Inside the World of Male Modeling: Ungaro at Paris Fashion Week
The same scene replays twice a year each year in Paris and Milan. Young men in skinny jeans and the latest sneakers and T-shirts line up at top fashion houses hoping for a flush male modelling job.
At the venerable house of Ungaro on a sunny day in June, designer Franck Boclet and his trusted assistant Damien Amsallem turned up early to work for the label's 24-hour "casting" - finding 15 male models with the right look and right body to carry off their new collection to catwalk perfection at Paris Fashion Week, starting Thursday.
"There are lots of candidates this year," said Amsallem ahead of the June 25-29 Paris Men's Fashion. "It must be the crisis. Even models who've done major advertising campaigns for perfumes like Chanel are looking for work."
In all more than 100 young men from London, Moscow, Tokyo, Paris and elsewhere turned up, crowding corridors and milling on stairs clutching press-books and lists of the several dozen other Paris designers casting for models that day.
"It's one casting after another," said Montreal model Felix Bujo. "You run around from house to house looking for work and eat on the hop. This is our life, travelling the world from one fashion week to another looking for jobs."
It was no go for him at Ungaro's however. Nor for 20-year-old six-foot-one (1.86-metre) design student Harvey Newton-Haydon and six-foot-three (1.92-metre) history student Jamie Conday, both from Britain.
"This is our first try at modelling," said Harvey. "We have to get to Dior and Prada. They're casting this afternoon, but we don't know our way around."
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At the venerable house of Ungaro on a sunny day in June, designer Franck Boclet and his trusted assistant Damien Amsallem turned up early to work for the label's 24-hour "casting" - finding 15 male models with the right look and right body to carry off their new collection to catwalk perfection at Paris Fashion Week, starting Thursday.
"There are lots of candidates this year," said Amsallem ahead of the June 25-29 Paris Men's Fashion. "It must be the crisis. Even models who've done major advertising campaigns for perfumes like Chanel are looking for work."
In all more than 100 young men from London, Moscow, Tokyo, Paris and elsewhere turned up, crowding corridors and milling on stairs clutching press-books and lists of the several dozen other Paris designers casting for models that day.
"It's one casting after another," said Montreal model Felix Bujo. "You run around from house to house looking for work and eat on the hop. This is our life, travelling the world from one fashion week to another looking for jobs."
It was no go for him at Ungaro's however. Nor for 20-year-old six-foot-one (1.86-metre) design student Harvey Newton-Haydon and six-foot-three (1.92-metre) history student Jamie Conday, both from Britain.
"This is our first try at modelling," said Harvey. "We have to get to Dior and Prada. They're casting this afternoon, but we don't know our way around."
[article continues after jump]
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