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Take a wild guess: How much do you think fashion models make? It’s one of those professions that unless you know someone, or work in the biz, there’s not a lot of information out there to have a good view into. Judging by models’ perceived glamour and high society status, not to mention the cut-throat competition they deal with, you might think it’s a lot. I think I did. Which is why this line from a TNR review of the new book Pricing Beauty: The Making of a Fashion Model struck me as amazing:
The median income across America in 2009 for a model was $27,330—income that includes no benefits.
The book is by Ashley Mears, a former fashion model and current Boston University sociologist. From the TNR review, written by Chloe Schama, here are some other insights into the strange world of fashion model economics:
- The average magazine shoot pays about $100 a day. For appearing on the cover of Vogue a model gets an additional $300.
- Payment for walking in a Fashion Week show in London is $500.
- The super sought-after “high-end campaign”—for a fragrance or some other luxury good pays, on average, about $100,000.
- The question of what makes a good model is prone to the greatest illogic and shrouded by the most impermeable mystery. A distinct “editorial” look is one that, in Mears’s words sits “on the border between beautiful and ugly.”
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Really? Is this a surprise to the readers? As an art photographer, I typically pay models a market rate of $50 to $75 an hour. All of the “full time” models I know must endure grueling travel schedules in order to keep working – including weekends. If they are lucky, they can save $100 a night by crashing at the photographer’s house on the couch, staying with friends, or rolling the dice on couchsurfing.org for a free stay. Most assignments are not a full 8 hours or more, but typically 4 hours. Factoring travel days between cities, that generally offers them 2 to 3 working days per week of 4 hour days. Some of the more prominent models who are willing to do nudes can command $100 an hour, but that is also usually negotiated down toward $75 / $50 an hour (for confirmed shoots at a half-day or full-day). Fashion and editorials (i.e., non nudes) pay much less. Over 52 weeks per year, I’m not surprised at that average income. As of this writing, there are approximately 599,800 aspiring and professional “models” on networking sites like Modelmayhem and OneModelPlace.
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“they can save $100 a night by crashing at the photographer’s house on the couch”
Couch?
So what you are saying is that the real benefits are for the photographer.
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You only pay $50-75/hr for nudes? Stingy
Absolutely. For every “professional” trying to command $125 an hour there is someone “up and coming” willing to put more effort into it for less
I’d be embarrassed to reveal how many $1,600 weekends in which I’ve invested and still not recouped. Fortunately, they are balanced out by the TF or $25 – $50 an hour shoots that have yielded several thousand in revenue.
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Evidently the mean average must be skewed by the few supermodels that earn mega-millions lottery amounts. But that is the typical measure for ordinary folk: the [mean] average salary is….and the [mean] average house price is….
Why not release these figures with a little more intel, preferably the standard deviation so that those who report on the figures can pick-up the relative amounts compared to, say, someone who works in a factory production line or Wal-Mart register?
Hmm, its not only beauty that is skin deep, statistics can be too.
Median, not mean.
I don’t wish to be mean, but…10 blondes earning $100 per shoot is the same as one super-model brunette earning $1,000 per shoot. One would assume that average earnings for a model is $180, unless you use the median average, or the mode average which give the average as $100.
My gripe is that in society we typically measure and report mean average earnings, yet this study reports a median score. Nothing wrong with that, until you want to evaluate its relevance for the average Joe or Juliet.
I’m not sure what statistical sources you usually use, but the median is the most reasonable score for identifying an “average Joe or Juliet” in matters of income, precisely because income statistics are notoriously easy to skew (Bill Gates walks into a crowded local bar; suddenly the mean income is so much greater that everyone in the bar except Bill Gates is earning massively less than ‘average’), and the median, identifying the point at which half earn less and half earn more, is less affected by this than mean is. There are more effective ways of dealing with the skew problem, but none so straightforward as the median. Indeed, median income is such a standard statistic that you can usually bet that people making use of mean income as their primary income statistic are trying to pull a fast one.
