Kaja Sokola was a shy teen from Wroclaw, Poland, when she received news that changed her life: modeling agents saw her photo during an open casting call, and they wanted her to walk at a show in Warsaw.
Sokola had done one or two walks in a dress or skirt, but the show was mostly underwear. She was 14.
“Being a 14-year-old girl, walking in a push-up bra and tiny underwear, in crowds of 40-plus men and women, and clapping and looking at us as if it is all normal, [it] seems like a horror movie right now,” she said. “It was ‘normal’ back then and it still is right now, I think, unfortunately.”
Soon thereafter, Sokola was thrown into an industry known for worker abuses that range from age-inappropriate assignments – at 15, she was photographed in a completely see-through blouse – to financial exploitation and sex trafficking.
“On so many levels, from emotional to physical to financial, fashion has been abusing models for years and years and years,” said Sokola, who is among the many women to have accused convicted sex-criminal Harvey Weinstein of sexual misconduct.
Sokola, who now works as a clinical psychologist, is also among the former and present models advocating for the Fashion Workers Act, a proposed New York state law that seeks to prevent abuses by instituting labor protections. The bill, which aims to protect everyone from models to makeup artists, was introduced in spring 2022 and will once again be considered in the 2023 legislative session, which starts in January.
Renewed attention toward this bill comes at a pivotal moment in the #MeToo movement. Weinstein and actor Danny Masterson will soon be tried on rape charges in Los Angeles court and Kevin Spacey’s sexual abuse civil trial began on Thursday in Manhattan.
These high-profile trials suggest that the movement has not slowed since its inception five years ago. The increasing attention to models’ rights suggests that #MeToo is expanding beyond the entertainment world into other industries where power imbalances – be they economic or gender-based – can set the stage for abuse.
“It truly is an outgrowth of advocacy on the part of survivors of sexual abuse,” said the New York state senator Brad Hoylman, who is sponsoring the bill. “They were engaged with the Child Victims Act, and then the Adult Survivors Act.
“This collective of survivors, most of whom are younger women, have banded together and helped write this bill, so that the next generation of creatives and fashion workers don’t endure the same.”
Under the Fashion Workers Act, management agencies would have to compensate models within 45 days after completing a job, and provide them copies of their work contracts. If management companies receive royalties for a model or creative whom they no longer represent, the agency would have to notify them.
Management commissions would also be capped at 20% – and they would also be prohibited from pocketing onerous signing fees and above-market rent at agency accommodations. Proponents contend that if models and other industry creatives actually get paid, they are far less vulnerable to exploitation: a paycheck can buy a plane ticket away from a dangerous situation, or cover rent for a safe, stable home.
There has been some opposition to the bill; non-model management trade groups, such as the Artist Management Association and American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA) contend that it could have damaging financial ramifications. The AAAA notes that agencies act as a “middleman” between those whom they represent and brands; if these brands don’t pay management on time, then agencies would have to cover their clients’ fees.
The model Carré Otis said she has experienced the exploitation that comes with dependency on agents. In August 2021, Otis filed a lawsuit alleging that Gérald Marie, the former modeling agency boss, repeatedly raped her at his Paris home when she was 17 years old.
“When I got to Paris, France, my passport was taken away. I didn’t have the ability to actually leave and was in a further vulnerable place, because I didn’t have finances to help me leave,” said Otis, who is one of the main advocates of the Fashion Workers Act. “I was completely indebted to my agent, who was actually a known perpetrator at the time.”
In a statement to the Guardian, Marie’s lawyer said that he “categorically denies” these allegations, calling them “false and defamatory”.
Sara Ziff, founder and executive director of the Model Alliance, described how girls and young women in the industry confront an “alien world” where agencies’ financial power can control nearly all aspects of their lives.
“Imagine you are an immigrant young woman who’s 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 cannot book any other jobs and yet, the agency claims they don’t have any obligation to book you jobs.”
The model might even live at an agency-owned apartment – where 11 models might cram into a two-bedroom flat, paying $2,000 each for a bunk bed – and receive a pitiful allowance from the agency. “Often, these teenage girls who are trying to be models are thousands of dollars in debt, and the only way they can eat or afford to do anything is to go to these dinners with businessmen,” Ziff said.
Ziff said the alliance has routinely heard about agencies planning these meetings, “which are sort of presented as a business opportunity, but ended up being something very different”. Said Ziff: “It is no coincidence that Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Cosby, Peter Nygaard solicited girls through model management agencies.”
Ambra Battilana Gutierrez, who is also leading the charge for legislative change, said that many models’ backgrounds heighten the power balance still more.
“A lot of models, when they start this job, they believe it’s beautiful, and it’s something that they want to do so much that they will not even think of what actually our rights are based on the fact that we’re workers,” said Gutierrez, who has also accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct and will testify in his upcoming trial.
“Some of them come from very poor countries, and they don’t know better,” she said. “I just feel like they target a lot of these young women and young guys.”
