chokelate:

If you still think being a model is super glamour and luxurious, and the pay is great? Well think again! Most agencies, clients and even necessary services like accountants and dieticians that have experience with models will try to rip them off as much as possible.

Are you staying abroad and don’t have an appartment? No worries because your agency has a model apartment! You will share a tiny bedroom that barely fits 3 beds, with two other girls! The price? Most of the time around €1200 a month! Such a steal, and you never have to worry about eating your food on time, because there is always a girl that will steal your food!

Did you just arrive and are afraid to book a shady regular cab that would charge you about €10 to get you to your apartment? No worries, your agency will hire you a driver by default, for only €70!

Ofcourse you need to get yer hair did gurl, and your agency will find you the most amazing hairdresser in town and you will ofcourse get a discount. If you don’t watch out you will walk out with ruined hair and only pay twice the amount you would pay for your own trustworthy hairdresser. Awesome.

Then, when you’re all set and ready, you will need a portfolio with high quality printed picture$ and printed “composite card$”. Did you really think they would come for free? Really? Did you think that the torn out pages from magazines that the agency received for free from the clients won’t cost you a dime? Ofcourse they charge you for that! Hah, are you crazy or something?

So after all that, the agency still needs to make some money, right?
Well lets take Paris as a nice example! In Paris there are many well paying jobs for you to get, you can earn thousands of euros in just a couple days, such a lovely city! And guess what? Your agency will only take 70-75% of what you earn. With the rest you will have to pay ALL your expenses. Everything.
Apparantly they only take 20-25% of what you earn for themselves, and they take the other 50% to pay your taxes in France. Guess what? If you pay taxes in your own country, there is no need to pay taxes in France, but they take it anyway.
They probably put it on a high interest rate bank account to catch some extra profit, because they can never have enough money!

So if you’re lucky you will only cry just a bit after seeing your agency statement.

I’ve seen many girls with thousands of euros of debt. It’s really difficult to see a girl that is holding an agency statement in her trembling hands, revealing that she has built up an €8000 debt at 18 years old. The more I see of it, the more angry it makes me, the more it makes me feel ill.

I’m currently going through a lot of trouble with my agency in Paris.I had a €12000 shoot a couple months ago, they only paid me €1500 from that shoot and after trying to (unsuccessfully) contact them about it for quite a while, I finally had the owner of my mother agency contact them. They told him they needed proof from me, even though they booked me, they received the money, they have all the paperwork themselves and they refuse to pay me the money they owe me. Luckily I still have all the paperwork (and contract!) too and they have to pay me. My mother agency is there to back me up, and if it has to go that far, I would definitely take this to court and will do my best to make this public, because what they are doing is just criminal. I do hope it’s a mistake because they helped me a lot and without them I would’ve quit.

1:38 pm  •  •  21 notes