Ian Loughran | Who Really Has Control in the Modelling Industry?

0:02Tessa Dewing: Welcome to the Business of Modelling, where we go behind the scenes of the modelling and talent industries to explore how they really work. From agents and casting directors to photographers, creatives, brands and the talent themselves, we'll uncover the stories, challenges and changes shaping the industry today. When people think about modelling, they often think about the finished image, the campaign, the magazine cover, the person in front of the camera or walking down the runway. But behind every booking is a whole industry of people, decisions and opportunities that most people never see.

0:45Tessa Dewing: Whether you're looking to start your career, whether you're already working in the industry or curious about what happens behind the images you see every day, this is your guide to the business behind modelling.

1:01Tessa Dewing: Welcome to the Business of Modelling. I'm Tessa Dewing, Managing Director of London Commercial Agency, Sandra Reynolds. I'm also the founder of Digital Twinsets. Today I'm joined by Ian Loughran, who has spent 25 years working as a model and talent agent at agencies including Next, Select and IMG, working with some of the most recognisable names in fashion, including Ashley Graham, Gigi and Bella Hadid, Carly Kloss and Miranda Kerr and Joan Smalls. After working inside the agency system, Ian became increasingly interested in something he felt was missing. While agencies had sophisticated systems, very little had been built specifically for the talent.

1:44Tessa Dewing: That thinking led him to develop a system for freelance creatives, bringing together bookings, invoices, payments, tax and travel across the different markets they work in. Today, we're going to talk about why Ian believes the infrastructure supporting models and creatives needs to change and what greater control over a creative career could look like. Ian, welcome to the podcast. Thank you. I love that. Do you? Yeah, that was really good. It feels proper, I feel like. well lovely to have you here um so you've spent a long time working with models um long before you started building the tech before we get into all of that um where did you grow up and what originally drew you to this world we moved to the uk when i was a kid my parents are both anglo-indian um and i come from a strictly military family on both sides i started getting obsessed with like French Vogue and Italian Vogue and The Face I think was one of my first magazines and you know editorial back in the 90s was like unreal.

2:50I'd save up my money from school and then I would basically it was either that or the tuck shop and I was getting fat as it was so I thought I'd just buy every magazine that I could on the way home and then my walls were covered with all of them so when I got the opportunity to work in fashion by another friend of mine Darren Knight who was a stylist um he was represented by carol hayes i think i'd just been fired from another job as a waiter i was terrible at it couldn't carry a tray were you interested in at school though were you you were obviously creative it was creative it was languages and arts and and and like i said i loved fashion but i didn't realize that there was anything i could do with it yeah yeah yeah and so

3:28Tessa Dewing: straight from school you just you sort of started working did you go to college nightclubs right i I started working nightclubs with much the chagrin of my parents because, you know, they paid for a wonderful education. I was like, I'm going clubbing. What path would they have liked you to go down? They wanted me to go into the military as well. Yeah, yeah. They wanted me to be, my father was a pilot, a squadron leader, and they wanted me to kind of follow in his footsteps. Yeah. So. And that was never. That was not, it was completely off the cards. Yeah, yeah. Not with the hemlines I was after.

3:57Tessa Dewing: So nightclubs, waiter, you were rubbish at those. Yeah, I bounced around. You know, London back then was a very fun time. I used to do the door at all the nightclubs. And a lot of my friends are models or stylists or agents that were kind of, you know, hey, I'm coming down and bring the girls, etc. So it was that world. I was fashion adjacent, I guess you'd say. Yeah. And then I got the opportunity. My friend said that his agent needed somebody. I went in. And that was the end of that. I met Carol. And she took me under her wing. And this was at Premiere. No, this is Carol Hayes. Oh, sorry. So it was photographers and stylists and models and makeup artists to begin with.

4:33Tessa Dewing: So right. So through your hairstylist who was a stylist who was represented by Carol Hayes, you actually got a job in the agency. And she used to scream at me, put it on the fucking chart. I would never use anyway. She taught me how to use the booking software. And she basically was just like, this is fashion monitor, get appointments and pick the phone up and start calling people. So that's how it started. I kind of gravitated towards the editorial side of things because of where my eye had gone over the years, etc. I signed two brilliant um one makeup artist one hairstylist Peter Lux who's doing brilliantly well and now coached in two and kind of tried to create a little bit more of an editorial vibe and they went on to do really well I got a phone call from Select saying we keep seeing your name on call sheets and stuff do you want to come in and see us and I was like yeah okay okay yeah so you'd like I've been headhunted job whether you're representing exactly and got in it was much more me as well though because i was obsessed with models like i was obsessed with the super models i'm obsessed with models i was obsessed with photography as well and when we got in there i remember like we'd be talking about fashion we'd be talking about they were like oh stella's on a shoot you need to go down to the shoot and be with her and i was like stella tenant are you fucking joking um but it was it was much more in my wheelhouse than than than working on the other side of things the grounding that i got by carol was unmatched like you learned how an agency worked and yeah you need someone like that I think you do and she was old school as well and I think it's actually one of the issues that I have nowadays when you're speaking to the younger generation they don't fucking call anybody well they don't no it drives me insane and I'm just like pick the phone up why have you done this with 25 emails but to be fair so their argument is well no one picks the phone up if we do people just want to sit and tap on keyboards so I had some time off after IMG in 2017 I had like two or three years off where I went into a different side of things and then I got back and started picking the phone up to call people and no one would answer and you're like COVID had kind of arrived and it was a very different landscape.

