'Half-price' fashion models also tightening their belts

Today, a teenager from a tiny village in Eastern Europe, inspired by beauty pageants and television shows such as “America's Next Top Model”, may e-mail her photo to an agent and find herself lifted to overnight fame.

But in general, the lucky few who secure an agent are still a long way from succeeding. Diamond said half of the models her agency hires do not make it to the next stage as their teenage bodies fill out, or they decide to focus on their education.

The ones who do reach the top — not counting stars like Kate Moss or Naomi Campbell — can make US$500,000 a year.

GLAMOUR CRISIS

Backstage at the Christian Lacroix haute couture show, such top models in pink puffball skirts, taffeta jackets and ruched dresses tower over a throng of stylists and photographers.

Minders help them cross the room on precariously high stiletto heels, make-up artists dab extra powder on their faces, assistants warn that the show is about to begin.

“Give me everything you got, baby!” a photographer shouts at a posing and pouting blonde in a froth of tulle.

The mood is exuberant, but some have secret worries.

“I'm having some doubt now because of this situation. We all do it for the money so if there is no more money, maybe I should go back and focus on my studies,” said Georgina Stojiljkovic, a 19-year-old from Serbia with feline, scowling looks.

She put her degree in political science on hold a year ago to work full-time and shares part of her fees with her family.

“There is still more money in this than almost any other job. I earn more than my parents — it's kind of sad, they went to school and have worked for years,” she told Reuters.

Suddenly looking serious, she said the crisis may be a good thing if it forced her to finish her university degree.

Anna Chyzh, the Ukrainian model, hopes her friends in the fashion industry will help her find other work if the phone stops ringing.

Recruited as teenagers, with little experience in anything other than smiling at cameras, many full-time models interviewed at the shows did not have alternative plans but worried about work drying up.

Others said they had seen worse.

Talk of the downturn elicits a mere shrug and smile from Pablo Ballay, a lanky 23-year-old male model from Argentina at the Dior menswear show.

“A lot of models here are from Argentina, and when you live in that kind of country you live in a continuous crisis,” he said backstage after the show. “So you see how well people live here and you say, what, this is a crisis?”

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