What’s in a Modelling Personality

Being a successful model is as much about personality as looks. You need to meet both the mental and physical requirements if you’re going to make it in this highly competitive business. So what do we mean when we talk about ‘modelling personality’? Well, it’s about being resilient and flexible and being consummate professional.
Resilience
It’s a tough business. Fashion has a glamorous image and lots of people want to be a part of it. That means that rejection is an unfortunate but common part of being a model. Almost all models will get rejected at first, from agencies or directly from clients if they’re going freelance. And even if you do start to get paid work, there are always far more models invited to castings than are needed for jobs, so being selected for all of them is essentially an impossibility.
Flexibility
The fashion industry moves fast and the people that work in it have to move fast as well. Castings may come up and be filled and booked within a few hours, so models that answer their phone on the first ring, drop everything and turn up within half an hour are more likely to get more modelling jobs than those who don’t get round to answering their phone until its too late. Also requirements may change at the last minite and model may be required to wear their own accessories or do their own make-up if supporting staff or items aren’t available.
Professionalism
Modelling is a job, and you can’t lark around in a job, because someone is paying for your time, experience and skills. They expect to get their money’s worth. With modelling that means turning up on time, and being responsive to the needs to the photographer. It means arriving prepared and in the right ‘format’ with our without makeup and outfits as briefed, not dragging your heels and responding helpfully. Models who go that extra to give their clients what they need are that much more likely to get called back for repeat jobs.

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Modelling Posture

Posture is all about how you hold your body – whether you stand upright or slouch, hold your chin up or look down your nose, sit straight or lean to the side.

Good posture is important for all people, because it can have a long term effect on your health – for example, sitting badly in front of a computer screen for years, or walking badly can weaken and wear down your bones and muscles at particular points. These physical problems may not become evident until it’s too late to easily solve it, and serious medical intervention needs to take place. In many cases, improving posture early could prevent this.

For models, posture is critical. Posture affects how you come across, how healthy you look and how your clothing is displayed. Posture is an all over body thing, it’s not simply about a high head and straight back – though that’s a good place to start!

Posture advice for models

Most people think posture just means standing up poker straight, stick your chest out and look straight ahead. But it’s not as simple as that.

Body balance

The first thing to check is whether your body is balanced and straight. Stand in front of a mirror, with a straight vertical indicator behind you, such as a pole or doorframe. Does your head lean slightly to one side? Are your shoulders even? If not, try to get everything even and see how it feels. The first step is becoming aware of your posture, and where there may be imbalances. Once you’ve indentified areas for improvement, you can start to make corrections.

Of course this doesn’t mean that when you’re working as a model, you’ll never pose at an angle – but a model should be a blank canvas, and any angles should be deliberate, not ingrained. This is particularly important for catwalk models.

Height and Lift

‘Stand up straight!’ Well, yes, good posture is about standing up straight – but people often strain to stand up straight by stretching their neck, arching their back and even going on tip toes. To get a real natural lift, and gain the most benefit of standing up straight, you need to think whole body. Start with your legs, make sure your standing foundation is firm, with an event weight on both feet. Legs should be straight but not locked. Them rather than focussing on the spine, think more about the chest. Take a deep breath and feel your body lift and tyour spine extend as you do so. Make sure your head is light on your neck, and isn’t leaning forward. Finally, ensure your chin is straight out (not up or down). Standing up straight in this way will give you natural even distribution of body weight and restore the natural curvature of the spine

Relax

One of the most common problems when attempting to improve posture, is that people get really tense and stiff – which is completely counter-productive. To combat this, give your arms and legs a shake out to make sure you’re not holding any tension, and take a few deep breaths. If you notice any particular areas of tension, focus on gently relaxing them. Another problem with tension is that it affects the balance and lift of your posture. For example, if one side of your neck has knots in it, your head will lean towards that side.

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Neon Models Advice for Male Models

In modern society, men are becoming more fashion conscious and more occupied with how they look, including grooming, clothing and accessories. This translates into more work for male models.

If you want to be a male model you should start out by taking some test shots to see how you come across photographically, and also to find out if you enjoy the experience. Some people clam or tense up when a camera is pointed at them, and you need to be able to look relaxed and calm even when a whole modelling shoot team is focussed on you.

As you would expect, male models are generally expected to be muscular, fit and toned. However, they should not be overly muscly, as the body builder’s physique has relatively limited appeal. The exception is male sports models, who tend to have very well defines bodies. As fashions change, there is more call for more slender males and even those with an androgynous look.

Male models need to have the right combination of body shape, stamina, resilience and the right attitude. Male models are usually aged between 18- 25, although there is call for younger and more mature models for certain products.

As with any modelling, if you want to make it as a male model, location is really important. You need to be where the studios, agencies and clients are and you need to be available to turn up to casting at short notice. In practise this means being based in London, preferably, but if that’s not possible, then being near any major city centre is a must.

Freelance modelling is becoming a more popular option, which means you can cut out the agency fees and keep more of your hard earned cash for yourself. However, freelance modelling does involve a lot more legwork and running the business side of being self-employed.

Most modelling agencies work with both male and female models, though generally they will have fewer male than female models on their books.

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