For French models, the union is almost impossible.Why is that ?

Between the difficulties of unionizing for mannequins who therefore prefer assos and more strict regulations for agencies and brands, fashion changes slowly.Post-#metoo inventory.

While #MeToo is shaking several high -visibility entertainment industries, that of fashion remains strangely silent, while being regularly splashed by scandals of sexual violence, of which the models would be the main victims.

They and they act to protect them more and more vocally, and this more through associations rather than unions.

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Several haute couture brands and the big press group Condé Nast (des Magazines Vogue, GQ, or even Vanity Fair) have stopped working with photographers Mario Testino and Bruce Weber since a New York Times investigation pointed them asauthors of sexual violence against men's models.

Same repudiation for photographer Terry Richardson whose reputation as a sexual predator served to #MeToo of a sulphurous aura in a sector that still celebrated porn-chic.

In recent months, it is the creator Alexander Wang who has been accused by models.He starts a form of crossing the desert which we do not yet know if it will come back.

Not to mention the strange links between the Jeffrey Epstein affair and the Angels of Victoria’s Secret ...

If they are state cases, French fashion is agitated today around the figure of Gérald Marie, the "Weinstein de la fashion", a former mannequin agent overpowering Elite in the 1980s-1990.He is now accused by several women of sexual assault and rape, including minor, according to a predation system based on his position at the head of a modeling agency.

We made the choice to genre female models in the rest of this article for the sake of conciseness and because the people concerned are mainly women, but all gender identities are concerned, including men.

Because they start very young, that it is sometimes their first profession, and that they often have to leave their native country to exercise elsewhere where they do not necessarily know their rights, are the models more preyEasy, especially sexual violence?

Rather than being considered a whistleblower, she was immediately blacklisted.Sarah Ziff therefore created the Asso Model Alliance in 2011 which works to better protect the interests and rights of models.Among his feats of arms, obtaining a law that obliges agencies to provide a riding hood to support models under 16 years of age in shooting, filming or casting.Sacred advance in the country of Uncle Sam.

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To avoid finishing as models Guild, an American mannequin union still in the 1990s because the first concerned feared to join it for fear of being blacklisted, Model Alliance therefore presents itself as an association, even if it s'actually acts a pressure group.And that pays: she notably won the price of positive influence of the year at CFDA 2021 (a kind of fashion Oscars).It is also thanks to his work that the Gérald Marie affair arrives before French justice today.

Social networks as a new counter-power for models

Barbara Blanchard notes a progressive cultural change in industry for the benefit of models, since professionalization and internationalization in the years 1980-1990.A benefit ratified in France by this famous collective agreement of 2004 which really protects them, and reinforced by #MeToo:

"If you speak, you are" dead "professionally"

Model Law confirms this fear of being ostracized, but observes that it begins to fade, positively:

And to confirm the trend, French luxury groups LVMH and Kering, the most powerful in the world, co-signed in 2017 a charter to improve working conditions and better protect the well-being and health of models.It stipulates in particular that one cannot work minors under the age of 16, that models must be more than a size 32, and that they have a medical certificate attesting to their good health.

A black on white revolution in the sector, emanating heavy weight heavy to really change the practices.In theory.

Modeling, a much more regulated industry in France than elsewhere

The Frenchwoman Natahlie Cros-Coitton who heads the largest hexagonal modeling agency, Women Management, and was elected in 2018 as president of the French Federation of Mannequins Agencies (FFAM) confirms:

But in the eyes of Model Law, the means to ensure that this positive charter is well applied are not sufficiently implemented:

Models and their agencies, a ruthless turnover

In the difficulty of asserting its rights, the frantic pace of the industry and its regular musical chairs are also mentioned by the director of casting Barbara Blanchard:

"A real job, not a hobby"

Also a judge at the Labor Council and member of the MEDEF (Mouvement des Entreprises de France) committee Natahlie CROS-COITTON would therefore like to recall the bases according to her:

In Model Law to conclude with advice to aspiring models:

Read also: "Thinking about diversity without inclusion leads to anything": Barbara Blanchard shakes French fashion

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