this season would be her comeback, but a disappointment, Toni won't come back she has been doing not that good since last 2 season and Alina Baikova ? she had some fuzz about her Vogue Au Covers and her previous seasons but seems she's not translating her work yet on the runway

 

[OlgaMaria]

Daria S. is such a perfect blank canvas, too bad for her she missed the moment when classically beautiful blondes wre getting the most coveted print work/campaigns (girls like Toni, Anna J, Sigrid during her first seasons).

I'm also curious about Karlie - I feel like her season wasn't that great. Maybe it's because of Arizona, who seems to be the stong competition as the new American supermodel

 

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[OlgaMaria]

Daria S. is such a perfect blank canvas, too bad for her she missed the moment when classically beautiful blondes wre getting the most coveted print work/campaigns (girls like Toni, Anna J, Sigrid during her first seasons).

I'm also curious about Karlie - I feel like her season wasn't that great. Maybe it's because of Arizona, who seems to be the stong competition as the new American supermodel

 

[LiranYana]

^
Blank Canvass, that's the word I was looking for
that could be the reason designers just love her and Daria S. is booking so many shows this season

I feel as though Karlie has been stepped out of the limelight
Arizona is clearly getting her share of exposure now,
Im really curious too how far the Arizona Craze will last

 

[agee]

Judging by the quality of the shows themselves, I think that this was a pretty good year for casting. I have my own taste and preferences (glamor, struts, sexiness) and I have issues with the fashion / modeling industry (models starting too young, diversity and sheepism) and while I am not completely OK with things on this front, I'm not tearing my hair out either.


Missteps:
Thierry Mugler and Dolce&Gabbana - I theatricality but in regards to these two shows more thought should have been put into the production not overshadowing the fashion, particularly when it comes to the camera work.

Bottega Venetta's casting - I like many of the models in the actual cast but an all-star cast comes off as gimmicky when they're all doing different walks. I was particularly horrified by Carmen Kass' walk, although it should be noted that similar to the overall Arizona situation, it translated well to pictures.

Arizona closing Versace (that was not a good dress for a novice walker) and opening Anna Sui with Karlie and Frida, had it just been Frida and Karlie that would have probably been one of the best opening of the season.

Kate Moss' close Louis Vuitton - I don't have a problem with Kate's slightly visible cellulite at all, but the cigarette thing was too much and cheapened a very slick show.


Highlights:
Lady Gaga at Thierry Mugler - the whole show was over the top and her close fit right in.

Isabeli's decolletage at Emilio Pucci was a wonder!

Alexander McQueen, Prada and Versace - As a person who favors models with personality, it pains me too say this but these shows did the clothes hanger thing right. There was not a lot of personality on display at these shows and save a few I have no idea who the heck those people were on those runways, but for the most part the models had good walks and gave life to the clothes. The exception to the no personality thing was Kasia and Hailey at Versace, which was kinda awesome.

Other well cast / well-produced shows: Anna Sui, Blumarine, Burberry, DSquared2 (best staging), Emilio Pucci (perfection!!!), Gucci, Jean-Paul Gaultier and Louis Vuitton.

Best openings: Anna Sui (in spite of Arizona's shrimpy presence between Karlie and Frida), Burberry (Jourdan), Christian Dior (Karlie), Lanvin (TBH I did not like Natasha as the opener, but the atmospherics were great) and Stella McCartney (Natasha Poly).

Best closings: Blumarine (Candice), Jean-Paul Gaultier (some crazy lady), John Galliano (Magdalena) and Thierry Mugler (Lady Gaga).

Favorite parades: Burberry (breathtaking!), Burberry (all three of them), D&G, Dolce & Gabbana, Lanvin and Louis Vuitton.


I may post model favorites / highlights later.

 

[agee]

Re Karlie:
Karlie has not yet graduated from high school and she is making a ton of money from campaigns and has chosen to scale back her runway modeling. I don't always believe the pursuing other interests / taking a break line but I believe that that is the case here.


Re Model Fading:
Models fading is a natural occurrence, designers want models in their first couple of seasons because they are fresh and cheap and by their third season they are no longer fresh or cheap, especially if the model is getting well-paying print jobs. Furthermore by then the freshness and excitement has faded for the model too, really when you think about it during the runway season you are basically spending four plus weeks doing the equivalent of being at the beauty salon for several hours, broken up by a hectic sprint to your next show, job interviews and a 45-second walk down a runway.

