i'm mostly disagree with many points i read on this thread.
when i was younger i've been invited for fashion runways like christian lacroix, valentino etc and because of it, many times i saw fashion models and there weren't visual differences between what i saw on pictures and reality.
same thing about boys, in real life, out of fashion show, i saw/meet models like taylor fuchs, cole mohr, yuri pleskun, jeremy young and many others and they look exactly the same! i also already saw kate moss there are few years ago when she dated with pete doherty and it was exactly the same and same thing for my cousin.
so yes they can wear make up (i talked about the girls, the boys were always natural) and yes they can be photoshoped but in my opinion there is not an huge difference between pictures and reality… and i honestly think models absolutely don't give a f*ck about it. it would'n't really change their job...
another point. you can be slim and love food and you can hate food and be fat. this is not because you're model that you have an eating disorder and you don't need to be model to be sick.
about the career i don't think this is a real big deal. people spend their time to critic, say it can't be a long term job and blablabla but the western society, with economic crisis and just our modern life, i honestly think things get harder and now it pretty rare and difficult to keep to same job in the same company for decades... if you have the possibility to do it, you're often judged like old school/old fashion which is rarely good for your job. now, safe jobs are rare and i don't talk about depressive people because of co-workers or other people and our own satisfaction because work it's like a relationship. you can study something and after a while realize you hate this job and feel obligated to change your projects. it's also hard to stay with the same idea from 20 years old to 80 years old. result people are often obligated to change their jobs as their long term projects.
i don’t think models will suffer of a mental defect because they made the same thing than millions of other people, it means have many different jobs during their whole active life... or even the first years. and for some people, modeling can be a good way to make more money than they would make with the job they choose to make before to be a model and because of this money they can make their long term projects in an "easier way". be model doesn't mean live without long term project.
should I say, my cousin will turn 29 in one month and he’s still model. he lives in NY and don’t need another job to pay his bills and he’s model since more than 10 years.
i know some models who are very funny, smart, creative and modest people even if they have a successful career and i know “normal” people who are real fags, very narcissists, think they are beautiful, are superficial and who think they are the king or the queen of irladada and in fact they are boring and out of reality.
and you can be model and make something interesting of your life as you can be a cop and just piss off people during your whole career. make something good of your life doesn’t depend of your job but depends of your personality.
about the "be loved only for their beauty" should means that everyone would think they are beautiful and even if people follow a kind of stereotype, should i say, everyone his tastes. by the way people who read vogue or i-d are just a minority and everbody is not into the models and fashion things, so if "be" love for their beauty distrub them, they can easily avoid this superficial fashion victims.
this is just my opinion but I think there is nothing bad with the job itself. all depend of the models’ personality
and to answer to the question no, this is not my cup of tea. i would do it if i need money and it was the best option but nothing else. but as I know me, terrific as i am, i would control everything, i could have arguments with agencies if they wouldn't make correctly their work (i already did it with my cousin's agency, red managment, because they updated stupid and wrong things on their blog and they had finally changed it as i wanted) and that's why i also often upload the thread of few models i know and appreciate. posts regularly their stuff is something good for their career because they can gain fans and modeling agency, photographers, fashion blogs and people working for fashion magazines often come in the place like bellazon. it can be positive for their careers. it's like a giant book and if it makes by other people that's always better.
i'm 300% sure i would contact via internet the magazines' editors, photographers i would appreciate to work with or go in the place where they could go and accidentally create a meeting with them. not because i would be a successful model but because i think meet the good person is rarely negative... and stuff is always better if you can make what you want.
i also would like have an opinion about the photography i could do. make something i could appreciate but i know it's like impossible to do it. a model is here to take the pose and nothing else.
i don't really like fashion photography. i think it's very boring and 95% of photographers always make the same kind of stuff and are totally empty of feelings and creativity. they are just a copy-cat of each other and i don't like it. it would kill me if i would make something i couldn't appreciate. eurk!
and runways are just a big NO WAY. :x or i should be in a precarious situation to accept it.
so i think on the top of my success i certainly would be a very unknown and poor model. anyway, i'm not a model and i won't, so that's perfect