It’s not quite clear what a beautiful face should look like, but it certainly has the power to move crowds. It stirs people’s imagination; it evokes desire, envy, dreams and aspirations. We talk with the casting director Anna Jóźwiak on how business, politics and fashion shape the modern concept of beauty.
The Paris Fashion Week is coming to an end. I make a call to Anna, who had returned to her home in New York the previous day after spending two months living and working backstage, assisting real casting gurus Angus Munro and Noah Shelley in selecting models for menswear and womenswear shows by fashion brands such as Kenzo, Isabel Marant, Erdem or Preen.
She talks about her work as if it was a piece of cake: “I search for interesting faces. I pick beautiful girls whose appearance is in line with the brand concept and the stylist's aesthetics.”
How is it all done? “You need good taste, intuition and strategic thinking; for, let’s be honest, fashion involves a lot of analysing,” says Anna. With that single sentence, she brings me down to earth and reminds me that behind the world of dreams and luxury there is this huge machinery called ‘business’.
Gigi look
“It is a good idea to have an interesting starting point, to try to tell a story with your casting, for example by choosing girls with prominent eyebrows or representing similar beauty types so that the models look identical. But let's not deceive ourselves; moves like that are for connoisseurs and few people will ever notice them. The world needs big names that will attract attention. I once worked at a show with Gigi Hadid. Fashion buyers started to call her style ‘Gigi look’. These clothes sold like crazy,”says Anna, and then she adds,“Fashion makes dreams come true, and these dreams have their price. Everything needs to be in harmony.” Anna is rational; after all, she once was a model herself, and she has known the ins and outs of fashion since she was 16.
"When I am selecting faces, I need to brace myself for the perspective of my dream girl taking part in the show only if she is invited to appear in the brand's campaign. Another one will agree on the condition that I offer her the best place in the line-up, she will go only if she is allowed to close or open the show. And remember, there are only two slots available for this. When you plan a show, you have to bear in mind that the prestige of the names should be balance. And if you also include models favoured by the stylist or the designer, the whole enterprise gets really complicated."
Men's fashion weeks give more room for creativity.“There isn't so much pressure because male models aren’t so recognisable to the wider public.”
Computer specialists on crack
In the commercial world, employing non-professional models rather than professional ones is an extravagance that only the greatest can afford. Rick Owens is famous for eccentric castings prepared each year by Angus Munro, Anna Jóźwiak's boss. One season, the casting brief read: TRAILER TRASH, CRACKHEAD GEEKS X 40 PLEASE“That might be an extraordinary task but it is not difficult; it is concrete. The most difficult thing is when I work with people who don't know what they want and don't trust me,”admits Anna.
Completing an army of freaks is a question of time and inventiveness. Apart from agencies, Anna looks for characteristic models on Instagram, Facebook, among friends or in the street: “Anything goes. I have long overcome my shyness and learned to approach people in a completely natural way to offer them a part in a project. This is a challenge, for I have to figure out their personalities. I have to assess if they will make it, if they will cope in the spotlight.”
Working on a casting requires constant observation. It is difficult to switch off this mode so it becomes a way of life. In the street, on the internet, at her friends' parties – Anna watches people, and if she finds someone interesting, she files them away in her catalogue: Who knows, this very face may prove to be the key element of some complex plan in the future. She systematically takes people's details and writes them down in her notebook. She saves their photos in a file titled ‘Cool people to remember’or she marks them under a relevant category on Instagram. “I have loads of them: people with tattoos on faces, people with no teeth, plump women, wrinkled... I am currently fascinated by elderly men, those over 60. That’s probably because they feel very relaxed. They think nobody is watching them,” she smiles.
She often searches for unusual yet everyday characters when she works on her own projects instead of jobs commissioned by clients. The resulting photos are artistic experiments. Although they are created outside the market, they are carefully observed by it. Art gives freedom and provides great space to present fresh aesthetics and reveal the photographer's true personality. These projects raise bold topics, break with canons and present authentic characters – the point is often to examine the body and the individual image of a person: “Recently, I was looking for women bodybuilders, women wrestlers and dominatrices. It was great fun, and that's the work I like most.”
Tooth gaps and freckles
When I ask her about the beauty ideal for 2018, Anna immediately replies, “I don't believe in beauty ideals, they only limit the choice. A beautiful girl stands out. She simply makes an impression on others.”
Anna does not believe in the distinction between photogenic and non-photogenic people either: “It's a matter of experience. If you get used to a camera and feel safe during a photo session, your appearance begins to change. Besides, embarrassment or closed eyes can be charming. I certainly don't think this has to be a problem.”
The problem is when boredom creeps in, for uniformity, even in beauty, is deadly boring.
“There are so many people who dream of success in modelling. Some of them are even able to fulfil that dream, but this moment gets shorter and shorter. Today, great models disappear after only half a year; they are washed off by a wave of new young girls. Fashion calls for new faces each season.”
What is the key to success, then? “When I think about my work, I sometimes have the impression that I do film castings, with the difference that the pictures are motionless.”
Beauty requires character. It is a platitude that cannot be rejected. Personality, age, body awareness – all these aspects influence how models perform on stage. Anna makes it clear, “I don't like casting 16-year-old girls: I know they are still kids who have to pretend. They aren't adult women and they don't have the life experience of an adult woman. They sometimes need some time to mature. It happens that a very young girl arrives at a fashion week and something goes wrong. She is beautiful, but she can't get through castings. So she takes a break. She comes back when she is ready and then she rules! I believe, in fact, that everyone has such a moment in life, no matter what they do for a living.”
Imperfections enhance beauty – this is yet another well-known and always relevant principle. “I love tooth gaps and freckles,”says Anna. She thinks that characteristic features mayturn into a powerful spell. Sometimes it is narrow lips, other times full lips that work best. On one occasion it is the pale complexion, on another the dark complexion. “If there is any rule to follow, it is the lack of rules; everything depends on the context.”
How about the message? I am thinking out loud: if trends reflect public feelings and social changes, how then does our sensitivity to beauty define the challenges of the contemporary world? Has anything changed profoundly in recent times?
“It is openness to different skin colours. It has been around for some time, but it is still not good enough. I am happy that my bosses understand that they can't just have white women in the shows because the world doesn’t look like that. Black models, mixed race models, models with almond-shaped eyes – they are truly beautiful... I admire Naomi Chin Wing, Dipti, HeeJung, Alyssa Traore, Aira, Shanelle Nyasiase, Chu Wong... I could go on and on. I adore them because they are beautiful and because they have great personalities. By the way, I am proud to have selected the black model Grace Bol for the Polish Vogue session. Poland needs this kind of change.”
Translation Elżbieta Pawlas/Solid Information Solutions
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