Partner with us Free newsletter. Follow us. Fashion Beauty. Kate Moss parts company with Storm model agency after 28 years. Lauretta Roberts. Twitter Facebook Linkedin WhatsApp. The split is understood to be an amicable one. Read More. Tom Bottomley. Paula [Karaiskos], my head of press has helped with that, especially with Sophie Dahl.
Izzy Blow called me one day — Isabella Blow , very famous — and just said: 'I found a girl. You probably won't be interested. She's not your 'average' model.
She's an incredibly bright, interesting person and I just thought she could break boundaries. Behnaz Shafiei. Photo: Courtesy of Storm Management. What are the challenges you faced in introducing groundbreakers to the industry and negotiating their first contracts? When you decide to take on somebody who's, say, smaller than average — like Kate Moss or Cara Delevingne — or somebody not your 'traditional' model size, like Sophie Dahl was then, they face the challenges.
And we do, too. Because you're going to come up against people who will say, 'she needs to lose weight' or 'she's not tall enough' and we push it and go: 'Listen, she's exceptional and you need to think out of the box a bit. I'm in Australia a lot.
I was in Western Australia last year and I saw Behnaz Shafiei , an Iranian motocross champion , in an ad for a Danish jewelry designer. I just felt she would be amazing. So we now represent her [under Storm Artists], but there are challenges because she's Iranian and she can't shoot in the U. But we don't care. The role of a model has evolved, which brings more opportunity in cultivating their own personal brand. How has your job as an agent and scout evolved along with that shift?
Social media is great for scouting and makes it a lot easier. Five years ago, we also started an influencer division, Storm Vision, so we represent people who have their own YouTube channels.
Clients now are very discerning and understand that there's no point in having five million followers if they're not authentic followers. Now we bring on the models, who really have to develop those skills. They're not necessarily going to be traditional influencers, but [brand] clients want to know what their social media following is. So our social media team helps them understand what they should be posting, etc. The Storm Vision team is very helpful because they're not model agents.
They represent our influencers, so they are very helpful in explaining to models what they should be doing and posting. We work in this big open plan office and so there's a lot of communication and so we bring people to our in-house social media expert, Millie Kotseva, as soon as we take them on. We ask them how [many followers they have], we look at what they're posting and she guides them. We have seminars to give them the confidence to do it.
You've addressed sexism in the industry from personal experience: How has the situation evolved in light of MeToo and TimesUp? I don't think for us, Storm, that it happens so much. We work with clients we know incredibly well, that they're professional. Of course, there's always going to be situations — and I can't tell you there haven't been and we've had to deal with situations — where people feel that they have been vulnerable to somebody who's taken advantage of them in our industry.
But it's rare. What worries me is people who aren't quite right for modeling who go through a lesser agency and really are vulnerable to all that. All our models who live in London, they are encouraged to come in here and sit with us all of the time. My agents are almost like psychiatrists or counselors because you only find things out when you really talk to people. That is another thing: Some people, as we know from all this Me, Too business, people have been incredibly reluctant to come out because they are terrified it's going to ruin their careers.
We do try and encourage people to talk and after every job ask them, 'How did it go? How was it? Any feedback? It's like a family, so they do come in and sit around.
In fact, too long. For hours. You have to be very perceptive and emotionally in tune with people to do this job as well as being good at your job as an agent. I don't think you should be an agent if you don't like people. Storm Management client Naomi Shimada. Photo: Billie Scheepers for Storm Management. There's so much crossover in the industry now with influencers being models, actors are also influencers and models. Where do you see this all going? I just think we work more and more internationally, exploring media partnerships and global partnerships and global talent.
Storm's changed a lot. Simon, my brother and I, we cut our teeth on Kate's big contracts — probably before anybody had contracts quite like hers — and so we're really good at it and we've finely-tuned it.
But we now have a branding and licensing agent to explore really interesting partnerships and opportunities with some of our talents, like Lorraine Pascal. Although it's difficult — and it's changed — it's actually more exciting and there are more things that are possible for people. It's not just a one-dimensional business.
We've got Storm Creative now and so many of them are trail blazers in whatever they do. They feel empowered to be able to do everything. And we've got a lot of politically motivated activists. It's fantastic. It's just so bright and interesting. The thing is we used to be so governed in our business — in the fashion industry — and the lines were so defined and it just was this small little industry that only a few people could ever get involved in.
Now it's huge and we represent all kinds of interesting, fascinating people. I think you can never not mention Kate Moss in the airport.
Cara Delevingne was in my daughter's school. I've known Cara since she was four years old and I always thought she would be amazing. I nearly ran a little boy over the other night.
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