6:35Tessa Dewing: Take me back to your first days at Select what did that booking desk look like back then? It's the same now I think I haven't been in for years but I think it's the same now but Sarah Leon I used to work with Sarah Leon who's brilliant and she was kind of the pioneer of that talent side of things so she had started with daisy low alice delal and pixie geldoff and those girls and then obviously that was really taking off very well and there was the the new faces so i was on the new faces with her and i started kind of handling the new face kind of stuff and she would be dealing with with um with the talent side of things i haven't been part of like a big model agency like that for a few years now but it was really fun and you only first get into the industry and it's like it's the buzz and then you were meeting people all the time And you're meeting people all the time.

7:18Tessa Dewing: People coming in all the time. And I'm a firm believer. I think you have to meet people, not just on a Zoom, whatever. So when the girls were shooting, I would turn up on the shoot. Not many of the other agents would do that. And I'd turn up. But the majority of the girls would be testing. But then those testing photographers then went on to shoot GQ and then ID and then Bo. So you're building up those relationships. And you meet them. And the hairstylist is the same. So it turns out now you walk onto a set. It's like, oh, my God, I used to shoot with them 25 years ago, you know. That's one of the aspects of the industry, that kind of community and the fellowship, which is really important.

7:55Tessa Dewing: Yeah, absolutely. What do you think some of the things that have changed now since you were booking in the industry? The communication aspect of things is very, very different. You know, everything is via email. So everything's got to be prepared, sent over via email. You can't do that hard sell on the phone, which is so much of our jobs. you know it's like you've got to see this girl she's incredible she just shot with david sims blah blah blah blah you need to see her listen i know you're shooting this you can't do that anymore and go sees don't happen anymore and it's like how do you get a feel for the model if you're not meeting her you know but then that whole trajectory has changed as well and it's it's now how many followers do they have etc etc and you know will they post us on tiktok when it comes out and it's like does she fucking have to yeah yeah they just assume tiktok absolutely um so you've scouted and developed a lot of models yourself um what did you learn about spotting potential it comes in all shapes and sizes um and there's so much of it is is also about the personality like i found talent before who are absolutely incredible but they don't believe it themselves and they don't know how to back it up and if it doesn't matter how many times And that comes across.

9:10Yeah, and it doesn't matter how many times you tell somebody. If they don't develop as you're developing them, then it's a no-go.

9:21There's a lot of models out there who are completely unrealised, if that makes sense. We just did it with a beautiful girl that I'm working with called Lydia Angel. And she'd been modelling since she was 16 years old. Only ever done like 1 ,000, 1 ,500 euro jobs here and there. And she was a commercial girl. and we took her cut her hair she was exclusive for celine then she was exclusive for louis vuitton um and now she's doing really really well and people don't realize the same thing happened at img with amanda salvato who was commercial model used to shoot little woods etc the whole time and a quick quick image change and change the surname and all of a sudden she was a triple exclusive for gucci with campaigns for three seasons a quick image change because can can can work wonders.

10:07Can change their whole career. And also some really commercial models have exactly what it takes to be those high-end fashion models. You know what I mean?

10:13Tessa Dewing: They just need a bit of a tweak here and there. So Ashley Graham, I found an interview with British Vogue from when you were her UK agent at IMG. And you said when you were initially assigned to Ashley, you thought, oh, that's not my market. Yeah. Yeah, I had no idea what to do with her. Yeah. But then you met her and your view completely changed. Yeah, my jaw hit the floor. She was unreal. but I was an editorial campaign agent, you know, so I was used to booking Tom Ford's and ID and et cetera. And then I have to build a whole new market for her. No, she went to see my people, but Ivan called me up.

10:50Ivan Barth, who's the late president of IMG, who was my mentor and just phenomenal human being. And he said, so Ford have closed the curve division. I was like, okay. And he was like, we've signed everyone. I was like, great. Why are you telling me? He was just like, well, you're going to look after them. And I was just like, I don't know if that's really my bag, Ivan. Also, I was a bit of a fashion snob. Like, let's have cards on the table, hands in the air. Like, it was a bit like, what am I going to do with a curve model? I don't work with Evans. I don't work with, like, this is just not my wheelhouse.

