When I lived in NYC, somehow I got a job at one of the top modeling agencies in the world. I cannot remember how but I remember sitting in the waiting room waiting for the interview.
This had to be early 90’s. I remember I had on a short black leather skirt and a colorful silk blouse ( probably polyester) and pumps! So odd that I remember that. I had had experience in the fashion world. When I mover to NYC , I worked for 3 different fashion photographers as an unpaid assistant…so maybe I go a referral.
I got the job and started right away. I started working on the desk with the middle of the road models. We worked at a big round table that had a carousel in the center where each models schedule was kept in a folder. You would spin the carousel until you found who you needed. These girls would often go out on Go See’s…for possible jobs and we would have to set those up. Clients would call and ask to book a certain girl for a certain job. You got to know their rates for various jobs, catalog, editorial, runway…you got to know what they could do and what they couldn’t or shouldn’t. You got the schedules to the models and made sure they showed and got all they needed. It was complicated. I took to it right away. It was easy for me. I liked the girls I worked with. Because I excelled, I was given the opportunity for a raise and to go up to the desk with the supermodels…In order for me to move up, I had to do a favor for the owner of the agency.
Modeling is cut throat, everything about it. There was a top model that was at a different agency. She was in secret negotiations to move to the agency I was in. They needed her portfolio. My mission, should I chose to accept it, was to go to a room at a 57th Street ( on the Park) high end hotel and accept her portfolio from a messenger and then bring it back to my agency. It was all on the down low but I had to pretend to be a client from out of town…So I did it…no big deal…I got the portfolio and skipped off back to the agency. I felt like I committed a crime but I got the raise and the push up to the desk with the super models and that was that…except….
It was hell. The other people who worked on this desk were mean. They would stab you in the back in an instant. The woman who ran the division was a big fat french woman who looked like a fat French King. She hated me from the start..There were 2 gay guys that also worked the desk and they followed suit in being mean in every way they could. They relegated me to the “tired” supermodels but household names, the ones that were barely booked any more or were difficult to deal with or were moving toward acting and away from modeling. They would not let me near the superstars…but, they couldn’t keep me away as its was too busy so I was often working on schedules of top names.
Eventually, they made it very uncomfortable to work with them. They were a clique that had worked together for years and years…The big french woman wanted me out...They were impossible, mean and made life hell for me.Eventually I quit or got fired or both at the same time.
I worked at that agency for about 2-3 years,
After that I moved onto a new agency. I created the men’s division there. It’s a pretty big agency still but nothing like the original but they had a sports division that was very successful. I liked working there. eventually it was time for me to move on to something else. It was mentally exhausting work and a constant challenge to deal with people of all kinds of temperaments. I had amazing experiences…it was NYC after all, but I had some really terrible experiences too. It left me very jaded when it comes to that whole scene. It has to be different now…I can’t imagine they still let young girls just go off to a photographer’s studio or a client’s office with their portfolios like lambs to the slaughter. I think that those days are past. It was great fun, most of the time.
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