‘All My Friends Are Models’ Looks At What It’s Really Like To Be Beautiful
Ever wanted the inside track on what models really do, earn, eat and think?
Now you can – from the mouths of some of Australia’s top models. And it’s all thanks to another model from Down Under: Sasha Benz.
Sasha realised, when planning her wedding to model Oliver Benz, that ‘all her friends were models’, and the realisation has led to the formation of All My Friends Are Models.com, one of the most interesting fashion websites to come out of Australia in years.
It’s an insight into the real world of modelling, and Benz has some decidedly famous friends on board to contribute.
Her friends include Nicole Trunfio, Catherine McNeil, Victoria’s Secret model Elyse Taylor, Cheyenne Tozzi and Lara Bingle. Now that’s a bunch of women who know what it’s like to be beautiful, thin and paid for it.
But the site isn’t all about gloss and glorifying thin limbs. It’s a stark and occasionally very surprising look at the realities of being a jobbing model: all of the models came up the ranks, and know what it’s like to be insecure, financially unstable and continually waiting for the next job.
It goes behind the scenes on controversial issues like the ‘size 00’ debate, the powerlessness of models on a shoot, the reality of nude shots (which are increasingly the reality for high fashion and couture editorials), and what it feels like to become a mother in the midst of your modelling career.
There are even some perspectives, like the anonymous editorial Modelling Ruined Me, which point out that as a way of life, modelling can be soul-sucking, difficult, and delay growing up. The anonymous author describes discovering, at age 28, that she’s only part-way through her degree and still has fees to pay off to her agency, while all her ‘normal’ friends have graduated and formed relationships.
There are, however, also fun bits – like ‘Dating Somebody Better Looking Than You’.
Benz told Vogue that it’s very much a site for models themselves, not just us gawking onlookers – and that starts with her modelling friends. “They all love the idea of having a platform, through someone they trust, to be able to voice the issues that surround their lives and humanise the modelling industry,” she said.”
In one stark case of the reality not matching the glamour, she described the global fuss over Montana Cox’s uber-cool short haircut this year – and that Cox revealed it was actually because her hair was so damaged by mistakes on a photo shoot that it had to be cut off. ” Cox calls the experience ‘devastating’, and very far from the cheerful glorification of her hair by fashion mags.
Models with voices have increasingly been a feature of the 2010’s. Naomi Campbell’s personality clashed with Coco Rocha on television as they competed to find the next big supermodels, Tyra Banks has tried to use her platform to create a media empire, and Crystal Renn caused a sensation with her memoir ‘Hungry’, about her eating disorder in her early modelling days.
And with Instagram-friendly modelling stars like Cara Delevingne and Jourdan Dunn, we’re now closer than ever to model lives – but it’s still valuable, and interesting, to see them from the inside.
Image: All My Friends Are Models.
