VoxFrock journalist Alice Edgeley joined artist, academic and podcaster Adele Varcoe to unravel the tangled contradictory lives of models for the Melbourne Fashion Festival’s Feeling Fashion podcast, launching in April. Intense and hilarious at times, conversation bounced between modelling’s mythical glamour and its crueller realities coloured by the lived experience of sometime-model Alice and professional model Ethan Ashton. Scroll down to meet Alice and VoxFrocker Tilly Parsons who captured the event, and click back here and here for daily MFF updates from the VoxFrock Rookie Crew of emerging fashion journalists and photographers.
Words: Alice Edgeley Photographs: Tilly Parsons Illustrations: Adele Varcoe
Models – we see them everyday, everywhere. Whizzing past on trams, looming over us on gigantic billboards, guiding our eyes towards a new brand of bra or whisky or whatever; they are vessels to sell products, mannequins to parade new clothes, fellow humans whose facial structures reflect the beauty ideals of our day. But, who are these people? How do they feel about the images they create and the industry they navigate?
Artist/designer/podcaster Adele Varcoe invited professional model, Ethan Ashton and me, Alice Edgeley, a middle-aged fashion and costume designer cum model, to talk about all this for her podcast Feeling Fashion.
Ethan’s modelling career kicked off in a car yard in Frankston. Not the usual place to start a career. Ethan had finished high school and was working two jobs. He was handed the card of a modelling agent when visiting the car yard with his mum. Initially they both thought it was a scam. A few days later he emailed the agent and before he knew what hit him, was walking London fashion week.
Ethan tells us about the shock of attending casting calls in London and Milan. Staying in model accommodation with five other young models. Your day starts at 8am and you each head off to up to 15 castings. It’s intimidating. Ninety percent of the jobs you don’t get. There is a directness which sounds shocking to outsiders. It’s common to be quickly dismissed as “Too short”, “Too tall” or “Too skinny”.
Models have to toughen up quick smart. Ethan describes finding himself in a room of clones; “You walk into a room and it’s like, that’s me! And you see someone else and it’s you again, and you, and you, and you, twenty times over, with just tiny little differences like someone’s nose is smaller or someone has better teeth. There no other word for it but weird”.
For me, getting into modelling was quite a different matter. At the age of 35 I was encouraged to model my own designs. I had enlisted photographer, Eryca Green to shoot my latest collection. Up until that point I’d used professional models or friends I thought looked the part.
Eryca insisted that people wanted to see me wearing my designs. I’d had some very cringeworthy experiences in the past where I really seized up in front of the camera, unable to relax my face and found my arms and legs all of a sudden felt like octopus tentacles. Eryca and I worked together for the next 10 years. Like all good photographers she had tricks up her sleeve to help me relax in front of the camera. I learned to channel my favorite models, relax my face, hold my body in a shape that made the clothes look just right.
Strangely neither Ethan nor I identified with these constructed images. Both found there to be a massive disconnect. ‘It doesn’t feel like me’ was the resounding reply. “Who the hell is that?” is Ethan’s reaction to catching sight of a photo of himself. Once you’re in model mode it can be hard to switch off. Ethan finds himself doing his runway walk on the street and catches himself. I still find it hard to turn on at will.
A few years ago I was invited to a big VIP opening night at ACMI for the Goddesses exhibition. I made myself a pair of lime green droopy sparkly boobs with nipples. As someone who makes catsuits for a living I’m pretty good at wearing weird things.
I know how to walk down the street without looking uncomfortable but put me in front of a wall of cameramen and I freeze. I couldn’t turn it on. It was a clash of “normal me” finding it hilarious and me being a “fabulous VIP” and maintaining composure. Normal me won.
Meet the VoxFrockers
Tilly Parsons, photographer/crew mentor
Tilly is a sought-after professional who works at the intersection of art and commercial photography, blending rare talent and creativity with exceptional technical skills. She is particularly passionate about contributing to narratives of compassion and inclusivity. Tilly worked three tours of the VoxFrock Rookie Crew before qualifying as a crew mentor.
Alice Edgeley, journalist
