Kaatje Gotcha was a model in Paris in the 80s. Independent, she quickly advised young models to "drink water" during the evenings. - Kaatje Gotcha

  • While fashion week, a crucial moment for fashion, is currently taking place in Paris, 20 Minutes took an interest in the daily life of models in the 1980s and 1990s in the French capital.
  • Some have crossed paths with Jean-Luc Brunel, a French agent, who dated American billionaire Jeffrey Epstein.
  • Thirty years later, "young models are not safer now," said Sara Ziff, an activist for model rights.

At the end of the line, the voice is determined. Arhel *, however, thought before accepting the interview. Too many bad memories linked to Paris and modeling, a profession she practiced in the late 1990s. “For me, it is important that young girls know. So she says: her working conditions, her accommodation, her arrival in an unknown city. “I started modeling at 15. I needed money to pay a bill, so I decided to try modeling. It worked very well. That's how it was done, a combination of circumstances. "

At 20, she arrived in the French capital. Her agency had promised her an apartment reserved for models, when she arrived she found herself in a hotel "in a bad neighborhood", "shabby" and with "insects". “I felt very lost. She warns her parents and her agency. She then places it in two apartments for mannequins. Several young women share the premises. Again, the young woman finds it difficult to feel comfortable. "You never knew who had the keys. One time, his things are stolen.

Financial independence, key to freedom

While running the castings, the young woman wins important contracts with regular customers, which allow her more freedom towards her agency. And this is crucial: “I once refused to go to a party for the owner of the agency. I was put in a very small room, it was my punishment. After the incident, the young woman decides to take up her own accommodation. When her career begins to take off, the young woman decides to change agencies.

During her days, Arhel spends them from casting to photo shoots where the booker who takes care of her sends her. Working for an agency, the booker is "like a second mom," explains Julianne *, a former accountant for a Parisian modeling agency, to 20 Minutes . It is he who tells the models which casting to go to, who advises them on their book (their photo book, the business card of the models). “If it was a bad day, because the casting had gone wrong, the girls turned to the booker. "

"The days are long and the competition fierce"

“The days are long and the competition fierce. It was not easy for the girls, remembers the accountant. They could end up at 50 on a casting. It's like the actors, you have to know how to stand out. "

To make room for yourself, you have to persevere and have the "look": a "subtle" air, the air "to be a little sick" and to be "very thin", remembers Arhel. The young woman had a BMI of 15.3, a result that ranked her well below the BMI of a “normal build”, set by the WHO between 18.5 and 25.

"I've always been skinny," recalls Arhen. The clothes you are asked to wear are very small, as soon as you gain weight you cannot work. "

Pressure to lose weight

"You have to devote a lot of time to losing weight, to being lean," confirms Anne Dorte Grauballe, who lived six months in Paris in 1986 and 1987. We told you all the time to lose weight. I think it is not very healthy. I remember making fun of it because sometimes it was so ridiculous: we asked to lose weight on our ankles. "

When she arrives in Paris, the young woman is already strong from a modeling experience in the United States, where she was spotted when she was a student. Upon her return to Denmark, where she is from, she approached a local agency which asked her to come to Paris to enrich her portfolio.

"A time of pioneers"

“This period in Paris for me was very exciting. She discovers the city, shares an apartment with other models. He sometimes goes out, "but I have always stayed away from drugs," she says.

"It was a time of pioneers, there was no telephone, no Internet, launches Marie *. It was really exciting to discover a new city. "The Dutch arrived in Paris at 19 in 1986." The 1980s were a pivotal period for fashion, models began to have a face and a name, "she analyzes. Models are asked to have an attitude, to no longer be mere faces. A change probably favored by the improvement of the material allowing the shots.

Blackmailing "

Arriving in Paris, where she will spend five years, Marie joins FAM, "one of the best modeling agencies" of the 1980s. "They have always treated me in an extraordinary way". After a while, Marie wants to diversify her work and joins another agency. “It was there that I began to understand that not all agencies were as friendly as the first one I discovered. One day, the director of an agency "tries to seduce her". “He put me in a difficult situation; when I refused, he tried to blackmail me by telling me that I could no longer work. The young woman leaves for another agency. "I was 19 or 20 at the time, and I think if you are 15 it's much harder for you to say no. "

It was in London that Anne had to oppose an agency director. Invited to stay with him for a weekend, the man insists that she go to his room. The young woman refuses and the man will eventually leave her. "I was naive," she says. It will be the only "bad experience" she will have during her stay in Paris.

