Christine: In 2006, the deaths of Luisel Ramos and Ana Carolina Reston from complications due to Anorexia, shed new light on the fashion industries emphasis on thin models. I’m Christine and welcome to watchmojo.com.

We’re going to be talking to Antonella from Folio, a leading modeling agency to discuss these and other issues revolving around the modeling industry.

Rejection is a large part of the job. How do you help models deal with that?

Antonella: We encourage them. We tell them not to put too much weight on that. I know it’s a tough on a lot of the girls. A lot of times they’ll do three or four castings and they’re like, “Oh, I can’t understand why did I not get this job. I’m not working.” If they do not get the job it’s simply because they don’t fit for that particular job. But there’ll be other jobs and we encourage them and it has really nothing to do with them physically.

Christine: Certainly rejection is part of the reason why people think this industry is harsh. Another one is the perception that in the fashion industry, there’s an emphasis place on models to be super thin. Do you think that’s true?

Antonella: There are certain markets that I think emphasize that a lot more. Certainly depending upon what type of jobs you’re doing like the show is when you’re doing fashion shows. Yes the girls are much thinner than the girls that are doing catalogue. But I think that overall there have been changes made and I think that the clients are looking to have women and girls that are a little bit healthier looking than say a couple of years ago.

So I do see a change happening. But we can’t fool ourselves either. This is an industry where women and models need to be thin. Drastically thin and unhealthy thin, no and we discourage that.

Christine: How does women’s modeling career differ from that of a man’s?

Antonella: A man’s career generally starts later than a woman’s career. So when we recruit girls and guys, a lot of times we’ll have the young girl comes at 14, 15, and that’s a great age for a girl to start slowly developing her. Whereas with men there isn’t really a great deal of work for guys who are say 15, 16.

So generally that starts out their career starts up a little bit later and it also lasts a lot longer than women. So I would say that the age period is a little bit shifted a little bit later for men than for women.

Christine: Is the modeling career as lucrative for men as it is for women?

Antonella: No, not generally. I mean there are certainly are men that we have two models here that they’ve been working they’re 55, 60 now and they are still continuing to work. But it’s a rare case.

Christine: Antonella, I want to thank you for the time you’ve taken today to help us understand the modeling industry and the reality of becoming a model. Thank you so much.

Antonella: You’re welcome. It was a pleasure.