Life and Leisure

Model workers

By Matt Hodges (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-09-09 07:59

Foreign models take to the catwalk at the China (Dalian) International Costume Festival held recently in Dalian, Liaoning province. Chen Hao / For China Daily

Foreign models party like rock stars for three months while on assignment in Shanghai but claim "China is the sweatshop of modeling". Matt Hodges looks behind the bright lights.

In a residential complex that Shanghai has designated a "model quarter", several platinum blondes from Eastern European countries are heading out to M1NT, the world's first shareholder's club, to add "foreign face value" to an airport-themed party. Inside the club's exclusive gates, tables can cost thousands of dollars.

Wealthy Chinese sit surrounded by scores of young Chinese escorts.

On what the models will be paid for the night's work - most of which involves dancing in shiny, tight costumes - they will be lucky to afford three cocktails from the menu. Of course, they won't be paying for any drinks. Not tonight. Not ever.

The blondes' two male flatmates, a 35-year-old with leg tattoos and a younger man from Brazil, are skipping the party to sink Chinese beers on the couch and Web-surf so they can get up for the next day's 9:30 am casting call.

"Been there. Done that," says David, a South African. "Dude, we just party like rock stars."

The six housemates in the model quarter apartment, all toned, sculpted and statuesque would make an interesting Asian expat version of The Surreal Life, the hit US TV show about celebrities past their prime. The members of the house are aged 17-35.

Max, a golden-locked Adonis fresh out of university, who works for another agency, dreams of making the big time in Germany, where they pay top dollar for catalog work. David, who bartends at the weekend for pocket money, talks of exporting electric bikes to Johannesburg. Brazilian Lucas, already a veteran at 27, is too exotic looking for Chinese tastes and is heading for Kuala Lumpur.

"China is the sweatshop of modeling," Max says. "It comes out at about 50 euros ($64) an hour, for catalog. That's the best-paying next to TVC (commercials).

"Back in the States, they'd fly me and put me up in a hotel. I'd get up and go, sit around all day on the WIFI, hang out with the staff, take one picture and get $2,000. Whereas here you take 2,000 pictures and make from $150 to $500. But most of us are here for the experience."

The agencies for foreign models, of which there are about a dozen in Shanghai, fly them over for three months and make them work off their expenses, which can take about 6-8 weeks.

The rules are strict: Cough up half of your earnings, and if you don't find enough work, you're going straight back home after you've paid off your debts.

Other models claim the agencies grossly inflate their living expenses to turn a profit, including doubling their rent and charging for a driver.

"They're making so much money off the dorms, drivers, expenses, that if a model comes here and doesn't make money, the agency still does," Max says.

Models of both sexes bemoan the Chinese industry's lack of creativity and reliance on copying poses and photos from foreign campaigns. David says he feels it's more like Zoolander than Tyson Beckford or Lars Burmeister.

"In China it's how fast you can do little robot poses. After you've gone through six to 10 of those, they say, 'Change'. So there's no brains required. It's like you're a little monkey with little strings attached."

"They point at the picture and say, 'You do this'," says Max.

Lauren, a striking 20-year-old who may be the only redhead model in the city, says all the models get referred to by one of two names: "boy" or "girl". The agencies apply the same binary logic to the poses they want: girl-next-door or glam-baby.

"The Chinese models come in dressed up to the nines, wearing fake fur and draped in jewelry," she says.

"They all have their eyes cut to look bigger and more Western, and they use a lot of make-up, because that's what the agencies want. It now takes me three times as long to put my face on each morning."

When she attended the opening of RichBaby, a remodeled downtown club, make-up, including sequins and glitter, took two hours. One 15-year-old girl from Florida had diamonds pinned to her lips and rode around all night in a liquor buggy.

"We call our (agency's) van the baby wagon," says Max.

Russian model Yulia Klueva, who has made Shanghai her permanent base, now mainly focuses on catwalk shows. The lack of artistic freedom, and unrealistic expectations, of catalog work are too stifling, she says.

"Once I was shooting a commercial and it was so cold my skin turned blue. The guy called my agent and said, 'Can you get her to take the blue out, please. We don't like the blue.

"What you see is the girl jumping on the beach in joy, with sweat on her cheeks. What I see is that it is not sweat, but tears from all the bright lights and repeat takes."

When China Daily interviewed Klueva last year, she said foreign models were on their way out as China's growing economic clout allowed local brands to trumpet their own cultural assets, feline-looking women and cherubic men, to sell their products in Europe - as opposed to the traditional reliance on foreign face value.

Now she claims Chinese models are getting paid "at least double" their foreign counterparts. She also believes vaguely defined protectionist policies keep the Chinese models in the spotlight.

"Photographers often tell me, 'I'd love to shoot you, but I can't," she says of mixed shoots.

On the plus side, China is one of the easiest markets for aspiring models to start out in due to the huge volume of work it offers.

"You don't need to have done any modeling before in your life," says Lucas dismissively. "You don't even need to know how things work to come here. Just do some tests with suits and ties, put them in your book, and you can come here."

Not that he is complaining about his lack of success in China, which doesn't appreciate his arched eyebrows, angular features and edgy look.

"I wake up every day and thank God for my life," he says. "I just don't like the boring photos they do here."

Editor's note: Most of the models interviewed for this story requested their full names not be used.

Foreigners are often the face of fashion in shopping centers. Wu Changchun / For China Daily