11:22And he's like, Ashley's in London, meet her. So she came, and IMG at the time was like a big open room. So she walked through, and then she stood in the doorway. She's like, hi, I'm here to see Ian. And I looked up, and my jaw literally hit the floor. she was so beautiful she was like i like a monica bellucci kind of vibe but just voluptuous and she was just i mean she was like woman and after seeing a lot of you know runway models you're not your eye isn't accustomed to that so we went out i took her to a converted toilet for lunch we sat around an old urinal which had a tablecloth on it come and see the london way babe Get the London look.

12:00Tessa Dewing: This is gritty. This is gritty. This is urban. Come and live my life. So we sat there and we had a really great time. And she had the dirtiest laugh I think I'd ever heard. And she was, even walking down the street with her, like you could see the reaction she got from men and women. And it was just like, she was a head turner. And I'd never seen, I've worked with beautiful girls before, but I'd never seen a woman have that reaction on the street. Like it was impactful, you know. and um we got back to the agency and she was like right so this is my day rate I'm working with Evans this is what I do well this is what I earn when I work with so-and-so and I just went I'm gonna I'm gonna stop you there I was like I don't know any of these people and she was like Ivan said you're my agent I was like I am but this isn't my bag at all and she was like well what are we doing then I was like I'm not sure I was like we'll figure it out but her personality and how she was was so incredible.

12:57And during that lunch, she had said...

12:58Tessa Dewing: So she sold herself to you. She sold herself, but she also sold the niche and the industry that was lacking because before then, you'd never get a curve model on the cover of Vogue. Like the curviest girl I'd put on Vogue before then was Kate Upton. It wasn't something that worked with that world at all. Over here, you go up to basically a size six or a size eight, right? And then plus size starts from a size 16 up. And she was like, what about the 80 % of women who are in the middle of that? Absolutely. And she was like, so whilst I am a very successful curve model, she's like, this is where we need to bring open everything up to.

13:31And she introduced me to a few of her cohorts from Ford and they had started a thing called Alva, which was like a midsize and plus size movement, basically. And just hearing her explain her part of the industry and where she fit into it. And I just thought, if you're converting me, all I need to do is get you in front of other people. And you just need to do this. So we did a week of appointments. She went to see Vogue. She went to see Katie Grant. She went to see Porter Magazine, Sunday Time Style, a few other people. And we got six covers in the first six months. It was like a domino effect.

14:09Rosie at Vogue called straight back up and said, we're going to do a feature on her. And then Porter, we did a cover. and then Elle, they wanted to do a cover. We did cover magazine in Denmark. We did Sunday Time Style cover interview. Like it was just a snowball.

14:24Tessa Dewing: And she then became a huge part of that change. Yeah, and she was the change. She was the change. The other girls really didn't pick up as much as her. And then obviously her good friend Precious Lee and then there's Paloma. And now there's that kind of movement. But yeah, it was her. What did that teach you about being a fashion snob? that was what really taught me about the talent side of things and what you could do because she was the first model that I'd really worked with that we then turned into a brand but she was the first one that we really started and then obviously Gigi and Bella came afterwards but before her when I first got to IMG I was working with like Carolyn Murphy and Erin Wasson and Ashley was the first one that kind of we we had a really good journey together and to this day she's still one of my favorite favorite humans she's brilliant and img didn't separate those models into a curve board no no they were ivan was really adamant that it was going to be one board that's it there's no point in separating them out and i you know yeah i really like that yeah yeah i really like that because i also think when you go through agency websites there's so many divisions you've got curved then you've got new faces then you've got development and then you've got something else.

15:36People don't search by that. People don't know where to go. No, no. They don't know where to go. That's why, you know. And actually, funnily enough, when I got back from my travels after IMG, I started my agency called IDAL. We wanted to focus on people's talents and what they have to say and make sure that they're all kind of part of one thing rather than, you know, rather than have to search through a million things.

15:55Tessa Dewing: Do you think the industry has got better about not putting people in boxes now, generally? No. No. No, do you? editorial is just always been like that though hasn't it yeah i guess i think there's very few agencies that really understand how to how to work with a person rather than work with a commercial editorial model but also i think it comes from the brands doesn't it you know and and this is what they'll say and and ultimately it's true you know it's supply and demand you know they're not going to have people on their books that they're not getting work for because the brands aren't booking them and so much of it now with the brands is it transfers over to um the influencer side of things so you know the the models that they want are just models really realistically unless they can they've got a platform to say something else etc so i always tell the girls i i mean even with my first meetings with with with people that i work with i'm like what are your hobbies what do you do lean into them because yeah yeah i mean they need to have a story and and yeah well this It could be the springboard to it, you know, but at the end of the day, this is going to be over at some point.

