Growing up in Naperville, Jennifer McDonough dreamed of teaching elementary school. After earning two bachelor's degrees, English and education, she sent out resumes. No success there. So she decided to go to her Northern Illinois University job fair as one last effort to find a teaching job.
And find a job, she did. But when it came time to work, the then 22-year-old had no textbooks, teaching plans or pre-teen students. Why not? Because McDonough had gone to that job expo as a college student looking for a teaching gig and left as a newly recruited fashion model. "Don't ask me what they were doing at a career fair," she says of the freelance agents who passed the 5-foot-9-inch redhead onto Ford Models, the world's largest modeling agency.
Two months later, Ford sent her to work in Paris. Then Milan. Then Munich. Then Sydney. For new models repped by top agencies, Europe is a playground where girls (as they're perennially called) can test out the runway and shoot editorial fashion spreads in avant-garde European magazines. Like a soldier at the end of a campaign, the mannequins return home with more skills, long client lists and, if they're lucky, industry status and the American jobs that come with: Anna Wintour's Vogue spreads, Marc Jacobs' New York show and if they are truly "it," household name recognition.
McDonough has none of these. That's because she returned to Chicago. As the fourth-largest city for modeling in the United States (after New York, Los Angeles and Miami), the city is brimming with highbrow agencies like Ford and Elite and lowbrow but deep-pocketed clients like Kohl's and Sears, Roebuck and Co. The two sides cooperate to form an industry entirely separate from New York's edgy and elongated scene or Los Angeles' bikinied and bronzed tastes.
In short, Chicago is America's modeling Mecca. Sample sizes are a four instead of a zero. The client list, which largely includes Midwest department stores, fosters less competition and provides a consistency absent in runway modeling, which is based on a week long work schedule in each major city once per season (this week, for example, the men are sauntering in Paris). "Nothing pays better than a Versace shoot," says Nick Shultz, a Northwestern senior with Ford's Milwaukee division. "But if you work with Kohl's or Verizon, they'll use you over and over again. It's a lot easier to get work out here."
Shultz, who is earning a double-degree in voice with an ad hoc major in criminalistics, would know: He transferred from New York University after his freshman year. While in Manhattan, the 6-foot-1 prepster signed with a small agency that sent him to three castings weekly. During Fashion Week, he would occasionally walk for up-and-coming designers. When he became disillusioned with NYU, he transferred to Northwestern and signed with a small agency in Chicago that was subsequently bought out by Ford. He joined Ford's Chicago division, thought it too anonymous, left the industry for a year and eventually found his way back through Ford Milwaukee, a smaller office based in his hometown. "Out here, it's all about how good your smile is, how young they can make you look and how marketable you can be," he says. "In the high-fashion market, they always use the word 'edgy.'"
And "edgy" can push people over the edge. For McDonough, high-fashion modeling became stale as Ford jetted her to Paris and designers draped her in couture; neither paid the bills nor offered her stability. "Commercial work has been much more lucrative than the runway work - at least for me," she says. "The learning experience was great, and how else could you travel the world at 22?" she asks before catching herself: "It's definitely nicer to be home."
As a Ford model, she isn't allowed to disclose her exact salary, which is largely earned through catalog photoshoots. But she confirms it's above the U.S. Department of Labor's median estimate of $23,340 annually for models in 2006. The department estimates that the highest tenth percentile earns about $38,850 and the lowest tenth makes $15,960, which is on par with selling clothes at the local mall. Many have to provide their own health and retirement benefits, but might be eligible for cash advances from their agency. New models often go on photo shoots for free to build up a portfolio and they must maintain their look - new haircuts, for example - at their agency's mandate but their own expense.
Like McDonough, Holland Rusch didn't plan on modeling. While shopping for shoes in Morton Grove, a stranger came up to her and told her she was too tall (5-foot-11) to avoid her fate. She got in touch with a booker, set up photographs, and has had success with catalog modeling through several small agencies including Royal and BMG Talent Management. Though the 21-year-old augments her income with a different kind of modeling - she's a Miller Lite Girl two nights a week - her career gives her enough income to pay her bills while working toward her bachelor's degree, which she hopes to finish next year. So far, she's done shoots for a Sears elliptical machine, a Londo Mondo bathing suit and a local television spot for Maybelline. Londa's Bridal Design hired her to do an eight-hour shoot for its sewing catalog. She made $800.
Out in New York, haute couture comes with haute competition: Models vie for spots on Ralph Lauren runways with girls who've flown in from Buenos Aires or Kiev. There's more potential to become the next Zeitgeist girl, but with more than 1,000 models in America's fashion capital, success is even more unlikely. You'll never be Giselle Bundchen or Gemma Ward or Cindy Crawford (who started off at Elite Chicago in 1985 before moving on) while you live in the Midwest, but you can have a lucrative fashion career - all without the meager salaries, weight issues, neurotic schedules and carnal cattiness that plague the model proletariat.
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