What is best for our models when it comes to paid work?

Our company mission statement is to find paid work for students and to provide models for new and local businesses as well as fellow fashion students.

For that reason we have always focused on finding jobs that did not require our models to attend castings and incur other costs like model cards and portfolio books, when the paid work isn’t guaranteed.

Our business model has enabled us to find more regular guaranteed work but in some cases lower fees than a lot of other agencies.

Esme, Ed, Kirstie, Josh and Emily modelling for students at Derby, Sheffield Hallam, Lincoln and Birmingham City universities.

Six years on we have grown and we are happily in a position where our models are being invited to castings and sometimes higher paid jobs are on the table. This is great news! But it brings us to a dilemma, do we start suggesting that our models attend castings with the hope that they will secure higher paid bookings? Bearing in mind most of the castings are in London, this is brilliant for our London based models, but how about our models in Nottingham, Birmingham, Sheffield and Manchester?

There is the chance of earning thousands of pounds for one job, which as a student would be pretty helpful!! But this has to be balanced against the fact that if the model doesn’t get the job, and the odds will be stacked against them, they have probably paid quite a lot to get to the casting and possibly taken a day out of work/uni and they won’t get that money or time back.

Following a little research, bigger, international agencies expect a lot from their models in terms of attending castings and taking part in fashion weeks and editorial shoots, often for no money in the hopes of getting booked for campaigns and jobs that pay big bucks.

They also take money out of models wages for things like model cards, portfolio books and other expenses that the agency has incurred getting them that job.

So we have a dilemma, what is best for our models?

Perhaps we can marry the two together, sticking with our roots and securing as much paid work for our student models but also jumping into this world of castings for our girls and guys who perhaps want to take these opportunities and put themselves out there in the hopes of landing a big job.

We would love to hear from our models and other interested parties, what is best when it comes to paid work?