17:03And you want to have used the platform to have enlarged whatever, you know, whatever endeavors that you have.

17:10Tessa Dewing: So tell me about Idol then. So this was an agency you set up yourself. Yeah. So I got approached by a company called Finder, which was it was still in development. um but it was designed to be like a direct booking platform for the growth in e-com because like 50 of the market is now e-com right so they everybody hated you for doing that then well i didn't do that as an agent i didn't do that i lent away from that i saw the value on what they were trying to do yeah oh so finder was already there was already they hadn't launched properly yet they just they built the direct booking platform yeah they had funding they needed they needed you know somebody who knew the industry well to be able to take it on i wanted to portray models in a different way but i also wanted to lean into their talents so i signed a beautiful girl called yuta adepo absolutely stunning and she had done her dissertation at oxford in how to reappropriate sub-saharan land for new gen power and she was working with renewable energies and trading etc but she also looked like a modern niomi campbell she was incredible i wanted to work with a beautiful people but people who actually had a talent that weren't just the daughters or the sons of or whatever and a story because when we go back to uh agencies being portrayed in a certain way i didn't want it to be curveboard this that all the rest of it everybody had their own channel and you scroll through on a continuous loop and then when you land on someone you liked it would scroll along and you could see the whole channel so and i really wanted people to start having voices

18:46Tessa Dewing: so you've spoken about talent being treated as two-dimensional this kind of goes on from that doesn't it and you know said that agencies need to look at people's stories and you know yeah i mean they know this now don't they yeah i think that's definitely developed hasn't it as a straight up model unless you're on a talent board they don't and unless you specifically say to your agency oh i'm an artist and this is my instagram it's not really part of the course people don't really lean into that side of things so much and for me it's how i always sold the girls yeah it tends to be more of a content creator doesn't it yeah you know like oh she's incredible she's an artist she's just you know like you've got to you've got to hype them up yeah to get them to get them yeah they're so the market is so saturated now you've got to give clients a reason to want to book well this is it the amount i talk you can't translate that into an email with that anyone will read so please get on the phone for five minutes i could say a lot to me tell you telling a life story yeah but also we're now moving into an industry that's driven by data you know an AI so how do you use technology to understand somebody better without reducing them to a collection of data points I think the AI thing is a different direction altogether when the social media started coming in I remember the ad agencies would laugh at the social media people and like you know the advertisers the big ad guys would get the they would still get their big you know 300 400 grand budgets do their big campaigns all the rest of it and they'd be like social media and now it's like it's a complete roll of that yeah exactly because it is quantifiable you can see exactly who likes it who's buying it you can click through all of this so whilst i think it's very good for brands um and a really strong tool to be able to market things properly there is also an element of the creativity that goes with it you know like those days of finding a complete random on the street and then getting a shot for a tom ford campaign yeah they don't happen that much anymore because it's like oh we've got so and so but she's also going to post on a tiktok and she's got 300 000 followers and then she goes out to you know so they it you know the the data is um it rules us all now doesn't it yeah absolutely so But AI, you know, you touched on AI.

21:06I think that's a different conversation. There's a lot happening with AI now, which I think people in the industry are very scared about. Listen, fashion people are not the most organized people in the world. And AI can do all of that. So if you use it for good. For what it's good at. If you use it for good.

21:21Tessa Dewing: Yeah, and keep the creativity. And you keep the creativity and you free yourself up to be able to have the conversations and to create beautiful images and to nurture a community. I think that's where we need to lean into. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But people need to understand it and to start working with it because it's not going away. And I think there are still a lot of people that are anti and in denial and we're never going to use it and we're never, and that's just not realistic. Going back to agencies, agencies are always the last people to the party and they are so resilient about any kind of change.

21:56I think sometimes it's better to embrace the change than be left behind the curve.

22:00Tessa Dewing: Absolutely. So I think that's where we are now. And it's just like if people don't lean into things, the industry will change and you won't be you won't be part of it. Yeah. And ultimately, you know, agencies have got to represent their talent. They've got to do the best for their talent, for their models. Well, this is it. The models are on it. Yeah. You know, the models are and AI is changing so fast. You know, week to week, it's changing. And there's always going to be issues with people wanting to make sure that their data is protected, which is, you know, fair enough. Yeah. But at the same time, a lot of faff happens in agencies that doesn't need to happen anymore, you know.

22:42And a lot of those systems can be centralized and streamlined. You want your best agents to be able to agent. Yes. You want them on the phone. There's no point having a road.

22:52Tessa Dewing: Robot just tapping on her. Well, this is it. Anyone can do that. Anyone can do that. This is absolutely. Get anyone to do that or get AI to do that. Yeah, and get them out again. Get them out. This episode is brought to you by Digital Twinsets. As we talk about the future of our industry, one of the biggest conversations right now is AI.