Of course there are rewards - financially, socially and ego-wise but I am not sure if most models aspire to walk 50+ shows every season after they've done it two, three or four times; I think that there are exceptions like if you become a runway star and you are opening and closing shows and/or getting key looks, you are trying to re-boot your career or you are a gregarious person and / or fashion lover and can make the best of the environment and all the craziness.


ETA:

Favorite parades: Burberry (breathtaking!), Burberry (all three of them), D&G, Dolce & Gabbana, Lanvin and Louis Vuitton.

This should have been Blumarine and there may have only been two parades.

 

[TommyAlbania]

i was a bit surprised when i saw, that the opener and closer of prada weren't exclusives. i hope in the coming seasons mariacarla will open or close and sasha will return

 

[cologne_rocks]

Re Karlie:

Re Model Fading:
Models fading is a natural occurrence, designers want models in their first couple of seasons because they are fresh and cheap and by their third season they are no longer fresh or cheap, especially if the model is getting well-paying print jobs. Furthermore by then the freshness and excitement has faded for the model too, really when you think about it during the runway season you are basically spending four plus weeks doing the equivalent of being at the beauty salon for several hours, broken up by a hectic sprint to your next show, job interviews and a 45-second walk down a runway.

The problem is simply called "overexposure".
No model needs to walk 60 shows in her first season to gather monumentum. Why to walk 80 shows if 20 or 30 good shows can be enough to cause a stir as well?
If you do everything possible in your very 1st season, everyone expects you to do at least same or even better in the following season - and most times, it will not happen. You will maybe lose the Prada & CK booking and other clients will start to worry why you weren't there and stop to book you as well. I'd say do just what is necessary to get attention of first clients, and if everything goes well you can upgrade next time.
Walking 60 shows in your first season is nothing but burning out young talent - talent which doesnt have the experience to handle everything yet .... Better take the gentle step by step route. Play the game safe and play it low key. With good editorial visibility and one or two precious jobs after a decent runway debut, also other casting directors who haven't used you so far will wake up and get those bookings done next time. A long-standing success doesn't come over night. And many ppl think like "the more you walk, the more you earn" - But this is not a good reasons to appear in every show... walking 30 shows in Paris doesn't make sense financially wise... Only Milan pays for every single show, besides Milan you can only make money in Madrid or with some commercial shows in New York. J. Mendel and Diesel Black pay very handsomely.
I wonder why girls like Jablonski or Nielsen have to walk everywhere.... Will they fade from the magazines if they stop walking everywhere and do only like 10 blue chip shows in each city? I don't think so... I'd rather try to give a rather new girl the show slots at D&G or Sonja Rykiel...

 

[Omnis]

You bring up some important points, cologne_rocks. If a girl does "every show" her first season, there usually is really only one way to go the next season.

Just a side comment to your thougts on limiting a top girl's number of appearances. The major casting directors very often expext a new girl they favour to do all the shows they crave her for (not only the major shows, but also the smaller shows). If for example Maida and Rami book you for Calvin Klein, then they in many cases also want to use you for Roland Mouret, even though it's a minor show and it's very difficult to turn them down .. It could have consequenses at the worst. Although I know you are aware of this.

Agents often want to keep a girl exclusive, but at the same time they want to give every important designer/casting director/stylist/art director a piece of the cake, to ensure a prosperous relationship in the future.

 

[agee]

The problem is simply called "overexposure".
No model needs to walk 60 shows in her first season to gather monumentum. Why to walk 80 shows if 20 or 30 good shows can be enough to cause a stir as well?
If you do everything possible in your very 1st season, everyone expects you to do at least same or even better in the following season - and most times, it will not happen. You will maybe lose the Prada & CK booking and other clients will start to worry why you weren't there and stop to book you as well. I'd say do just what is necessary to get attention of first clients, and if everything goes well you can upgrade next time.
Walking 60 shows in your first season is nothing but burning out young talent - talent which doesnt have the experience to handle everything yet .... Better take the gentle step by step route. Play the game safe and play it low key. With good editorial visibility and one or two precious jobs after a decent runway debut, also other casting directors who haven't used you so far will wake up and get those bookings done next time. A long-standing success doesn't come over night. And many ppl think like "the more you walk, the more you earn" - But this is not a good reasons to appear in every show... walking 30 shows in Paris doesn't make sense financially wise... Only Milan pays for every single show, besides Milan you can only make money in Madrid or with some commercial shows in New York. J. Mendel and Diesel Black pay very handsomely.
I wonder why girls like Jablonski or Nielsen have to walk everywhere.... Will they fade from the magazines if they stop walking everywhere and do only like 10 blue chip shows in each city? I don't think so... I'd rather try to give a rather new girl the show slots at D&G or Sonja Rykiel...

