So Model.Live decided to do a two-part feature on Paris Fashion Week, but in actuality this episode served as a wrap-up for the entire show season. In news relating to Paris, Madeline lands a show and much to our delight, opened and closed the proceedings!
Cato continues to take Paris by storm, but as her profile skyrockets, she begins to feel the weight of it all and can’t afford to fault lest she falls from grace. We don’t get much of an update on Austria’s time in Paris (we’re casually told she walks one show); however, we figured her initial absence only meant she would become the focal point for the rest of the episode and low and behold, she was.
With the show season coming to a halting grind, Model.Live took time out to reflect on some of the psychological bumps models may experience in the industry. Austria’s waning confidence fuelled the spiels from the likes of Wayne Sterling, the editorial director of Models.com and Jeni Rose, the VP of Development at IMG Models. Sterling makes the claim that confidence trumps beauty and manifestations of this can be seen in situations when a model is placed smack-dab in front of a camera. How does she react? Does she wince under the pressure to deliver or does she step to the camera with a surefooted fluidity about her.
Jeni Rose, on the other hand, takes a more cutthroat Darwinian perspective to modelling by alluding to the idea that the profession is rather survivalist and that those who can’t compete best depart. Sterling and Rose are correct in a sense, but in any line of work, external factors such as booking a show as a model will inform the very basis of this construct we call confidence. Marlon, who is a model scout/manager, presents a more forgiving view by recognizing the almost subconscious motives that compel us to act confidently.
For instance, when Austria is quizzed about whether she’s in control of her life, the ambivalence in her first response (“Yes…sometimes…no) is a clear sign of the subconscious factors breeding diffidence while her subsequent response (“There’s too many people around giving opinions) screams the confidence we know supermodels for. Gladly much of the talk about shipping Austria home for a one-year hiatus has been quelled and we’re banking on the age-old adage, patience is a virtue, to realize itself where Austria, Madeline, and Cato’s fears are concerned.