23:16Tessa Dewing: Digital Twinsets is a worldwide casting platform created to help brands embrace new technology while protecting the people behind the images. Working with real agency-represented talent, Digital Twinsets creates approved digital asset packs that give brands flexibility while keeping consent, control and transparency at the centre. Learn more at digitaltwinsets.com Tell me about your thinking around Tracker and why you created that. It's an operating system for freelance creatives. it was built for models because I advise on this beautiful girl Lydia Angel and her mother is her mother agent her mother is her mother is a mother agent she took over mother agency a while ago on her and she doesn't know the industry that well so it was or she didn't she does now but I created it so she could understand international taxes and commission statements etc etc and how much commission is coming off and why has this been held back etc and I was demoing it to them we I was in rome on a shoot for um a harper's cover with uh with somebody and it was a bulgare special so there was like 16 team shooting because the jewelry just being released and i was demoing it um via zoom and they after i finished the call there was about four or five people they're like i'm sorry what were you talking about and i was like oh it's this app that that i built for for my team and they were like does it work for hairstylists does it work for makeup artists i was like well yeah i guess it works for anyone actually so many people are self-representing now not models in particular but hairstylists makeup artists photographers etc yeah are represented themselves yeah so i just thought and the freelancing economy it's 45 of the global workforce and nothing has ever been specifically built for them when your details are sent to you from either client or your agency you screenshot it the ai reads it and drops it into your calendar so you don't need your google calendar it creates um it looks a lot like booking software so it uses the same blue for a fitting or a meeting and you know yellow for an option red for a job etc so there's no kind of confusion if you uh need to invoice your agency if you're a limited company you can do that or if you need to invoice the client so it creates your invoicing structure exactly yeah so it can also create and package all of your accounts for your accountant to take a look at fantastic yeah because because actually creatives aren't normally the most organized people when it comes to accounts.

25:43Tessa Dewing: Well, this is it. And it's like, this can actually take care of all of it now. Yeah, plus it's complicated for someone, especially young models coming into the industry. Well, the thinking is, at the moment, we did a bit of a survey and around the average working model, if they're earning around 100 ,000 a year, are losing just under 10 ,000 to tax every year in different countries that they're not reclaiming, withholding taxes, et cetera. Double taxation. Double taxation. So it's about trying to nip that in the bud. And when these girls come into this game, they're, I mean, thankfully it's 18 but it's their kids you know and then you get a statement through i can barely read a statement from paris let alone and i've been doing it for you know over two decades so how how the hell these young girls are going to be like oh great what's the ir well yeah i can you know what i mean it handles all of your billings in your you know to your agency it creates a data layer so you know when you're in you can put in when your invoice is going to be paid so 30 60 day 90 day terms it has open banking so it syncs with your bank accounts so you can see when your invoice comes in where your finances will sit and if you're going to dip into the red at any point it can say do you need a short-term loan this is what you're owed this is what you're owed you've got these invoices outstanding we can loan against them but more than that freelancers historically have a really tough time accessing credit of any kind of of any kind that goes for credit cards mortgages bank a car you know car purchases etc and this builds up a proprietary data layer on that's so valuable isn't it well because people scratch around otherwise you know it doesn't matter if you're only 100 grand a year if it's on a freelancer and you're invoicing yourself it's like not not recognized it's not recognized and with so much of the economy now actually the gig economy is it's all freelancers i thought it was necessary and then you can flip between so we built it out so it's not just for the individual You're not doing the tech on this.

27:33Tessa Dewing: You have someone that does your... So it has been built properly. I vibe-coded the first iteration of it, which we were using, me and my team members. But no, for scaling and for everything else, I've got an in-house team now who are brilliant. My CFO is brilliant. He's ex-Bank of England and ex-Credit Suisse, and he's working with the British government on the new open banking systems, and I've got a really brilliant engineer as well. So yeah, we've got a solid team. So are you to market with it now? We are testing at the moment, testing with some girls for New York, London, Paris, Milan, which is great.

28:09It's getting a really good response. And then we open up, we launch middle of October to everybody.

28:13Tessa Dewing: And will it be a subscription model, presumably? It's a freeman model, so it's free to begin with and then subscription. And then as it grows, when the invoice factoring comes in, we'll take a small commission of that. And then also, so you can also flip between whether you are a talent or you can flip between like a producer or an agent i didn't think of this at the time and then somebody overheard me another person overheard me talking about the app and they were like we work in music does this work for us so we've got some great conversations going on with both the tv side of things and the film and the music side of things as well so if you're producing an event or and you you can have multiple calendars you can have 30 people on your calendar you can always organize their travel you've got communication over there and then you can always Spackman supports with it as well.

