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IMPACT
From Runways to Rejection:
An Interview With a Student Model The modelling industry is known for being notoriously tough to both break into and remain inside. Self-confessed Top Model fan Daria Paterek speaks to first-year Liberal Arts student and model Margot Howell to find out the truth about this clandestine industry. I first ask Margot how and why she decided to pursue a part-time career in modelling. “I never thought of being a model. But I was always told that I’m tall, which resulted in many ‘do you play basketball?’ comments,” she remarks. “I was scouted at a local supermarket aged 14 by Kate Moss Agency after going to the cinema with my family. I was wearing joggers and a big jacket. Honestly, I thought it was a joke.” Her transition to modelling was a lengthy process, with “test shoots lasting two years”. Once she turned 16, she took part in her first-ever runway show at Paris Fashion Week. “I was the youngest person in the show. All my casting and auditions took place when I was 15.” And are runway shows as crazy as they seem in America’s Top Model? In short, yes. “It was very hectic,” Margot remembers. “What made it even more hectic was that it was completely new. Furthermore, a couple of hours before the show, the designer told me that I would be closing the show. It was a lot of pressure.” Fast forward to now, Margot has done “e-commerce work, which has included modelling for clothing websites, as well as working for Fendi and participating in London Fashion Week”. Being a student is tough; balancing student life with modelling is even tougher. As a first-year student, Margot has found balancing modelling with student life “quite tricky. I’ve been trying to settle into the first year of university and balance my social life”. This has impacted her ability to make long-term plans since “the modelling industry is very last minute. I will often find out that I have passed an audition the day before or the day of the shoot.”