To me over-exposure is the inverse of freshness, so in that respect we are saying the same thing. The reason why you walk 80 shows and not 20-30 good shows is for the money. Now there are considerations when it comes to image and a top runway model may not walk for a diffusion line unless she was or wants to be in the campaign but if it is the "right" designer and she can handle it physically and mentally, then it is not a big deal. It should also be noted that things are becoming more democratic, a few seasons ago Elie Saab would be considered a step down for a top model unless she was opening or closing and now their cast is mostly top girls. Furthermore, the future is too unpredictable to not seize the right opportunities when presented to you, in the space of a few months the taste of the designers and casting directors may change and also the model's body may change, so those are considerations as well.

So is there really a downside of walking 50+ shows, so what if that reduces a model's chances from 1:20 to 1:50 of getting paid €5000 to walk Prada next season? I see the point that you are making but I think that the models that that applies to is a very, very small number and the rest need to GTC. One of the ways that a hot newbie becomes a hot newbie is walking a lot of shows in the previous cities, in other words booking the a lot of the right shows in New York will help you in Milan. The others are being an exclusive for the right designers (and that may be declining in importance for different reasons) or being anointed by a tastemaker like Carine Roitfeld. And at some point the designers know the models that they want to work with and are going to cast them, Tara Gill is an example of this, well this season was odd but in previous seasons, in addition to Oscar de la Renta, Armani and Jean-Paul Gaultier and Hermes, her showlist included Luca Luca and Frankie Morrello.

 

[cologne_rocks]

To me over-exposure is the inverse of freshness, so in that respect we are saying the same thing. The reason why you walk 80 shows and not 20-30 good shows is for the money. Now there are considerations when it comes to image and a top runway model may not walk for a diffusion line unless she was or wants to be in the campaign but if it is the "right" designer and she can handle it physically and mentally, then it is not a big deal. It should also be noted that things are becoming more democratic, a few seasons ago Elie Saab would be considered a step down for a top model unless she was opening or closing and now their cast is mostly top girls. Furthermore, the future is too unpredictable to not seize the right opportunities when presented to you, in the space of a few months the taste of the designers and casting directors may change and also the model's body may change, so those are considerations as well.

So is there really a downside of walking 50+ shows, so what if that reduces a model's chances from 1:20 to 1:50 of getting paid €5000 to walk Prada next season? I see the point that you are making but I think that the models that that applies to is a very, very small number and the rest need to GTC. One of the ways that a hot newbie becomes a hot newbie is walking a lot of shows in the previous cities, in other words booking the a lot of the right shows in New York will help you in Milan. The others are being an exclusive for the right designers (and that may be declining in importance for different reasons) or being anointed by a tastemaker like Carine Roitfeld. And at some point the designers know the models that they want to work with and are going to cast them, Tara Gill is an example of this, well this season was odd but in previous seasons, in addition to Oscar de la Renta, Armani and Jean-Paul Gaultier and Hermes, her showlist included Luca Luca and Frankie Morrello.

Apparently some agencies work according to this considerations and bang the newfaces out as soon as they're intown. Without well-elaborated and careful career planning and trained working skills of the girl, she will have to rely on her luck, alone, and a flash in the pan will be the result, more than often. I think it's the wrong way.

 

[jacquelineo]

^
I feel as though Karlie has been stepped out of the limelight
Arizona is clearly getting her share of exposure now,
Im really curious too how far the Arizona Craze will last

Karlie purposely slowed down this season. She stated in an interview that she wanted to stay clear of all the runway craziness. I would much rather have her walk 20 high quality shows than 50+ plus shows and have her tire of the fashion business.

 

[agee]

Apparently some agencies work according to this considerations and bang the newfaces out as soon as they're intown. Without well-elaborated and careful career planning and trained working skills of the girl, she will have to rely on her luck, alone, and a flash in the pan will be the result, more than often. I think it's the wrong way.