28:59Tessa Dewing: Have you got a competitor? No. Is there anybody that doesn't? There isn't anyone. No. Bizarrely. Fantastic. There's some people. So MediaSlide and Booker and those kind of stuff. But they have stuff for the models. If the agency has MediaSlide, then the model... That's what I mean, but not for freelancers. But none of this, no. So touch the wood, girl. Fingers crossed we're the only ones at the moment. It won't be long before everyone jumps on my bandwagon. And can they chat to it as well? Yes. So you can just talk to it. You can talk to Claude or Chachi Batee or whatever. Yeah. Hi, tell me what's on this week.

29:30Tell me what's coming up. How much money am I owed? Take a look at my invoices. Can we figure out a loan, et cetera, et cetera.

29:37Tessa Dewing: And all their bookings will go in there as well. Yeah, you can just do a screenshot. The AI does the rest. Where am I working next week? Or manually you can just say, hi, can you put a meeting on the charts for me for Wednesday? Yeah. I hope it's a bit of a game changer for the industry because the amount of times girls are like, I owe 20 ,000 in tax and I need to make it in the next three weeks. Well, this is what happens, isn't it? Yeah, and I was having a conversation with an accountant that deals with creatives the other day, and this is what happens. With Evolves. He pulled all his hair out.

30:03Tessa Dewing: Yes, he looked very old. No, it's fine, Kirsty. He did. He said if people come to me, he's literally carrying bags worth of receipts. They're all screwed up, aren't they? You know, five years, they've not done it, and they've got this massive tax bill in their pantry. So this, you take pictures of your receipts, and it locks everything. There's safety features built in there. You have check-ins. so when you drop your your your schedule for the day or whatever in you can say do you want to set up your check-in so you might have three castings in the day 11 o 'clock one o 'clock three o 'clock and you can set up your check-ins with a chaperone or an agent or whatever if they have if they have the app on their phone as well yeah and then it will say like so and so hasn't checked in for a three o 'clock appointment do you want to check if she's okay see that's just brilliant isn't it i hope so or if they're in distress they can tap the screen five times and it will send an emergency notification so it's like a panic button a panic button basically what is it trained on what decisions can it it sort of make like how are you it doesn't make any human-like decisions it can tell you what's on your chart it can help you with flights you can book your flights on it but could travel you normally like to fly out of here this is what i suggest etc your hotels or the rest of it but it doesn't make any career decisions and it's obviously got all your historical booking data and things like that it grows it aggregates all of that as you go along so basically essentially as you as it gets to know you better it knows a your schedule so where you are you've got this job in milan in two days time you're in new york you want me to look for flights blah blah blah i'll email your team or the communication is all set up there it's like a whatsapp integration so you can message your team members on it and be like is this flight okay great i'm booking it yeah yeah um and so you've got safeguards around what it can see and what it can't like what it can use and the data that goes into it is is you know even on our terms and conditions it's not it's not used by us for anything it's it's your data and when you leave it goes with you so yeah because obviously the the danger with ai is that it it learns from historical data so you know you've got the bias but i think i think the thing with this industry is and why ai is never going to come in and replace agents or replace decision makers or taste makers is because it doesn't have any taste and you can't teach that if we can use ai to do all these bits and pieces and sorting out your flights and your calendars the road there's so much of my day when i was an agent was taken on that you know yeah and answering a million emails from people that you know you're on a chain of emails with 25 other people that all have to put their fucking oar in don't they yeah that is true like that i agree you did not need to write i agree it's another fucking thing to open oh I hate that when someone literally replies laughing smiley face like oh my god all of you die

32:53Tessa Dewing: you're also publishing the fine print I am which you describe as a working model's guide to contacts usage rights and rates yes because I just think there's so many there's so many people trying to get into the industry and there's so many young models that also are multi-hyphenates. So singers, actors, this, that. And I don't think people really understand what they're signing into. And what the commercial value is in different types of the business. I also don't think traditional agency contracts have changed for years. Yeah. And they're also very much skewed towards the agency maintaining control.

33:34And I think you've got to be... I don't think kids really understand that they do have options. They don't have to sign everything.

33:41Tessa Dewing: I think there's a power imbalance still in the industry there, especially from clients, from brands. Well, this is it. Who'll go, well, if you don't sign that, we'll just use someone else. And, you know, I think if you're young, you're a 19-year-old model that, you know, is trying to please everyone, is sort of new to the industry, you're just going to sign it, aren't you? The models with mother agents, the mother agents obviously know the game a little bit better, so they can be like, oh, actually, I'm going to push back on this point, I'm going to push back on this, et cetera. But there are so many young kids out there who are just like, oh, my God, I've got a contract.

34:10And it's like, sign it. It's like, and the parents will be like, I'm not sure if this is quite right. I don't understand it.

