Modelling is a dying career
Nepotism has spawned a New Model Army.
The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, which was officially cancelled in 2019 due to poor ratings and the brand’s unfortunate associations with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, was resurrected last week.
Yet the anticipated and star-studded line up prompted a thought-provoking question: Is modelling a dying career?
The ‘it’ women that walked included the likes of Gigi and Bella Hadid, Lila Moss and more - all known chiefly as ‘models’ thanks to their social statuses of being ‘nepo babies’.
Yet, being a model isn’t enough anymore. The rest of those walking - such as Ashley Graham who is a model as well as a podcaster, body-positivity activist, presenter and (a short lived) actor - had much more to their CVs than simply ‘model’.
Today, modelling is inextricably connected with nepotism. The biggest ‘it’ models of the moment such as the Hadid sisters, Kendall Jenner and Moss all built their impressive careers off the back of their parents’.
The issue with ‘nepo-models’ is that there is no enigma.
Once upon a time, models appeared out of nowhere. These mysteriously beautiful beings seemed untouchable flukes of nature that we mere mortals could only marvel at.
The problem with nepo-models is that there is no mystique. We’ve seen them grow up from average - albeit pretty - children into manufactured adult models.
Take Bella Hadid. We witnessed her transformation on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills in which her mother, Yolanda, starred in.
She grew from a young, normal looking child into a perfectly polished and pruned supermodel. We bore witness to the whole process as the now 28-year-old model was thrust into the public eye at the age of 14 - leaving absolutely no sense of untouchability.
The same goes for the Jenner sisters: we witnessed their rise on Keeping Up With The Kardashians, meaning we saw both Kylie and Kendall’s augmentations and what it took for them to appear how they do today.
This was the beginning: reality TV. Today however, it’s only swelling. With the rise of social media, everyone gets to see the inner workings of how one gets to where they are. The notion of being ‘unattainable’ is no longer possible nor really wanted - as this ‘untouchable’ way of life has irrevocably shifted with every person sharing a BTS of their life in one way or another.
I don’t want this to sound like a lament for Nineties supermodels, as this change in perspective is possibly a good thing.
In light of the body positivity movement, being famous purely for your outer shell isn’t enough anymore - you need more strings to your bow - you need a personality, a beauty line, a lifestyle brand, a reality show or a YouTube channel: people want more of you.
So if the mystique of models has disappeared thanks to nepotism and social media - does that mean the career has too?
Quite possibly in my opinion. Or at least it’s traditional definition. The new ‘it’ girls are now more publicly multifaceted, meaning our taste for how we champion beauty has changed.
We champion the models who are doing something, and as long as there’s something to watch or talk about, they’re relevant.
That means women silently walking down a runway in a pair of wings to some pop music isn’t going to cut it anymore. Perhaps the next VS show will deliver something beyond some bombshell bras.
Get the Victoria’s Secret 2024 look here:
