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Kaja Sokola was a shy teenager from Wrocław, Poland, when she received life-changing news: modeling agents saw her photo during an open casting call and wanted her to walk in a show in Warsaw.
Socola did a walk or two in a dress or skirt, but the show was mostly underwear. She was 14 years old.
“As a 14-year-old girl, wearing a push-up bra and skimpy underwear, in front of a crowd of over 40 men and women, clapping and staring at us as usual. [it] Now it looks like a horror movie,” she says. “It was ‘normal’ then and it still is, I think, unfortunately.”
Before long, Sokola was thrown into an industry notorious for labor abuse, from age-inappropriate work — at age 15, she was photographed in a fully revealing shirt — to financial exploitation and the sex trade.
“Fashion has been abusing models for years and years on many levels, from emotional to physical to financial,” said Sokola, one of many women who have accused sex offender Harvey Weinstein of sexual misconduct.
Sokola, who now works as a clinical psychologist, is one of the former and current models behind the Fashion Workers Act, a proposed New York state law to establish labor protections to prevent abuse. The law, which aims to protect everyone from models to makeup artists, was introduced in the spring of 2022 and will be reconsidered in the 2023 legislative session, which begins in January.
The renewed focus on this bill comes at a critical time in the #MeToo movement. Weinstein and actor Danny Masterson will soon go on trial on rape charges in Los Angeles, and Kevin Spay’s sexual assault trial began Thursday in Manhattan.
These highly professional tests show that the movement has not slowed down since its inception five years ago. The growing focus on models’ rights means #MeToo is spreading beyond the entertainment world to other industries where power imbalances — both economic and gender-based — can provide platforms for abuse.
“This is a step forward in advocacy for survivors of sexual assault,” said New York State Senator Brad Holman, who is sponsoring the bill. “They’re busy with the Child Victims Act and then the Adult Survivors Act.
“These survivors, most of whom are young women, joined together to write this law so that the next generation of innovators and fashion workers would not be the same.”
According to the Fashion Workers Act, management agencies must compensate models and provide copies of their employment contracts within 45 days of termination. If management companies receive royalties for a model or invention they do not represent, the agency must be notified.
Management commissions are also capped at 20% – and are also barred from pocketing hefty signing fees and above-market rents at agencies’ accommodation. Proponents argue that models and other industry innovators are far less vulnerable to exploitation if they are paid fairly: wages can cover the cost of a plane ticket away from danger or the rent of a safe and secure home.
There was some opposition to the law; Non-model management trade groups such as the Artist Management Association and the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA) argue that modeling can have detrimental financial consequences. AAAA states that agencies act as a “middle man” between the brands they represent and the brands they represent. If these brands don’t pay their management on time, agencies have to cover their clients’ fees.
Model Carre Otis says she has experienced the exploitation that comes with being dependent on agents. In the year In August 2021, Otis filed a lawsuit alleging that Gerald Marie, a former modeling agency boss, repeatedly assaulted her at their Paris home when she was 17 years old.
“When I arrived in Paris, France, my passport was confiscated. I couldn’t afford to leave and I was in a more vulnerable position, because I didn’t have the finances to help me leave,” said Otis, one of the main advocates of the Fashion Workers Act. I was totally indebted to my agent, who was a criminal at the time.
Marie’s lawyer said in a statement to the Guardian that they “candidly deny” the allegations, calling them “false and defamatory”.
Sarah Ziff, founder and executive director of Model Alliance, describes how girls and young women in the industry face an “alien world” where the financial power of agencies can control every aspect of their lives.
“Imagine you’re a young immigrant signed with a modeling agency in New York. When the agency sponsors your work visa, you’re only allowed to work through the agency,” Ziff said. “You can’t book another job, but the agency says they’re under no obligation to book a job.”
The model can live in an apartment owned by the agency — 11 models are crammed into a two-room apartment, paying $2,000 each for a bed — and receive a pittance allowance from the agency. “Usually these teenage girls who are trying to become models are thousands of dollars in debt, and all they can do is eat or buy is go to these dinner parties with businessmen,” said Ziff.
Ziff said the union regularly heard from agencies hosting these meetings, “which were presented as a business opportunity, but ended up being something very different.” Ziff said: “It’s no coincidence that Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Cosby, Peter Nygaard solicited girls from modeling agencies.”
Ambra Battilana Gutierrez, who is leading the charge for legislative change, said that the background of many models will further increase the balance of power.
“Many models believe that when they start this job, it’s very beautiful, and it’s something they want to do a lot, and they don’t even think about what our rights are based on the fact that we are workers.” Gutierrez, who has accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct, said he will testify at the upcoming trial.
“Some of them are from very poor countries, and they don’t know any better,” she said. “I feel like they’re targeting a lot of these young women and young men.”
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