34:13Tessa Dewing: Especially with AI contracts and clauses now. So the fine print is basically, I just think there's, people need a little bit more access to information before they go into these things headlong. Because also contracts are what, an average of three years. And that, for a 16-year-old, that's a big chunk. If you're going to become a musician or you're going to become an actor or whatever, that's a big chunk of your life. Oh, you suddenly sign with an agency and then you realise you don't feel like they're the right fit for whatever reason. And then once you start working and you've got a bit of career and you've got a bit of clout behind you, you go back and you think, actually, I'm not signing this.

34:46And when my renewal comes through, I don't want to do this and blah, blah. And you can do that from the start.

34:49Tessa Dewing: And some agencies are awful about that. They really won't let people out of their contracts. Very controlling contracts. People in fashion tend to take things very personally. And it's a business the same as anything else. So it's just like, I think everyone just needs to relax a bit. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we're not saving lives. We're not saving lives. We've got anywhere near, to be honest. Shortening them, if anything. Mine in particular and that accountant you were talking about. Yeah, definitely. Bless him. He was only 35. He just looked 70. Stress of all those loose receipts. Yeah. Having spent a lot of years as an agent, what are the things you think models most commonly maybe don't understand about the business side?

35:31Oh, God, the rejection, isn't it? For any kind of person with any kind of sense of autonomy or agency about them to not have any control over their career, you know. And there's a lot of agents out there who are not very communicative or...

35:47Tessa Dewing: Oh, they're not very knowledgeable as well. Sometimes they're just like, well, yeah, I'll get my commission on that. I don't really care. So many new kids are in there as agents as well, you know, which is great. Like you need fresh blood, but you also have to have an understanding of humanity and how to have a conversation and and and the industry that you're working in. Yes. And I think back to when I was there running new faces and I'm like, they're talking to parents and their kids. I've only been doing it for two fucking months. I'm like, I don't know what I'm saying. No, you know, but they're looking to you because you're the person in the chair.

36:17Yeah, exactly.

36:18Tessa Dewing: But also, you know, letting, you know, a model down, you know, they that option that they've got, that could be their rent for the next two months and they've got nothing else coming in. and you're suddenly ringing them up going, I'm sorry, babe, to get that. That's why they have tracker now. Yeah. Little blood. Yeah, but, you know, I think just understanding what you're saying to them at that point, you know. It's one of the only industries that you really need to have a human touch in. I agree. And the distance that emails and the lack of communication puts between people is difficult, you know.

36:53Tessa Dewing: Yeah, yeah. You've got to be able to call somebody and have a, you know, I get to know like well when I was an agent I used I got I got to know all the girls really well we'd be out for lunch as they come and stay like it's you know it's part of the job you've got to like them as well you know you want to you've got to sell this person you want to do the best for them let's start with usage you know someone new here's UK digital and social for 12 months right you know what does that actually mean you know will will is that the sort of thing that you're going to be explaining or that you're explaining some bits of it yeah i mean obviously usages and and uh change from brand to brand and what they're signing off on now i've just tackled uh contract clauses and stuff they can push back on i'm doing a small series on the social media which is just kind of a a cornerstone of what you should be looking out for what you shouldn't be yeah uh what rates you should be expecting maybe a checklist a checklist of what you can push back on like if you're doing packaging it should really be around this kind of mark if you're doing you know if you're doing e-com it's this kind of window depending on how often you work etc but it's I mean it's like how long is a piece of string you know yeah but then the fine print is essentially uh it's coming out um at the end of this month and it's just a downloadable handbook for people for models and creatives to be able to say okay this is just some stuff that I can just an overview of what I'm going into we were on a job in Germany and one of my talents this contract was put in front of her and she was performing at one o 'clock in the morning it was an after party and the contract was given to us at 12 o 'clock at midnight yeah and i was like she's not signing this well you were there yeah i was there just gone well everyone else also they go oh your agent's seen this or something she was part of a whole uh of a whole crew performing and everyone else was signing it and i just i was like you and i'd gone with her because you know we're friends and i managed her i was just like you're not signing this and she's just like but what if they don't let me go on and i was just like well i was like this is what this means it means that anything that happens after this date you do not have control over your image so it doesn't matter what you become or how big you become you can turn into lady fucking gaga and they can just do an ai clone of you and do whatever they want i see i'm waiting for that to happen with you know it's not far look how good it is at the moment yeah these are the the parts of the industry where you have to know where to push back on and yeah actually why are we using ai for that when this is a human thing.

39:18It's, you know, art and culture and film and music. These are human connections, you know. They resonate with us on a compassionate level and it shouldn't be, you know.

