New Documentary ‘Girl Model’ Shows Dark Side of Modeling Industry

By Emily Gyben 04/10/12 at 10:00 AM

Despite the CFDA’s best efforts to make the minimum age for models 16, underage girls still slip through the cracks—by accident at CFDA president Diane von Furstenberg’s Fall 2011 show, and knowingly at Marc Jacobs’ Fall 2012 show. But how young is too young?

It’s a question that Girl Model, a documentary by David Redmon and Ashley Sabin, tries to address. The film spotlights 13-year-old Nadya from Siberia, who’s spotted by model scout Ashley Arbagh at a cringe-inducing cattle call of a casting.

“Nadya had images in her room of models and fashion images plastered up on her family house,” Sabin told the New York Times. “And I think that as a young girl, when you see those images every day, that’s how you get drawn into that glamor and the allure and the mystery behind it. And the idea of being a top model was probably something she had considered. But at 13, 14, 15, how much can they really understand about the dreams versus the reality?”

The film debuted at this year’s South by Southwest and is currently making the film festival rounds. The trailer, however, is worth watching for its unromanticized view of an industry that says it cares about the girls, and then plucks them at increasingly young ages from their homes and families. It may not be every model’s story, but that it's even one model's story means there's a problem.

Check out the full trailer above.