Making it as a model has long been about building your brand. But now, for the first time, power is in the hands of the models – and their social media accounts. 20-year-old ZUZANNA BIJOCH explains the new world to EVE CLAXTON.
During New York fashion week in September this year, models dashed about the city at breakneck speed, ducking past the street-style photographers, jumping on the backs of motorbikes, each late-running show making them tardy for the next.
At the Soho Grand Hotel in Manhattan, meanwhile, 20-year-old Zuzanna Bijoch (pronounced Bee-yock) slowly sips a cup of black tea. She plans to chat to me for a bit, then she’ll head to her agency to choose an outfit for the AnOther Magazine party tonight. (Right now she’s in a black Isabel Marant tee and wedge sneakers with Rag & Bone skinny jeans – all the better to play up her pale features and glassy blue eyes.) Later, she’ll head to her downtown apartment to get ready for her evening out. It’s quite the schedule contrast.
“I’ve done nine seasons of walking in the New York shows,” Bijoch explains. “This time, I’m taking a break from the presentations and focusing more on the social side.” Welcome to the world of today’s models, where walking the runway is now only a small part of the job. Her agent at Next Model Management, Craig Lock, reinforces the point: “The door to fashion has really been opened up by social media. For a model to be successful in the market today, they have to realize their job does not start or end on a shoot. The more social content they deliver, the greater their brand will grow.”
Originally from Katowice in southern Poland, Bijoch is part of a savvy new generation of models building their careers with an eye on their overall image. Of course, industry icons have long been aware of the importance of their public persona – Cindy, Christy and Kate among them – but they were forced to rely on others to portray them. When Bijoch first came on the scene in 2010, models still followed the well-trodden path established by the Supers of the ’80s and ’90s: appear in the major shows; secure campaigns and editorials; become a familiar face and eventually a household name. The new girls have the power quite literally in their smartphone-wielding hands, becoming, in some cases, more popular than the editors who helped to build their predecessors’ careers. “The social aspect is an important part of our lives now,” Bijoch says bluntly. “Fashion isn’t only about presenting the clothes, it is also a lifestyle that you are driving by participating in it.”
Since being discovered in a modeling contest in Krakow at age 14, Bijoch has starred in campaigns for powerhouses including Prada, Louis Vuitton and Chloé. If you can’t quite place her face, it is probably because she has an ability to morph from shot to shot (very useful in this line of work) – from ’70s vamp (Tom Ford’s Black Orchid) to preppy princess (Tory Burch) and even an angelic-looking alien (Alexander McQueen).
“It’s amazing how much has changed since I started,” Bijoch observes. “This ability to connect has really opened things up, for the designers and the models. Everyone is tweeting; everyone is posting pictures – our world is so much more accessible now.”
Today, a young model can do so much more to establish her voice and her career on her own terms. “You can communicate with your fans directly,” Bijoch says. “They can understand who you are, what you like, what your aesthetic is. In the beginning, I was posting things that I was interested in or that made me laugh, but then I realized people don’t follow me because I’m an artist or a comedian, they want to see my face! So now I also post pictures of myself – but I hope I can still try to show the interesting side of being a model.”
Soon, those posts might start to reflect more of a student life than a modeling one, as Bijoch hopes to go to university to study economics. Last summer, she served as an intern at Tom Ford to help her “understand the business side of the industry”. One day, she found herself simultaneously working on sales reports and glancing up at herself in Ford’s fall/winter 2013 campaign.
Whether or not being seen via a popular Instagram account can entirely surpass the need to be seen on the runway is debatable. Though, as Bijoch points out, she did appear in one New York show this season, albeit virtually. “I was featured in an installation at the Theory show,” she says. “There was a video and photographs of me on the wall. So I was sitting in the audience, watching myself walking around on a big screen. It was like an out-of-body experience.”
All in a day’s work, it seems, for this very modern model.