39:28Tessa Dewing: Also, contracts can be 30 pages long, tiny small print, you know. It's just, God, you know. I mean, AI, thank God, has actually helped with that to sort of be able to read it. But literally my agents would be like, God, I've spent four hours today looking through bloody contracts because it just got you know ridiculous in different languages and two pages you know exclusivity you know they stick exclusivity clause in it's like all of a sudden the model signs something and they can't work for any other car brands or something for five years love a bit of exclusivity don't they yeah it's um it's really important i think that you know it's where a good agent comes in as well as you know knowing knowing all of those yeah you know clauses and advising but yeah that's that's kind of why the fine print really leads into tracker because i just want that historically nothing has ever been built for the actual talent the people that do the work yeah are scratching around trying to figure out their own accounts their own calendars all the rest of it and everybody else has the software so this is you know i'm just trying to bring a little bit of um clarity to to to the industry for people yeah do you think models also know focus on you know the the headline fee and not the fee for the the usage you know because yeah but then also you know like with paris for example you've got like say there's there's a campaign you don't know how much you're getting commissioned on because there's different day rates for different agencies and then your usage rate is something else and that and the usages get paid at a different time and they can't pay the usage out to you unless you've got your your foreign tax certificate and it's a fucking minefield and i like i said i still have trouble with it after 25 years so to put all your experience and knowledge into tracker that's really going to help like the genie in the bottle yes you should be the little avatar it should be you not gaia gaia it should be ian that's the right one isn't it yeah you should be ian um yeah with your glasses they're good aren't they yeah i should have worn them but i couldn't see a damn thing with them they're only they're purely for vanity sake rock star glasses exactly yeah yeah definitely ask ian exactly yeah definitely it's about as catchy as ask jeeves isn't it yeah what happened to that what are the particular words or clauses in contracts that models should be looking out for i think like you said any kind of exclusivities need to be looked at release dates are the other thing like you might shoot and then the campaign won't come out for six months and if you signed for a year and it's a hair job they normally require you know a period of you being out of another market not having a shot with another hair brand those kind of things like when when things are released it's difficult that's really difficult to put you know it's difficult to keep on top of even for an agent if you're trying to be a singer make sure you're not signing a contract which is all media you know you want different agents to be able to take control of different areas of your career it's a minefield it's a minefield out there so there's a lot of different things in the contracts but if they tune into my social media they can agencies i think have always been quite gatekept like yeah you know models they haven't let models really understand what they're doing they've just done the job they're not allowed to see the charts yeah and i think it's really important that models understand you know what they're agreeing to there needs to be more transparency within the industry late payment is one of the night how is it still happening well it shouldn't be because we used to have well they used to have a 30-day payment and they used to have a 10-day check clearance yeah but 30-day payment i'm not going to name any names there's a massive like with idal we had two girls shop for one of the biggest brands in the world and it was 18 months before we got paid and it was only 1500 quid each that's disgusting where do you think creative professionals will still need like human support um and relationships listen there's there's never going to be a replica for um for a good agent well how do you know what a good agent is if you're a new model going to see agents how do you know because that's so difficult now i mean anyone can set themselves up can't they as an agent yeah you know say all sorts of things and build an amazing look well i think this is also one of the reasons why with the contracts like a three-year contract is very restrictive you know if you go into it and a you don't like the agent or the agent doesn't like you you've got no way of getting out of it so actually back like leading this back to one of your other questions i think people need to be aware that they can put in a termination clause and just be like you know if this isn't working or like if i haven't been suggested for any work etc um i need to be able to get out of it i understand the work that goes in you know when you have someone new and you're testing and you're doing it but six months actually because actually by that time they've got to know you and if they like you and if it's working then they're just going to stay with you i don't understand why they need contracts this is how a lot of the influencers work yeah you know so um because i think when they come to agencies they've already they've already got an established client base anyway you know but um it's very difficult figuring out who's a good agent especially when you don't know the industry this is why i would always say like find a mother agent and you know and because they know the game already but game there's so many mother agents now i think you know it used to be you know you know select or img or next or whatever you'd be the mother agent yeah for the models that worked in this territory and then you'd place them sort of around the world whereas now there's so many people set themselves up as scouts or mother agents which isn't a bad thing i don't think because i think a lot of sometimes with those big agencies you can get lost yeah true you know and if you don't have somebody who's specific and there has to be someone good though that understands the industry doesn't it otherwise it's not gonna be if somebody doesn't you know and they're not actually doing the best things for you because they don't really know and they haven't got the contacts and the connections this is one of the reasons also i wanted to try and shed a bit more light about the industry for people wanting to get in because it's such a closed circuit that unless you know what you're doing or who you're talking to you know you've got no clue what's happening ian thank you very much my pleasure and if you've enjoyed this podcast please subscribe leave a review and share it with someone who might find it interesting thanks for listening and we'll see you next time