On Friday, December 11th, my group video chatted a former model named Reilly Chaffin. We began by asking her how she got into the modeling business and why she stopped. We asked her questions about the pressures of modeling and how she had to look in order to get work or be successful. Reilly described a few experiences that she has had. One story that she told us which really stood out to me when she told us about when she had a little bit of acne on her face. Her agent said that they wouldn’t book her for any auditions unless her skin cleared up. This story stood out to me because I was surprised that just because her skin wasn’t perfect — even if it was temporary– she couldn’t model. We also asked Reilly what her definition of “beautiful” when she was a model. She told us that models had to be really thin and pretty. She said that most of the models looked like her. They all were thin, had blonde hair, and big lips. Reilly shared a lot of information with us, some we already knew and some that was new to us. But she told us information from a model’s point of view. It was interesting to hear her talk about what models had to do to look a certain way — like not eat things that they enjoyed and not do things that they enjoyed. For example, she said that she really enjoyed running as a way to be fit, but her agent told he to stop because it was making her legs too muscular. I think that this interview was very helpful for us because we learned a lot and we heard stories that she and other models had to go through to fit the media’s standard beauty.
