Milano

What New York is to bankers and Mecca is to Muslims, Milano is to models (wow, perhaps I should submit that to the College Board for SAT consideration :p) so with the quick 1.5 hour flight from London and the ubiquity of low cost carriers here in Europe I figured it was something I ought to try at least once. Late June is when the menswear shows happen in Milan, so a few weeks prior, male models the world over (but mostly from Eastern Europe and North America) descend upon the city like vultures on freshly fallen prey.


Unfortunately for said vultures, prey is scarce and competition is plentiful. A friend recently mentioned that Milan is one of those places only worth going if you've already made a pretty sizeable dent in the industry and I would tend to agree. Show castings are huge cattle calls the likes of which I've rarely seen, and the odds are pretty slim given that a typical show doesn't use more than 20 models. Showroom castings are even worse - hundreds of models vying for a job that entails 12 hours of walking back and forth in a showroom for potential buyers and getting paid a little more than 100 euros a day for your efforts.


The city itself was also a bit of a letdown. Somehow I'd expected more from a city renowned as a big fashion hub, but what I encountered was rather provincial compared to NY, London and Paris. Public transport infrastructure was downright primitive, food options were uniform and unsavory (after 9 days of pizza, pasta and foccacia I'm happy to pursue more culturally diverse fare), and beyond the Duomo at the center of the city, there isn't all that much to see or do.


Still, it was a good life experience and a trip of many firsts: first time
working in a market where i do not speak the native dialect (though Spanish is a pretty effective surrogate), first time I've lived in a model apartment (roommate was a French chain-smoking teenager who would borrow my towel (nasty) and use the kitchen sponge to scrub his sandals at the end of each day (nastier)), first time optioned for shows for some of the big fashion houses.


Model Apartment - The Four Seasons this is not...

Ladies Who Lunch

Is a charity event ever truly complete without a cadre of models prancing around in silly hats and expensive suits? Such was the premise a few weeks ago for a mid-day soiree to raise money for a children's charity here in London. Attendees consisted of approximately 300 well-heeled women paying £80 a head to lunch with their similarly well-coiffed counterparts. As a yearly tradition, my agency here hands over ten of their male models to serve as eye-candy for the event. Turned out to pretty well-coordinated and it was for a worthy cause, so all in all a good day.