What’s one thing you wish you knew before starting your journey as a model?

There are plenty of tips and tricks that models use to get themselves further in their career and in the industry, and so we talked to a handful of models about things they wished they knew before they started their journey.

One thing you wouldn’t necessarily think about? “Measurements,” Usman says.

If you’re just starting your career as a model and putting your information on a comp card, how would you know what your exact measurements are? You have to figure that out before you send your portfolio to agencies because the industry cares so much about size.

“Size does matter,” Aviana admits. “Size matters, no matter how much they tell you it doesn’t.”

Your agency will tell you certain things and keep other things hidden from you and as a model and as a human being, it’s your job to read between the lines. Agencies do things in a specific way – specific body types, specific looks, specific rates and contracts for each person, depending on their talents and experience.

“Agencies take a lot of money from you. If I had known what rights you have as a model under your contract and what rights you don’t have…” Miles explains. What’s one thing he wish he knew? “You can work around them and you can adjust them and make them for your benefit.”

Understanding your contract is just as important as understanding your portfolio and how you come across to clients and agencies.

Yessy says that it’s important to “keep a streamlined database of all of your work. It’s important to have a very specific portfolio geared towards your specific brand or the industry that you’re going towards.”

“When you’re first starting out, know that social media does help,” Katie tells us. “Clients get excited about you. When they know you care about the content you’re putting out, they’re more likely to create content with you.”

How you brand yourself in your portfolio and how you brand yourself on social media go hand-in-hand. It’s important for clients to see the work you put into yourself and how you are presented.

Though there are aspects of modeling that are super important to remember in order to properly brand yourself, the most important thing, according to Rahima, is that “it’s okay to be yourself.”