Andreas von Estorff has the perfect background to change the modelling industry. He is the founder and CEO of ModelManagement.com, a platform that is bringing stability to what is far from a stable industry.
An engineer armed with an MBA, Mr. von Estorff is a successful digital entrepreneur. He is also married to a model. This combination of experiences has shown him where he can improve an industry that finds itself going through tremendous upheaval.
The modelling industry is much more than the famous faces one sees in fashion magazines and high profile campaigns. Those models are on one extreme end of a long continuum. Most toil in anonymity, working freelance jobs and dealing with such issues as changing expectations, delayed or missing wages, and poor living conditions.
“It forms the basis for a professional agreement between two parties that dictates the right to use the images but also the payment terms,” Mr. von Estorff said.
The explosion of social media allows everyone to be a model if they want to be, he added. People love being in front of the camera, so much so that ModelManagement.com takes more business away from social media companies than modelling agencies, he said.
But the downside is people are creating content for nothing and that has had significant impact on people who make their living in the modelling industry
“It’s time for people to realize that if they put the effort in of being two or three hours in front of the camera they want to get paid for it,” Mr. von Estorff said. “They’re not doing it for free.”
The biggest change over the past 15 years has been a changing view of who is a model and who campaigns should appeal to. Mr. von Estorff welcomes this.
“I’m happy because you also can see the recognition of beauty changes, the way how we see beauty. It is not fair we saw beauty because we were trained and programmed by the fashion industry that to be beautiful you have to be 15 to 20 years and you have to be tall and slim. That has a lot of negative effects on society.
“I think beauty’s everywhere.”
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