The life of a male model is no where near as glamourous as female models, and definitely nothing like Zoolander.
The current issue of New York magazine contains a profile of the male model industry and what it’s like for them during fashion week.
The money is not what these guys are doing it for. For many shows the models were paid with “trade” instead of money. Things like free clothes and shoes or credits for the brands clothing, a sort of gift certificate.
Financially speaking, male modeling is not unlike being a straight-male porn star: The men have always made less than the women, and very few become big names. For most magazine work, models are paid less than $250. Twenty percent of that goes to the agency, which also bills models for their board and expenses. “Sometimes you get charged for things you never thought of,” says Petey, “like $30 a month to be on the website.” The only hope of making ends meet is to book an ad campaign or catalogue job. But even those are less lucrative than they once were. “Where you used to get $5K for a job, it’s now $2K,” says JD Ferguson, a former model who now works as a fashion photographer. “I remember my booker saying to me, ‘Hey, if you won’t do $2,000, there’s another guy right behind you that will.’?”
Rough life.
via NY Mag
