The ManicaPost
Ann Ruthenburg Fashion
Fashion Diva, I heard you were a model before, I want to be a model, so can you give me advice? Is it as glamorous as it looks and how can I do and make money as a model?
This is the question I am answering today. The young lady wants to know how she can make a career out of modelling and what is it like? Yes it is true, I started entering beauty pageants when I was in school, I was Miss Mutare Girls High Personality and Runner-up at one stage. I also was a photographic model in the 90’s. I joined the modelling agency as a shy, very thin teenager, but one year later I was top of my class in the photographic category, two years later I was Miss Parade October, Runner up Face of the 90s and participated in many beauty pageants and fashion shows.
I also ran a modelling and grooming academy. I did not join modelling to be famous, but to help myself become confident as a person. But along the way, it made money for me and got me into the business of health, beauty, fashion and wellness. So in this column, I will try and help you to understand the modelling industry as it has many aspects.
Part one
Is modelling only for people who want to be models?
No! My advice is that everyone who can should attend a modelling, grooming, deportment and etiquette workshop or course. If a modelling school or an academy is professional, they will have a section in their training that specialises in grooming, deportment and etiquette. This is different from modelling, but it is important if you want to be a model. Those three topics affect everyone from small kids to mature adults, men and women, boys and girls.
Grooming deals with your outer appearance (hair, makeup, dress etc).
Deportment deals with the way you carry yourself (walk, sit, speak etc). Etiquette caters for the way you behave in high or decent society (how to eat, conversations to have, what wines go with which foods etc.) As you can see this is not really modelling it’s about life, so anyone can benefit.
There are different types of modelling. When someone tells me they want to be a model, I usually ask them what sort of model do they want to be. Usually they cannot answer me, because in their mind a model is a one who walks on the ramp.
Let me put that thinking straight. Just because you do a modelling course, does not mean you can do any modelling. If you finish the course, you graduate as a specific model. I graduated as a photographic model not a ramp model because I am short. Yes there is a difference. Let me explain . . .
Ramp models — are the models that walk the runways in fashion and hair shows. These girls or guys are tall, a minimum of 1,75m. They are also very thin, unless they fall into the “plus size category”.
Usually it is your height they need. They do not care about how beautiful or ugly you are; it means nothing as all they need is height and a skinny body.
Photographic models — are people whose top-half of the body is showcased, usually because they have unique features or healthy hair etc. These are people who are also used for adverts or anything in front of a camera (like TV or magazines or posters etc). There are also people who have great hands or great feet which are used in jewellery adverts etc.
Pageant models — are people who only enter beauty pageants. Yes from kids to adults, it’s all about the beauty. In India, they have pageant schools dedicated to training women how to be beauty queens, which is probably why so many win the Miss World pageants. South Africa has started to break that mould and are proving that they have just as beautiful and brainy women as the rest of the world.
Voice-over models — are models like myself that are hired just because they speak well in whatever language. It’s usually for adverts or telephone companies or TV scripts etc. In other countries they use voice-over models or actors in movies and the like. These are highly paid for using their voices.
Modelling overseas is not the same as modelling locally. It is important for people to realise that what they see in magazines and on television is not the reality. As a model your job is to sell clothes, products or services.
You are not important, your opinion is not important unless you are selling the above. Hence the saying that models are “dumb girls or boys”.
Thank God for pageants now saying “beauty with brains”. That way people know that to win a pageant you need to be both beautiful and highly educated.
Abroad, there are so many opportunities for models to make money as they have industries that support the modelling industry in one way of the other. But in our country we have not yet broken through.
In my days there were modelling agencies that were linked to international agencies, and so if you were good in your field, you would get the opportunity to travel abroad on assignments.
With the demise of the local industry, businesspeople are not prepared to pay the cost of hiring professional models to do adverts. However, if you notice now on TV, there are many adverts using models . . . mostly dancers and singers.
To be continued . . .
Ann can be messaged only on 0772933845, or emailed on [email protected] or found in Meikles Department Store Hair and Beauty Salon Mutare.
