Attack Of The Green Super Models

What is a green supermodel? We all know what a supermodel is. But what makes a model green? Too often we forget modeling is a form of salesmanship. Models are hired to sell product. Companies associate their product with a particular look to grow their brand. That’s how models who achieve recognition in the marketplace warrant higher fees. Which is how modeling agencies make their percentage. Like best selling books, successful models carry their agency, pay for the scouting of new faces and the testing of new models.

With recognition comes responsibility. A model can quickly lose her reputation with the client if she’s caught doing or saying the wrong thing. Which is why there are unwritten rules and unspoken guidelines in the industry. Bookers do their best to keep fashion models from going off the rails. Not an easy task considering young women with the intensity the camera loves are often a handful. Otherwise brands suffer when a model is discovered to have worked in the sex industry or busted on a DUI. It’s very tricky business. A song and dance that has been happening every since photography started being used as a means of publicity.

Green models raise the stakes because they not only use their look to promote a product, but use the reputation they have earned in the hearts and minds of green consumers to change the way we do business. This is something modeling agencies have not learned to capitalize on yet. Right now models at top agencies are split into two categories: will do fur – will not do fur. Models could be selling depleted uranium shells at military trade shows, it wouldn’t matter to Ford or Elite, as long as the agency got its 20%. These agencies provide models to Fortune 500 companies. They do not discriminate by social responsibility. This is how green supermodels are changing how modeling agencies do business. Because they are refusing to be associated with products they do not beleive in. Money is no longer the prime motivating factor in their profession. It’s a quiet revolution few people are talking about because it affects the bottom line, disrupts business as usual and cuts into profit margins.

The models who have been associated with this trend are pioneers because they are finding ways to impose their new sets of principles on the agencies they work with. They can no longer be black listed for refusing to take certain jobs. They have created circumstances enabling them to chose. It is the association with their green convictions which brings clients to hire them. While agencies have yet to create specific green divisions, and no modeling agency has put itself out there as a “green” agency, the landscape is quickly changing. Green is now a multi-billion dollar economy, best expressed by powerful associations like Gaiam, B-Corporation, LOHAS, Sustainable Life Media, and trade events like Green Festivals & GoGreen Expo.

Green companies are no longer satisfied hiring a model for their looks. One of the first question that pops up at a casting is how green are you? Meaning do you know about the products we’re selling? Will you care about our product? Will you positively represent our product in your daily life? I remember growing up as a child model, how often I was told not to eat or drink something I was being photographed with. As I got older I questioned why I was asked to sell things nobody around me cared about. I soon lost all my job opportunities. My career as a model was over at 14 because I started asking too many questions. Modeling is powerful. Models deserve the right to make educated choices about what they associate themselves with.

The Internet made green models possible, because it enabled independent minded aspiring models to carve their own career without relying on modeling agencies to put bread on the table. Websites like Model Mayhem, One Model Place, MySpace and now facebook give models a way to show their images and develop direct relationships with photographers. Many successful models today manage their own careers without the interim of an agency thanks to these Internet portals. But top agencies remain the primary means of securing corporate assignments and lucrative contracts. Business with clients is difficult and time consuming, something models are not equipped to handle on their own once their career starts taking off. What these online services have provided is leverage to dictate your own terms with agencies, but it doesn’t replace them. Thanks to the web, most models today do not have exclusive contracts with their agency and are free to pursue other opportunities, which makes agencies much more vulnerable to competition.

Keeping models happy is how bookers keep successful girls at their agency. Top models make a lot of money. It’s capitalism at its best, supply and demand. A familiar face will generate much more attention in a photograph, create a sense of recognition with readers who are potential buyers. This is what clients pay for, higher visibility. As more models become educated about the products they sell, the ingredients in cosmetics, the sustainability of the clothes they wear, the cars they drive, the buildings we live in,  and the food we buy, it makes it increasingly difficult for mainstream corporations to find models ready to trade their soul for the opportunity to sell crap to the masses. Intelligence suddenly becomes a prized commodity. It becomes important for a green company to build credibility. The models they hire have to be recognized as people who walk the talk in their private lives.

What we once considered to be the kiss of death in a modeling career, seems to not be so important to the public anymore. We  as consumers are a lot more forgiving of human weakness and frailty than we are of hypocrisy and dishonesty. We’ve tolerated and forgiven the likes of Paris Hilton, Pam Anderson, Kate Moss. Drugs and eroticism are no big deal. It’s human nature. Yet as we enter a phase in our culture where the survival of the planet and our species might be at stake, how we threat animals, each other, the land, the sea, the air… is much more important in the eye of those reading magazines and watching television than whether or not a model was caught doing the naughty on video.

The first green model who comes to mind for many is Summer Rayne Oakes, who coined the term. She abides by a strict set of principles in her professional life, and her agency Next knows to respect this. Next has learned to field job opportunities for Summer. Next is now slowly starting to carry these guidelines on to other models at their agency who want to follow the path Summer opened for them. Green consumers know that when they see Summer wearing a dress or being photographed with a product, that these products are green. In her personal life Summer is a spokesperson for many of the technologies and practices that produce green products and services.

A famous model who was already making a green name for herself before the green craze hit, Angela Lindvall has long lived the green lifestyle and helped green causes. Angela was the first high fashion model to speak out about these issues. In 2001 she created a non-profit foundation called Collage which helped many upcoming sustainable designers and models carve a green niche into the industry. She recently co-starred in the charming Planet Green series Alter Eco now available on DVD.

Angela’s agency IMG produced the BeEcoChic Awards which she hosted and the Earth Awards with the Malaysian tourism office.  The winner of the Earth Awards this year was Neri Oxman, a scientist at MIT working on improving the way we produce industrial materials. She is currently featured in the June green issue of Vogue and on the cover of Fast Company magazine. It’s evident from her striking looks that she will easily be able to conquer green media, establish herself as its newest rising star. 

Another up and coming green personality is Olivia Zaleski. Once voted “blogger we want to see in a bikini” which she shrugs off, Olivia quickly forged a green path after she had an epiphany as a marketing representative for a top clothing company. She turned her back on the throw-away society and started writing for Huffington, landing herself a dream job as a green video correspondent with Fortune magazine. She hasn’t appeared on magazine covers yet, but I’m sure it won’t take long.

Although Ashley Van Dyke has not completely crossed over to the green side, too in love with fast cars, she is frequently seen promoting electric vehicles. Ashley is organizing a green car rally from LA to Vegas by way of San Diego. Electricity brings to mind nuclear power. One of the most recognized anti-nuclear models is Christie Brinkley, who is on the board of Radiation and Public Health, and has appeared at countless events voicing her opposition to nuclear power plants. Betcee May Lindstrom, with Next like Summer, was featured on the cover of E magazine and has appeared in ads for Caesarstone and Orly Spa Ritual, while remaining one of the top art nude models in the country. She represents Gaia for the Rock The Reactors campaign. No Nukes is again the greatest of environmental causes, as a new generation is waking up to the disaster nuclear has been.

Companies asking any of these young women, and others like them, to lend their image to the marketing and promotion of their products or services strike a responsive chord with their audience, because of all the green work they have come to be known for. In October, Portland will once again play host to fashion week, when dozens of models will participate in the runway shows. What makes Portland Fashion Week so different from any of the other shows around the country, is that it only features sustainable designers and natural make-up brands. The Greenloop is looking into the possibility of coordinating a green modeling competition to become an integral part of the event.

If you are a modeling agency planning a green division, or a fashion model wishing to specialize in only being associated with the sale and promotion of green products and services, please contact us at The Greenloop. We’re interested in stepping it up.