Fashion & style: The model maker
Independent, The (London), Sep 29, 2005 by Cat Callender
'You want to know what modelling is all about?' drawls the casting director Russell Marsh, turning to his assistant for the punchline. 'Tell her what it's about, Adam.'
'Timing,' mutters Adam, deadpan and without lifting his eyes from his computer screen.
'It really is,' says Marsh. 'It's about chance meetings that can change your world forever.'
Or, at least, it can be if it's Marsh who claps eyes on you and likes what he sees. Marsh is one of the most influential casting directors in the business. With an ability to spot a supermodel at 50 paces, he has launched the careers of more girls than you can shake a stick at, and spearheaded countless new ideals in beauty. 'He just seems to second- guess what the next direction is going to be in modelling,' says Tori Edwards, director of ICM Models. She not only attributes the current vogue for haughty, 'bourgeoise' models to Marsh (he discovered Gemma Ward and Daria Werbowy, the trend's poster girls), but also believes that he is responsible for the success of many of the big names stalking the runways today. 'I remember when Russell cast Karen Elson in a Miu Miu show just as she was starting out. Next minute, Steven Meisel was shooting her for Italian Vogue.'
In addition to providing his services to some of the top fashion publications (British and French Vogue, Dazed & Confused, W), Marsh has an exclusive contract with Prada and Miu Miu to cast the brands' runway presentations and campaigns. Indeed, it is Marsh's job to find the right girl to embody a designer's vision (in this case, that of the quixotic Miuccia Prada), or inject character into the narrative of an editorial fashion story with his choice of model. 'He's an editor of girls, really,' says Anna- Marie Solowij, beauty and health director of Vogue UK. 'If people are referencing Bruce Weber's outdoorsy, Californian vibe, he can suggest 10 girls. If Miuccia is after retro, bourgeoise-type 20-year-olds, he finds girls to fit the bill. He is constantly slotting girls into roles.'
Having cut his teeth as an assistant to the show producer Michael Rosen in the 1980s (they produced runway shows for the cream of the then London fashion scene, including Bodymap, Katharine Hamnett, Richmond-Cornejo), Marsh did a stint at the Laraine Ashton Model Agency (now IMG). It was only in 1990 that he found a way to combine his talent for creating fashion shows with his flair for finding new faces, and set up his own company.
'This office is like a magnet. There's this force field " sorry to get all Star Wars about it " and the models I'm drawn to tend to end up going places,' says Marsh. 'I can tell from a Polaroid if someone's got something to say to me. I get this physical feeling, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.'
As melodramatic as this might sound, there's certainly something about Marsh " heightened sensibility, perhaps " that enables him to spot what even seasoned model agents find imperceptible. 'I remember there was a girl called Vivien Solari whom Russell picked up on early in her career,' says Tori Edwards. 'One of the bookers [at ICM] wasn't sure about her. She had badly permed hair. We thought we'd have to groom her up. But he saw the potential in her, beyond all the superficial issues.'
Solowij agrees. 'Many of the girls Marsh has plucked out and pushed along their way, like Daria, have been around for a while,' she says, referring to the girl recently hailed as the supermodel of the Noughties. 'And, with his polishing, she has secured the Lancme campaign, which is a big deal because it's dependent upon her face. Until Russell focused on her, no one took much notice of her.'
Unearthing these gems, however, is a rigorous process and one that takes up all of his time these days. He no longer produces fashion shows, concentrating instead on his work with Prada. As well as liaising with the 80-plus key model agencies in London, Milan, Paris and New York (not to mention the scouts truffling for talent everywhere from Quebec to Uzbekistan), Marsh sifts through at least 100 images a day, and meets over 3,000 models a year. These are catalogued on his database of around 18,000 models, and then edited down to a mere 20 that possess that intangible ingredient that lights Marsh's fire. And, more often than not, Prada's, too.
Just as Prada's collections introduce the new fashion mood each season, increasingly, thanks to Marsh's collaboration, the models that sashay down that runway also set a new standard of beauty. 'I can't think of any girl who has done a Miu Miu or Prada show who hasn't gone on to become a great model,' says Edwards of what, in the industry, is considered to be the ultimate launching-pad. 'When a new girl gets Russell's thumbs up, it paves her path.'
Take Sasha Pivovarova, an unknown Russian girl whom Marsh booked to open Prada's autumn/winter 2005 show last September. In under six months, she became the face of Prada and was photographed by everyone from David Sims to Peter Lindbergh for British, French and Italian Vogue. And take Angela Lindvall, Karolina Kurkova, Gemma Ward, Diana Dondoe and Querelle, all of whom are considered some of the hottest models working today. While all were spotted by Marsh, each one represents a different type of beauty (fresh faced, androgynous, Amazonian, aristocratic...).
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