"Older men couldn't convince girls to sit with them"

The presence of mannequins is also sought in bars or nightclubs. "In a club, we always had people around us," says Marie. In the evenings, at the Bains Douches, Kaatje Gotcha * observes young men flirting with the models, sometimes barely fifteen years old. "The older men could not convince the girls to sit with them, says the Dutchwoman, who arrived at Paris in 16 in 1986 for the agency Elite Plus. They had these young men who attracted girls. They were the ones who served as love bait and introduced the girls to those who were their bosses. "

These men, in their twenties or thirties, appeared to be "friends with everyone". They attract girls "with their perfect English and their good looks". They help the models, leading them to the castings. In this world, the Baths Showers play a central role, advance the Dutchwoman. “It was the place to connect people, to connect models with men. "

At 20, she is no longer invited to parties

Kaatje Gotcha quickly distrusts this environment. “Very quickly, people warned me, hairdressers, older models told me to be careful. When she is invited to a private party, she takes care to empty her glass of champagne in the bathroom and makes sure that she never spends an isolated night when she is not in her apartment. “I was very careful when I was with these people. It is very difficult to distinguish who is really nice from who is nice but has ulterior motives. "

The young woman manages to distance herself from her entourage. "I had already traveled all over the world, I could see all the falsehood [of this medium]. I was still laughing at all of those ugly old guys. I was joking, saying that when they were in a wheelchair, they would always try to pick up on girls aged 16. I was not far from reality. At 20, she says, the invitations stopped coming to her. She has an explanation, her age: "when I was 17, I looked like I was 13".

"I thought there was something really bad in this city"

She remembers a private party in the summer of 1987 when she was 18 years old, in a huge residence, attended by agents and models. "The time for dinner has arrived. I spoke enough French [to understand] and they joked that "at our parties, we have all these little rooms and people go there to do what they have to do". I replied in a loud voice, "I can't even imagine how much fun your housekeeper must have!" They laughed, but with a bad heart. Kaatje Gotcha warns young models who have just arrived in Paris at this party. She tells them "to not trust these people and to drink water. "I thought there was something really bad in this city," she says. There was lust, corruption. "

Jean-Luc Brunel "looked eccentric, a bit shady"

At Bains Douches and in private parties, she meets Jean-Luc Brunel, a French agent, buyer of the agency Karin Models in the late 1970s and accused of having "delivered" girls to the American billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, which 'he disputes. "He looked eccentric, a bit shady, but not directly towards me. In 1988, she went to his agency because he offered her better work offers.

Models remember having seen Jean-Luc Brunel at Bains Douches. - Myspace screenshot

Kaatje Gotcha remembers meeting Jean-Luc Brunel "five or six times". She hears stories about him "all the time". One of her friends, a model for the Elite agency, tells her that she was forced to go in 1981, at the age of 13, to an evening where "Jean-Luc Brunel's friends were". "She told me that she was asked to wear something sexy. "

"Karin Models and Elite plus were the most reputable agencies"

At the time, the agencies in Paris were numerous. "Karin Models and Elite plus were the most reputable agencies," recalls Kaatje Gotcha. There was an authentic job for the models in Paris, like what I did. "She also realizes that there is" a base ":" many modeling agencies were escort services. It was a way for very wealthy businessmen to get in touch with young models, ”she says. A few years later, Arhel made a similar observation. After changing agencies, she discovers that her first agency, where she carried out legitimate modeling work, “apparently seemed not to be funded by modeling. "

Today, these four women have left modeling. With hindsight, Arhel advises every girl who gets into the business “to have their own manager. Young girls are often very young when they arrive in Paris or Milan and they need someone who acts as a "parent" to take care of them. No agency can do it. "In this business," we do not play on equal terms, "says Kaatje.

Thirty years later, are these practices still going on? Since 2017, the LVMH groups (which notably hold Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton or Kenzo) and Kering (Saint Laurent, Gucci or Alexander McQueen) have committed to no longer working with models under the age of 16 and wearing a smaller size 34. Models must also provide a medical certificate that is less than six months old to work. The charter adopted by the two luxury giants aims to preserve the “well-being” of the models. Thus "nudity or semi-nudity situations must have been explicitly accepted by the models" during the shootings. These must be accommodated by the agencies in “accommodation offering a level of comfort that respects their well-being. "

A compulsory medical certificate to work

Since the same year, the law also obliges the models to provide a medical certificate dated less than two years. Modified photographs must bear the mention "retouched photograph", in order "to avoid the promotion of inaccessible ideals of beauty and to prevent anorexia in young people", specifies the Ministry of Health.

In the United States, Federico Pignatelli, director of a large network of photo studios and the agency The Industry, launched in 2018 a "declaration of the rights of mannequins". Himself accused of sexual harassment before being exonerated in 2014, he agrees with his agency to provide contracts "standardized", "easy to understand" and "fair for both parties".

"Young models aren't safer now" than they used to be

Despite these initiatives, "young models are no more secure now than in the 1980s and 1990s," said former model Sara Ziff to 20 Minutes . “Models and aspiring models are always under pressure to sleep with agents and agencies always send young models to“ dinners ”with older men. These problems are not a thing of the past and are closely linked to economic exploitation, the lack of financial transparency and the unbalanced contracts that models often have to sign with their agencies. Sexual harassment, abuse, economic exploitation, being blacklisted and trafficked: this violence is omnipresent and always takes place in the modeling industry, ”she explains.

To defend decent working conditions, the American has just founded the Model Alliance . In October, she met in Paris the Secretary of State for Gender Equality Marlène Schiappa as well as representatives of LVMH, Kering and Chanel to present the Respect initiative. This program “invites fashion companies to commit to ending harassment and other forms of abuse. "He encourages models and industry players" to complete confidential complaints, which would be the subject of independent investigations, with real consequences for the attackers. "

* Names or first names have been changed.

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