I agree that there should be more management of models' careers and have commented on that elsewhere, but I don't think that having a new model selectively walking 20-30 shows early in her career as opposed to 50+ first or second tier shows is necessarily good management. If an agent feels in his / her gut that the model is special and there is not enough interest from the top tier, then yeah s/he may want to limit her exposure to preserve freshness but that is not the norm. The model's mental and physical well-being are considerations as well.

IMO a lot of career management has to do with the thinking, strategizing and activities in the off season as opposed to deciding to skip London or turn down Anteprima or Guy Laroche solely for the purpose of having a small showlist so as to appear exclusive. In fact this may even be cutting off your nose to spite your face, if you are excluding castings because they aren't blue-chip enough if the same casting director who does the first tier shows also cast second and third tier shows, would it really be prudent to not send a new girl to a casting for BCBG because it is not a blue-chip label?

I am shuffling through my memory bank and am just trying to think of models who have been harmed for not being selective. Jac, Liu, Constance and Joan were top walkers and have all scored beauty contracts, Kasia and Jacquelyn Jablonski continue to book blue chip shows season after season and have scored campaigns and editorials in the off-season.

 

[bothsidesnow]

Apparently some agencies work according to this considerations and bang the newfaces out as soon as they're intown. Without well-elaborated and careful career planning and trained working skills of the girl, she will have to rely on her luck, alone, and a flash in the pan will be the result, more than often. I think it's the wrong way.

I think some agencies pretty much know in advance who their "flash-in-the-pan" girls* will be and strategize around it. Their plan will be to get her 60+ shows while she's holding her look and a style.com Top 10 newcomer spot will be the icing on the cake! This is fantastic for the agency's "starmaker" profile and it matters not when she is forgotten after a season or two as they'll have another girl to replace her with by then.

*generally these girls will have a look which is unlikely to be sustainable in the longer term, or a "quirky" look, or both. (generally they're very young and very, very thin.)

 

[cologne_rocks]

^^Well Joan, Liu, Kasia and Jacquelyn didn't end up walking 20 (+) per town in their debut seasons. The success of these girls didn't come out of the blue/ overnight.
As for girls who have been overexposed at the early stage of their careers? I recall names like Lisanne de Jong, Karolin Wolter, Anastasia Kuznetsova, Kathrin Thormann, Hanna Rundlöf, Anya K, Simona Andrejic, maybe Sedene Blake too who has been featured as "model of the next decade" even before she had put a feet on the runway... I think SS11 & FW12 showed the tendency that models have to prove themselves again - I mean.... Just look at recent accomplishments of girls who had silently been around for many season either on or off the runways (a la Aymeline Valade, Arizona Muse, Saskia, Jana K, Milou) while all those apparent S/S11 "overnight" successes obviously suffered from too much SS11 spotlights and slowed down this season. (Melodie, Theres, Iris, Bambi, Jessica)... I don't want to go on dropping names, I hope you understand my position though - I just think that girls can avoid or delay to fade if editorial and runway visibility are being gained slowly but steadily. The girl can mentally get used to how the industry works and see the other side of the medal and experience does not harm. I think it's quite interesting to see how unexperienced and shy most "overnight-sensations" appear to be in their first advertisement campaign and then they warm up and look good when it's too late already and every industry creative moved on without them. (Lisanne, Julija)

 

[agee]

I guess I am questioning whether or not the underlying culprit here is over-exposure or if it is the natural attrition that takes place. Although I totally agree and have stated that I think that a model may benefit from not hitting it big immediately, but I interpreted that, perhaps incorrectly as different from the exclusivity argument because these models, as part of their "training and development" do end up walking for Luca Luca and Versus.

I don't know if a model and agent can really control or dictate how this plays out once the model is put in the game. If you want your model to walk for Prada, then you are going to send her to the BCBG casting and if she is cast and that gets the ball rolling, I don't know if an agent can then decide to get selective, again the cutting off your nose to spite your face situation. You only throw a monkey wrench into this situation if you feel that the girl will be physically or mentally damaged, you already have a high-profile campaign lined up or you are scheduled to shoot with Meisel for VI, and the last two are debatable.. Also it should be noted that f the model is in demand then the selectivity can take care of itself, because there are only so many shows that she can walk in a day.

 

[bonaelamour]

Does anyone know who casted Carolina Herrera and Badgley Mischka? Thank you!

 

[WilhelmF]

^ James Scully does Carolina Herrera.

Is there a thread where you can see the model boards for a show? The looks that will appear on the runway worn by the models...?