Looks like a mini tif is bubbling over in the fashion world as designer to the stars Marc Jacobs is being accused of non payment of work for an underage model. Uh-oh! Fashionista.com has the entire he said she said war below.
To get you up to speed, Jezebel ran a piece today called “Marc Jacobs Doesn’t Pay His Models, Says Model.” The model they’re referring to is Hailey Hasbrook, a 17-year-old from Oregon, who keeps a blog in which she detailed her experiences working during New York Fashion Week last month, which she also spoke about briefly in an interview with WWD. Of particular interest is her account of working with Marc Jacobs. And while she says she had fun and everyone was really nice, there were definitely some rules broken.
Jenna Sauers points out that Marc Jacobs violated (another) CFDA guideline which asks that under-18 models not be kept working past midninght. Hasbrook’s blog confirms not only that she worked far past midnight (one night she was kept in fittings until 4:30am when she had an 8am call time the following morning), but that she also wasn’t paid a dime for the 20 some hours she spent at Jacobs’ studio doing “looks,” i.e. spending hours trying on different looks–which she apparently wasn’t even scheduled to do. Here’s how one particularly grueling day went:
Sunday was a VERY hectic and LOOOOONGG day…..
It started with a casting for Rodarte at 11:00 in the morning.
Then, I had MORE looks for Marc Jacobs. The SCHEDULED time was Noon-4:30. They ended up keeping me until 6:00, though, causing me to have to switch around my schedule and cancel some things.
Hasbrook eventually left to go to another job — looks for Reed Krakoff — but she ended up getting cancelled from the gig (after spending $20 on a cab) because Jacobs had kept her so long. Then, the same evening, she went straight to another casting.
I get a call from my agency saying Marc wants me BACK to do more looks. They told him that I would do it but I had to have an early night because I had shows early the next morning. They told me that I shouldn’t be there any later than 10:30.
Well, 10:30 rolls around and I ask Shawn if he knows when I will be ready to leave. Only to find out that they have me booked open-ended. Meaning that they had no specific end time for me. After a couple phone calls, they decided on 2:00 am.
Well, 2:00 rolls around…. I hadn’t been trying things on for a while so we all thought I would be good to go. I go and start to get dressed only to be called for in the other room by Marc.
I didn’t end up leaving until around 4:30 in morning.
Ultimately, the model walked in both the Marc Jacobs and Marc by Marc shows and was paid in trade, meaning she got some clothes and accessories. Sauers, a former model herself, writes,
When I modeled, doing looks during fashion week was how you earned money to make up for all the magazine editorials, shows, presentations, and myriad other modeling jobs you had to do for free or for trade. Now the looks are for trade, too? That’s bullshit. Working for free for Marc Jacobs — a company that’s majority owned by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the world’s largest luxury conglomerate? That’s complete and total bullshit.
This comes on the heels of news that Marc Jacobs defiantly employed at least two 14-year-old models during this past NYFW, despite the fact that he is a member of the CFDA–the organization that has put forth pretty clear guidelines encouraging its members not to use models under the age of 16. “If their parents are willing to let them do a show, I don’t see any reason that it should be me who tells them that they can’t,” Jacobs told the New York Times.
Similarly, Marc Jacobs defended their decision not to pay models; though this time, it’s on Twitter. In a tweet aimed at Jezebel, Huffington Post, and writers Jenna Sauers and Ellie Krupnick, MarcJacobsIntl wrote, “models are paid in trade. If they don’t want to work w/ us, they don’t have to.” This started a mini Twitter war between MJ and Sauers, which you can see below. MJ’s zinger refers to Sauers’ zany Twitter bio, which reads, “I used to make my living encouraging bulimia in teenage girls.”
Twitter squabbles aside, Marc Jacobs (both the company and its designer) sound pretty stuck in their ways. And because models of all ages are no doubt eager for a chance to walk in what is arguably New York Fashion Week’s most important show, this kind of thing will continue to happen. What do you think of Marc Jacobs’ defiant attitude about it all?
We have reached out to Marc Jacobs for comment but did not immediately hear back.
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