What is a Commercial Model?

Most agency models are "commercial" models - meaning that they appear on local or national print ads or television shows, in catalogs, work in local fashion shows and trade shows and similar kinds of work. They don't get huge fees (although pay can be very good indeed), national recognition or lucrative national ad contracts, but they are the backbone of the modeling industry.

Fashion models also work as commercial models, although the reverse is rarely true. In smaller market cities in the US, most agencies concentrate on "fashion print" or "commercial fashion" models, who tend to be tall, slim and beautiful in a more mainstream way. This is "commercial fashion", a subset of commercial modeling.

Very, very few commercial models make a living at it. It is not a career, it is something they do on an occasional basis while they do something else "full time". Outside of the major markets (New York, Chicago, maybe Miami and Los Angeles) it is doubtful that there is any city in America in which more than a dozen people make a good living at modeling, but in virtually all cities and substantial towns there are many, usually hundreds, who are in the modeling market, and who occasionally find work.

The requirements for being a commercial model are very different from being a fashion model. It certainly helps if you look a lot like a fashion model, but there is work available in most markets for many other types. Models can be older, shorter, heavier and need not be pretty or beautiful - "interesting" often will get work, and “generic good looks” is the most common look required. Commercial models are asked to play roles in pictures: “young mom”, “active retiree”, “Doctor”, “executive”, and they look like idealized versions of these roles. In most of the markets we have surveyed the hardest demand for an agent to fill is for middle-aged men!

Things that help a commercial model are acting ability, an outgoing personality, easy availability for jobs, and good self-presentation skills.

The great majority of commercial jobs are booked through agencies, except for those that are given to friends or members of the client's family.

So what makes a Fashion Model?

If she is a model and you know her name or you recognize her face, she is an "editorial fashion model." Seems simple enough, but it isn't.

"Editorial fashion models" work in New York City (in this country) for the simple reason that very, very little editorial fashion work is booked out of anywhere else. There are exceptions, of course: Miami in winter (but often using New York models), and sometimes Los Angeles or Chicago, but these are just that: exceptions. If you want to be a fashion model, you go to New York. There are lots of opportunities abroad as well (Paris, London, Milan, Tokyo . . .), but only one real one in the US.

For women, if you want to be seen on the cover of a national fashion magazine, to sign a lucrative national ad contract, to become a "supermodel", or even to be a "fashion model", you need the following when you start:

1. Be between 15-19 years old.

2. Be between 5'9" and 6' tall.

3. Be thin. Really, really thin. Something like 105-115 pounds, except for Plus models, who can be dress sizes 10-20 or so, depending on the market.

4. Don't have especially large breasts (34C is generally the upper bound of acceptable), lots of stretch marks, tattoos, piercings or highly tanned skin. Dark skin is fine, lots of tan is not fine.

5. Be beautiful. Not necessarily pretty, but beautiful. An interesting, beautiful face is at least as good for a fashion model as is an "all American" look.

6. Have the right personality for it: a strong commitment to modeling (not just an interest in it), an ability to take rejection (something most beautiful girls aren't good at), a thick skin, not a lot of modesty (nobody cares what you don't want someone to see, we have a fashion show to put on . . .) and a lot of self confidence.

7. Be willing to relocate to a major market, with New York City strongly preferred.

8. Be willing to travel to strange locations with no friends there to support you, little money, little help, lots of opportunity for both good and bad things to happen to you.

If you have all of that, you are a very, very rare person, and you have one chance in a hundred of becoming an editorial fashion model. No more than that. If you are anything else, you need to think about some other kind of modeling.

Requirements for men are a little less stringent; depending on the market city, men need to be 5'11" (6' strongly preferred) to 6'2" (in some cities, 6'3") tall, slim (40 jacket, 30-32 waist; in some markets slimmer is preferred). Men can be older to start. Age 18-25 is fine.

Editorial fashion jobs are booked almost exclusively through "editorial fashion agencies" - and those hardly exist outside New York.