For the more visible fashion models (those competing for editorial fashion assignments, high end runway work and fashion campaigns – the ones we think of as “fashion models”) age is a very strong factor in selection. Prime time for entry into the industry is age 16-18, although some models as young as 13 or as old as 21 are accepted into major fashion agencies. In some places fashion models must be at least 16 to work. Many agencies have policies of not accepting new fashion models over 21, and some specify as low as 19.
That category of fashion model, if successful, can work into her early twenties sometimes. A few fashion models – those at the top of the industry, can work into their thirties and beyond. But for those very few, it is because they have ceased being “fashion models”, and have become brands, or celebrities, whose face is widely recognized. Many of them are called by the over-used term “supermodel”.
There are other types of models who work in the fashion industry – those that we don’t normally think of when we use the term “fashion model” – who can be well outside those age restrictions. Catalog models (“commercial fashion” models) can be of nearly any age, certainly well into their 40s, and include children. Fit models also can work while much older than the “fashion models” we described above.
