Recently Forbes Magazine published their annual article ranking the Highest-Paid Models in the world. While it is easy to be enticed by hearing about their multi-million dollar fortunes, it is important for potential models to know that these women are the exception, not the rule. Forbes teamed with VFiles to create the below video explaining more about the financial side of the modeling industry. Models can quickly go into debt when they are starting because their agencies are paying for a lot of things in their behalf, but they expect to be paid back out of your future earnings. This is why it is so important to have experienced model management guiding your career.
At Pulse Management, we keep in mind our model's financial situations and we enough experience in the industry to know what jobs to advise our models to take to earn them money, but not to diminish their editorial possibilities. For example, a catalogue job for Walmart may pay big money, but the top tier of fashion jobs (Vogue, Fashion Week Runways, Luxury Advertising Campaigns like Chanel, Prada, etc.) are not going to hire a model who previously worked for Walmart. We send our models overseas so they gain experience, are guaranteed our negotiated sum of money, and then they are still seen as desirable for the high fashion jobs we pursue. It takes a long time to understand this industry enough, and we have learned the ropes in our 20+ years of business.
This is not to say that you cannot be successful in the industry. Quite the contrary actually, we have managed or currently manage some of the top models in the industry (Ali Stephens, Hannah Holman, Hye Rim Park, Tori Praver, Liz Kennedy, Natalie Keyser, etc). We know how to become successful because we have done it with our models time and time again. Whether you are signed with Pulse Management or not, we feel a responsibility to educate those who want to be in the modeling industry about these things, so you do not become a victim of a greedy agency who doesn't care how much debt you ring up while they attempt to get you work. Hopefully this will help some of you!
