Model Students Moonlight

Harvard may not have super model Brooke Shields, but it contains a fair share of male and female models.

Since Boston, unlike Brooke's Princeton, is a large city, most of the models can continue to work during the term.

Some of them do, because the pay is excellent. Some don't, because it takes too much time from other activities.

There are a dozen models at Harvard. Many didn't begin modeling until they came to Cambridge. Christopher W. Crutcher '86 was exploring the Square during his freshman week and ran into a group of photographers from Japan who offered him a job.

Neill E. Norman '84 was having a drink in the Bow and Arrow. A stranger took some pictures of him to send to New York, and within two weeks he was in Barbados.

But usually it's the student who takes the initiative, says Elizabeth R. Gill '85, who has been modeling since high school.

The process can be mighty expensive.

First the student must go to a professional photographer and build a portfolio of pictures, according to Gill. A single color print costs $20. The student must also pay $400 or more for "composites," the modeling version of a business card, which comes with three or four photographs.

Next, the student will be interviewed by a model agency. Sheryll S. Strohl, assistant director of the Ford Model Shoppe, says that the perfect female model is over five feet, eight inches tall, and weighs 110-115 pounds. Men must be over six feet tall, Strohl adds.

Most jobs are obtained through the agency, which takes a 10 percent commission from the model's fee, according to Gill. Clients call the agency and explain what they are looking for, and the agency calls the model, she says.

Models earn $70 to $125 an hour, according to Jennet R. Cook, assistant director of The Model's Group, a local modeling agency. However, many of a model's hours go unpaid.

Models do a lot of pounding the streets, looking for interviewers, and talking to photographers, Gill said. She said that such long days going to door to door in summer heat are the price of a model's high glamour position.

The actual amount of time spent on the runway or in the studio can be negligible, according to Cara J. Swirbalus '86, but time constraints are the major problems Harvard models report. Gill recalls rushing for a session between two final exams, and Norman has stopped modeling during the school year because he finds it difficult to keep up with his studies. Kirsten J. Beitz '86 just started modeling this October, but has also decided to drop modeling.

"I had heard from two of my best friends that it's hard work, but I just didn't listen," says Beitz.

Beitz found the interviews difficult. "When I look in the mirror," she says, "I never see anything but my faults anymore. I worry about little things that never used to matter, the kinds of thing you can't change anyway."

Gill, however, found the interviews good business training. "You learn to present yourself, to get along with people you're working with," she says, adding that what bothers her is that people think of models as superficial "or worse."

None of the students say they would consider modeling a potential career, and all spoke of constant frustration with limited opportunities. But Gill says that although she wouldn't recommend it to friends, she finds modeling too exciting to forego.Krietin Beltz