A life model on fashion models

Photographer: Vanessa Mills

American poet, now also fiction writer, Kelley Swain's new book The Naked Muse was published last May, a memoir of her modelling days. It was also discussed as part of  BBC Radio 4 programme  Start of the Week, on 2nd May 2016 bringing together Grayson Perry, Emma Rice, Alice Coote and Kelley Swain to talk about masculinity.
Swain was a life model throughout  her twenties, while living and studying in Oxford and then London. That was not too long ago, as she is just thirty now. I have to thank Rachel McCarthy, director of the Register of Artists' Models, of which Kelley Swain was a member when she modelled, for alerting current members - hence me - through the RAM blog, of this new publication about life models.
There are only a few books about art modelling written by models and this one is a good read. I went through it quickly and I recognised myself in parts of the narrative, even though I am obviously a very different model from Swain, physically and temperamentally, not to mention other differences due to age and upbringing.
 The similarities are in terms of how I have often felt while modelling for artists, something Swain captures very vividly.  Sure,  I did not pose for Bill in Bruges, nor have I been  portrayed as a saint in a chapel frieze (though an English painter started a portrait of me as Hypatia, unfortunately never completed) but I had the experience of posing for artists that would try and replicate the darkness of the traditional Florentine workshops in their studio. I also had the opportunity to model full time for a residency  at The Retreat in The Marche a few years ago and on that occasion I was gifted with a beautiful painting of me by a known Israeli artist  which now hangs in my living room. I have been posing fairly regularly for a bunch of other artists, too many to mention. I continue to do life modelling (which I prefer to call art modelling even though it may be confused with the art nude photographic modelling I have also done a lot of ) from time to time. I have been art modelling since I was twenty, on and off - I talked about it in a recent blog post.

Photographer: Irene Barlian

I was however taken aback at how dismissive Kelley Swain is, at some point in the book, of fashion models whom she regards as "oddly proportioned, underfed and hardened". That was a rather gratuitous observation she could have spared us with. Her point was that she was not  fashion model material, in her own perception of herself. Fair enough. But I wonder how she could fall  for such a stereotypical appraisal of fashion models in fashion magazines without attempting to see through the artifice of their portrayal? I did not expect this at all and found her remarks not only unnecessary but even a touch offensive.
Modelling for fashion and, generally, for photography, requires skills that no one teaches, and which like one does with life modelling, one picks up while doing it, helped along the way by more experienced models and by photographers, as well as one's imagination and commitment. Fashion models, moreover, are not just a bunch of gangly teenagers who provide the blank canvas for designers, stylists and photographers. In our contemporary world there are many different kinds of photographic models working in fashion and in advertising - old, young, realistically sized, unrealistically sized ie thin and very thin,  fat and very fat, petite and very tall, heavily tattooed and with no tattoo at all. You name it.  There is also the phenomenon of Instagram which is turning absolutely everyone into a model - I have a few friends who have discovered the art of taking selfies which they edit with various filters and upload regularly. It's their personal take on modelling, Instagram has provided people with an instant outlet for their creativity, we are all models and artists now, we just need an Instagram account.

Photo for Selena Shepherd's Lookbook

 Back to Kelley Swain's pronouncements on fashion models.  As someone who has experienced several types of modelling, I can never be dismissive of any and will always try to see it from the model's angle. Fashion models work hard, a lot harder than people warrant. Their level of pay can be pretty abysmal. Sure, there are the ones that are at the pinnacle, the high earners, but they are only a handful.  The reality for the majority of models is pretty different - jobs are often unpaid or paid a real pittance, at least life models are given some cash in hand at the end of the job, they do not have to go through the very tiresome , rather humiliating, process of pestering account departments for their meagre fee. There is also the constant feeling of inadequacy instilled by the awareness that one is after all rather disposable, there are so many other models to choose from and so many who are more beautiful...more whatever than you. Being able to conjure up extreme self confidence in one's looks and talent becomes a survival skill.
So it really does not help when someone as gifted as Kelley Swain also has a snipe at fashion models. Who does it benefit?