Acceptance or Exploitation?
The next Victoria’s Secret Angel might be a transgender woman. Carmen Carrera joined the ranks of reality show celebrities after appearing on season 3 of the popular cable television show, RuPaul’s Drag Race. Last month, a petition started on Change.org asking Victoriaís Secret to make her their first transgender model. Whether or not she becomes an “Angel,” the petition currently has over 34,000 signatures. She has already walked in fashion shows, been featured in W Magazine and is signed with one of the most exclusive modeling agencies in the world, Elite Models Management.
Alternative modeling is on the rise. Runways, magazines and television ads are using models who, ten years ago, would have never been considered by the mainstream fashion industry. But this change has led many in the industry to ask: Is the world finally ready to embrace models of all sizes, shapes and sexualities? Or has fashion reached a new level of profiteering?
“Without diversity, all models would look the same. I for one, donít wish to see that and neither do the companies that require models,”said Craig Palethorpe, managing director of The Twisted Agency, a fashion agency in the United Kingdom that represents alternative models. “Diversity in modeling is important to not only me, but also to the industry as a whole.”
The Twisted Agency’s models include disabled, mature, transgendered and other unconventional types. Terri Claire is a 49-year-old tattooed model, who goes by the alias, “Ivy League Ink.”
Photo by: Jim Sewastynowicz
Despite the agency’s open-minded approach to the fashion industry, it has been a challenge for them to convince clients to be as accepting. Recently, the agency had to push hard for an application of a transgender model for a photoshoot in a magazine. Palethorpe also had to fight on behalf of a model with disabilities and a mature model to get them booked.
“Just because a model may have missing limbs or a disfigurement doesn’t stop them from looking as beautiful as any able-bodied person,”he said.
Sir Maejor is an albino model and actor who has recently been featured on popular FX hit show, American Horror Story, as a featured recurring actor.
“For a long time I wanted to look like everyone else and blend in,”Maejor said. “I felt insecure, I wasn’t happy with myself and I didn’t like who I was.”
Now, he considers his albinism a gift. “When I started really embracing who I am, I got an overwhelming reception from other people,” he said.
Companies like DSquared and Benetton have started using models who do not fit the commonly accepted aesthetic of the fashion industry. For example, Benetton used amputee model Mario Galla during Berlin Fashion Week in 2012 and asked him to walk the runway in shorts, exposing his artificial leg. Along with The Twisted Agency, other agencies like Pages Model Management and VisABLE Models help alternative models get work.
Hoi Cheng, a sophomore at Parsons, who worked with Bicoastal Fitting Models, however, was skeptical. He said that he had never seen alternative models represented among top fashion labels.
Cheng thinks the petition for Carmen Carrera to be the first transgender model for Victoria’s Secret, a very mainstream brand that profits off of female attractiveness, is a step in the right direction. He is dubious about whether or not the company will actually take Carrera on, as it is a controversial move.
“For a brand based off this idea of the female sex appeal, a transgendered model would imply that gender expression is ultimately a construction and I guess not a lot of people want to deal with that,” Cheng said.
Victoria’s Secret has not yet responded to the petition.
“I would hope that all of the Angels would act like angels and accept me with open wings,” Carrera said in an Entertainment Tonight interview.
Whether or not Carrera becomes an Angel, questions about exploitation versus empowerment are still up for debate.
Ron Scapp, co-editor of the book “Fashion Statements: On Style, Appearance and Reality”, warns that alternative models can be manipulated, through either social construction or actually edited in Photoshop.
“Of course, there are exceptions,” he said. “But if you are pursuing this within the context of fashion magazines and advertisements, then the question remains, which albinos, which amputees, which otherwise ‘deformed’ models get photographed and rendered worthy of our collective, consumptive gaze?”
Photo by: Jim Sewastynowicz
Iva Mirbach, editor-in-chief of The Fashion Model Directory (FDM), an online source for professional models and fashion, said that alternative modeling will always be just that — alternative. However, she is wary about cries of exploitation. She points to androgynous-looking model Andrej Pejic, who got a lot of mainstream media attention after he walked in women’s clothes at a Jean-Paul Gaultier show.
“His example shows that if one accuses the fashion industry of exploiting alternative models, one should not conceal that this exploitation can be a career-booster, too,”Mirbach said.
Like Pejic, making it into upper echelons of fashion, albino model Maejor has been in a major movie, which some see as another step forward for those under-represented in the media. It did not go exactly as he had hoped, though.
Working with Denzel Washington, the director would not use him as a background actor in a scene with Washington, out of fear that Maejor’s difference would shift focus away from the main characters.
Maejor wants to use his albinism to inspire other people. Because he believes that he has a platform at this point, his goal is to use it to spread awareness within his community and across the world. Maejor believes that, once an established company dares to make the bold step of including alternative models in their campaigns, other brands will follow.
“America is a copycat, we follow everyone,” he said.
With reporting by Keilly Fernandez
Born and raised in New York City, Rafaella (Raffi) is majoring in Journalism + Design at Lang. Rafaella also enjoys fashion, writing poetry, reading for pleasure, the art of drag, and listening to pop-punk!
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