The Model Alliance achieved a great victory yesterday when the New York State Senate and Assembly unanimously passed legislation to extend child labor laws to cover underage models.
While the bill is not officially law just yet, we asked our friends at our sister site Above the Law to help us understand the potential implications of the new bill.
Big news from the Model Alliance hit our inbox this morning: They’re announcing that the state of New York is making major legal strides towards protecting child models.
The runways of New York and the factories of Bangladesh could not seem further apart. Yet they both drive a global, 1.5 trillion dollar industry: the fashion industry. And in both cases, the work is performed overwhelmingly by young women and girls–fashion models, on the one hand, and garment workers on the other–both of whom are struggling to assert their rights in a hostile labor environment.
Sara Ziff, founder of the Model Alliance took a trip to Dhaka last summer to learn more about the garment industry there and see the conditions on the ground. In this exclusive video, you’ll learn about Sara’s trip, and her more recent work with international labor rights groups (WRC, ILRF) and activists like Kalpona Akter and Tazreen Factor fire survivor Sumi Abedin. Watch and get the message out: let’s put the pressure on major labels to sign on to the Bangladesh Build Fire and Safety Agreement.
In her own words, Coco Rocha tells us about her personal struggles working as a model and the lessons she’s learned in her lengthy career.
We’ve also got an exclusive video of Rocha at a recent Model Alliance event giving young models advice on everything from finding the right agent to avoiding sketchy photogs.
As part of National Eating Disorders Awareness Week, NEDA and the Model Alliance co-hosted a panel at Pace University last night, called “Inside the Modeling Industry: A Conversation About Health and Beauty in Fashion.”
It was a complex and personal discussion for the models present.
Clips of Girl Model, the ominous looking documentary about a 13-year-old Siberian girl’s foray into the world of modeling, more than piqued our interest when they popped up in March. And while we’d explored the murky back story of the film, we’d yet to see it in it’s entirety. So, naturally, we jumped at the chance to watch the full film at a special ‘fashion industry’ screening last week, hosted by the Model Alliance at the Sunshine Theater in New York. So did industry insiders like Natalie Joos, Scott Lipps, Milla Jovovich, along with a slew of models.
Even before Girl Model was released, it caused quite a stir for touching upon such heated subjects as models’ ages, rights and working conditions, which the fashion industry has, in the past, tended to ignore or overlook. But thanks to organizations like the Model Alliance–and films like Girl Model–that’s changing.
Models’ working conditions and rights are finally being addressed by people in positions to actually enforce changes. And after watching this film, it’s clear that this new found awareness is coming not a moment too soon. Read on for our take on the film, plus find out what Model Alliance directors Sara Ziff and Jenna Sauers had to say about it.
Among the many problems plaguing the modeling industry is the fact that models have no way to recoup lost wages if a client is unwilling or unable to pay. Fortunately, the Model Alliance and Freelancers Union are working together to change that.
According to an announcement posted on Model Alliance’s site, the two organizations are working together to help pass the Freelancer Payment Protection Act, a proposed law that will help protect models and other freelancers in New York from deadbeat clients as well as protect models from wage theft by their agencies.
The underage model saga continues. Given the recent controversies regarding underage models, including one that involved CFDA president Diane Von Furstenberg discovering that one of her models, Hailey Clauson (yes, the same one involved in that Urban Outfitters lawsuit), was only 15 at the time of her runway show, the CFDA is introducing new measures to ensure the safety and legality of models in the fashion industry.
According to WWD, Furstenberg and CFDA CEO Steven Kolb sent out a letter to members yesterday recommending that they start carding models on the day of the show (before they hit the runway) to make sure they meet the 16 year age minimum. That seems like something they should do earlier, like in the casting stages, or before their agencies send them out, but I guess better late than never?
Michael Kors recently spoke to Lauren Hutton in the new Interview (so awesome) and suggested that models started lying to him about their ages as soon as said he wouldn’t use models under 16:
