Strike A Pose

On a regular Thursday afternoon, many juniors can be found finishing cups of coffee as they crack open textbooks, mentally preparing for hours of homework. Others may be at sports practices, running sprints up and down the Big Gym’s squeaky floors. For junior Sophie Besold, a Thursday afternoon may look a bit different. Besold discreetly exits school in an all-black outfit and heels with a backpack hanging over one shoulder. She makes her way downtown to MP Management Chicago, the modeling agency with which she has been signed since May.

“I had been approached before a couple times, but I didn’t really follow through with it,” Besold said. “I was a little younger, so I was kind of apprehensive to trusting people that I had met on the street.” Besold became interested in MP Management after her current agent approached her at a concert in late March. “I knew someone that had worked at the agency, so I knew it was reputable,” Besold said. “I trusted them a bit more.”

MP Management is an international network of models with locations in Chicago, Los Angeles, Paris, Stockholm, and Milan, among other cities. According to their website, MP Management’s mission is to “nurture and guide talent as individuals.”

In a normal shoot, Besold arrives at a studio apartment, met with racks of clothes and a simple backdrop. From here, Besold is transformed by various staff members: a photographer, an assistant or two, a makeup artist, and a stylist, among other crew members, all working behind-the-scenes to get Besold picture-perfect.

“Test shoots are all I’ve been doing recently,” Besold said. “You don’t get paid for them. It’s just to build up your portfolio and make you have work that you can give to people.” Since signing her contract, Besold has done four shoots, each lasting three-four hours.

“Test shoots can be either very important or not important at all,” Jones College Prep senior Olivia Stephens said, who has been modeling with MP Management since 2015. “It depends on the type of modeling you want to go into. If you want to go into print—like an editorial in a magazine—your pictures are so important because that’s what the final product is. They want to see how you photograph. If you do a live event, which is what I like, you only bring two pictures.”

Once their portfolio is perfected, models can start booking gigs with magazines and companies looking for models, or for the runway shows seen on television. Also to book live events, like runway shows, models attend castings. At these castings, models patiently wait in lines, clad with form-fitting outfits, a few photographs, and ID cards specifying their name, agency, and measurements, among other important details. They meet with the clients for just a few minutes, demonstrating their runway walk.

Castings are organized through one’s agency, but models can attend major castings that operate like auditions. “A lot of it is through the agency,” Besold said. “They just let you know if a job wants you.”

As for Besold, modeling is a career path she plans to pursue in the future, in addition to furthering her education. “I think modeling is something I want to do in the future,” Besold said. “I don’t want to depend on modeling because it’s kind of baseless. One day the agency could decide that you don’t exemplify what the industry wants. Your face could change, or your body could change. I still would definitely want to go to college to get a degree that I could fall back on, but I do see myself continuing in the future.”

Besold denies popular stigmas about the modeling industry. “A lot of people think models are stupid or that models don’t eat,” Besold said. “I thought modeling would be so competitive. But it really has helped me with posing in front of a camera. Before, I never thought I had any outstanding qualities, but modeling made me feel a lot more independent.”

Lee credits modeling with strengthening her daughter’s self-esteem and confidence. “As women, when you walk in the room, you’ve got to walk in with your head up and your shoulders back,” Lee said. “A lot of women don’t. They learn to blend. So, modeling is really helping Brenda with her sense of presence that women need, and not every woman has.”