FASHIONDOESITBETTER
Maud: There is not one specific idea. There are ideas, thoughts, observations and analyses between the lines - I guess when you get involved in one specific domain, some issues catch your attention and points of views come naturally - but we never proceed in a frontal way as we want to keep it strongly focused on visions and aesthetics. We don't consider FDIB as our aim per se but simply as the best medium we've found so far.
Penny: Besides, the opportunities for agencies to promote their newest discoveries or models on the rise have dramatically increased since we started four years ago. The offer is getting huge but on the other side of the business, the demand is getting tinier than ever. Agencies in Paris, New York and other main markets are looking for the "wow factor" rather than signing hundreds of newbies per year. The offer can look random then and we sometimes get the impression some sites go for new faces for the sake of new faces. It's turning into a misleading concept as agencies are not really looking for girls who will do one season but for great models. The mother agencies who will survive in the end are those with a certain ability to understand this and also reinvent their role as real model managers. We don't know yet how far this will go and what influence it will have on the international modeling landscape but the promotion+placement combo is turning into a real nonsense that we want to avoid as much as possible when we pick a new model for FDIB.
LDFSPOT
Back in the days, when Irina Kulikova or Kasia Struss appeared on the scene, I put a special focus on newbies. I tried to seek for all informations about them, checking agencies websites and fashiondoesitbetter, of course. So, then I decided to create my own blog to show my point of view in this industry helping local agencies to showcase their girls and getting new contacts. I just decided I want to be part of this bussines. Nowadays, my passion is especially the model-scouting itself - that’s what I’m trying to do now.
AX80
In comparison to many other fashion blogs, AX80 focuses on all kind of models at various spots in their careers. Fashiondoesitbetter is my favorite as it precisely focuses on new interesting faces across the globe. It's definitely an advantage for new models and smaller agencies to try to launch an interesting face through blogs. After all, every attention is good to an extended point. The trick is being selective and noticing those who burn for this industry and try to showcase the models as such and not just describe their physical attributes. Similarly, AX80 tries to put its own perspective on feelings and moods for a model throughout poetic and witty references making fashion as a whole more available to the public.
MODE-UND-LIFESTYLE
In my opinion New Face Blog's are awesome, at least if they are done in a professional way . I mean so many agents and clients follow these blogs. So its a great chance for a girl to get discovered! Sometimes agencies and photographer's contact me and request for a feature at Mode und Lifestyle. But I also contact them myself if I need to know something. For example Yannis, the headbooker from Placemodels Hamburg, is really nice and supports my blog if I ask for something. Same goes for SMC Model management or MD Management (both german agencies). But I also know some of the girls myself, so I just send them a mail or text and they give me the informations or whatever I like to know from them.
RUNWAYREBELS
I just wanted to give utterance to my interest for fashion and on that account a blog seemed to be a good opportunity to do so. Even tough it took some time until I decided on founding my own blog - since it takes a great deal of work with it. Through the huge attention being spent to blogs by the common media, you see that whatever you entry on, finds a sympathetic ear - I think that blogging itself is more and more being considered as a form of jorunalisim and can therefore be quite an opportunity for getting it started in a real way. An exact idea or vision behind my blog didn't really exist when I first founded it. Even today I prefer not to be focused on a speficic topic, actually. I just aimed to blog what I feel to write about, something that concerns me, all my thoughts and my own opinion on numerous propositions, don't even neccersarly have to do with fashion. As for agencies, good blogs are a nice and an efficient chance to introduce and promote their New Faces. And I'm totally in favor with online sources like modelinia which adapt themselves the world of established models and New Faces.
MODELWHISPERS
Regarding model development through model blogs - first, I thought it was a great idea, but now there's just too many blogs like those and they post so many New Faces everyday and only 10 models out of 10,000 have some potential. And even they get lost in those 10,000 with time. I have mixed feelings about them, I guess. Most of the times it’s hard to predict who is going to make it and who isn’t.