To put it in other words: mean on its own never, ever identifies an “average Joe or Juliet” because it quite literally only deals with *income*; median, on the other hand, does identify an “average Joe or Juliet” precisely because it looks at Joes and Juliets. The mean gives you a measure of *average income*, in particular by telling you what the income would be if it were all equally divided; the median gives you a measure of *the income earned by an average income earner*, by identifying what one’s income has to be to be in the middle of the income-earning population. No respectable study genuinely interested in the “average Joe or Juliet” will ever rely primarily on the mean.
Validation and status are two of the reasons people put up with it. I think they are more important factors than the lottery Mears mentions. Validation is probably the reason guys do porn too.
Not surprising – especially considering the number includes Everyone down to Kmart models.
The profession has many intangible benefits that makes a lot of people WANT to be in the profession. My husband works in sports – and there will always be a plethora of eager young bucks to replace him. The result? Unless you’re at the very very top – you are overworked and underpaid.
Same same – people think you are automatically cool/beautiful/etc, high demand to be in the career plus low supply, and hard to make oneself irreplaceable…..
Makes sense.
I had a teacher who offered the followed the advice. Wanna succeed– become irreplaceable. I took it.
Do you think I could be a model: http://andreasmoser.wordpress.com/2011/02/13/style/ ?
My best friend’s sister is a model in L.A. When I say Model, I more or less mean that she is pretty and occasionally gets paid to pose for pictures. Her real income comes from dating wealthy older men. She’ll tell you, it’s a tough business to make it in and it only lasts for a short time. Although, she has gone to some awesome parties on several celeb’s yachts.
i’d be curious to see what qualifies someone as being ‘a fashion model’. this probably includes the 5’6” female ‘fashion model’ who participates in local fashion shows and who works for free
those rates from Chloe Schama are absolutely not accurate for models signed with top tier agencies
I’m signed with a small mid-western agency, and even their minimum rate is $100/hr, 95% of the jobs pay at least $125/hr. These statistics have to include freelance “models” who shoot once a month, at best.
The bigger question is this: are you an “employee” or an “independent contractor”? Because the government statistics only count the first, which is going to cover a lot more people who model one afternoon a month for the big wedding store in town than people who do one-time advertising gigs.
There are so many types of models out there who work in one or more of so many areas it’s pretty impossible to make any sense out of what a median income means. And certainly there are a lot of models who don’t have the look and personality to get all the free drinks and entry to glamorous events. The business has made us think that that’s the way it is for any model but there is a small handful who represent that type and they’re mostly scattered around NY, Paris and a few other locations. The overall look of a model’s work drops off drastically when you leave the world of high fashion. That’s not only due to the look of the model but also how much talent today’s limited budgets can buy when it comes to all the others involved in a shoot including the photographer. My sister was a model in the early 80′s and her best year was around 300k. That was rarely heard of back then but she wasn’t a household name. She certainly worked with household names including Brooke Shields, Paulina, etc. She was based out of NY and went from Elite, to Willy, to Ford through her 10 year career. But think of all the models who do runway shows in malls for $15/hour. You’d have to do a LOT of those to make more than the stated median.
I live in NYC and it’s pretty easy to spot a model. Many are tall and very, very lanky to the point of being unattractive. You mention the word model in this city and everybody’s eyes light up but the fact is when you factor in the fact that some people photograph much better than they look in person (not just because of light and make up but also because of the difference between a live person in 3d and a flat photo) and the fact that there are so few with what I would guess the average man would consider an aesthetically attractive body, there just aren’t that many overall attractive models.
Of course, I’m getting away from the income issue but if you want a tall skinny 18 year old girl with no hips and no breasts, a NYC model is for you (and a LOT of them smoke, to boot)
Fashion model = Professional narcissist
The question is who is the narcissist here? I don’t mean to be rude, but everyone really involved in this investigation thus far was merely doing their job i.e., the job they volunteered for of making it possible to demonstrate the true value of honesty and integrity when it comes to the potential for Social Science to encompass all of the sciences. So I guess, you have your work cut out for you now, too. Go read previous blogs under my name and figure it out in your own words. Then you too can claim some real immortality for yourself. Otherwise, a cheap shot!