Mushk Kaleem | Faisal Farooqui
“I decided to stay quiet,” she continues. “The campaign was a major one. I knew that if I spoke up, the photographer would just tell the brand that he wasn’t comfortable working with me, and I would lose out on quite a few future projects.”
Many models similarly confess to feeling apprehensive when a prestigious label asks them to work for little or no money. “Working with major brands makes my portfolio look great and it usually draws other smaller brands to offer me campaigns,” says Mushk. “Unfortunately, the major brands know this. There have been times when I have been asked outright to work for free because the shoot will add value to my professional credibility. There are times when I have done so.
“But I’m not modelling just for the fun of it — this is my bread and butter. A certain brand — one of the best in the country — owes me a large sum of money. The designer has always been extremely friendly towards me. But when I reminded the brand’s marketing team about the hefty pending payments, they told me that, according to the designer’s instructions, any model that asks after payments will be ousted from their shoots permanently. I don’t want that to happen either, so I don’t have a choice but to stay quiet.
“This isn’t just a one-off case. Every model will recount similar experiences. There is literally so much that we have worked hard for and that people owe us. But we’re yet to receive it. I don’t know when we will.”
Sadaf Kanwal, having made her name in the business, says that she is finally in a position to say no. “A very big label asked me recently to work for them for free, stating that I would gain publicity through the campaign. I told them that to the contrary, they would gain publicity because of me. They relented and paid me.”
Sadly, this reluctance to pay models often has nothing to do with how well the brand is doing in the market. It’s shocking that some of the biggest names in the business are the most enthusiastic freeloaders. “The bigger the designer, the smaller the amount he or she is willing to pay,” observes Fouzia Aman. “They’ll also sometimes want to work out a barter, paying us in the form of clothes. But what if we don’t want those clothes? What if we want to earn money to support ourselves and our families?”
“It’s just sad because a lot of these people don’t have any problems showing off the lavish lifestyles that they lead,” points out Zara Peerzada. “A lot of times, they ask us to wear their diamond jewellery or carry their branded handbags in a shoot. Why is it so difficult for them to sign a model’s pay-cheque? We are accustomed to late payments but sometimes they just stop taking our calls or replying to our text messages. That’s when we panic.”
A need for respect
Beyond money matters, shaming is common in modelling the world over. Given Pakistan’s deep-rooted obsession for fair skin, derogatory comments particularly revolve round complexion. “There’s a lot of shaming going on,” says Zara, “about a girl’s skin, her weight, her features, her hair. It can have a very adverse mental and physical impact on a young girl.”
Anum Malik recalls, “I was very new to the business when I worked with this very well-known photographer. He cursed constantly, humiliating models in order to make them pose the way that he wanted to. I got so scared that for the longest time, I didn’t work with him again.”
But things could be worse, says Tapu Javeri. The veteran photographer has seen the industry grow from its early heydays into the behemoth that it is today, and he says that the inhuman treatment of models is rare. “I remember that I was in Paris for a show by Nilofer Shahid in the early 2000s. The models there weren’t allowed to sit. They just stood for hours and if any one of them sat, she was ousted from the show immediately. I was horrified. Pakistani fashion has its issues and things could be better for models, especially when it comes to payments. But many clients also treat them very well.”
And on the flipside, there are models who don’t behave well at all.
The flipside: models turned divas