They wear the world’s most beautiful and expensive clothes yet their faces are the picture of blank boredom.
Fashion shows are one of the most glamorous events to attend in the fashion industry and for those who are fortunate enough to attend, get to experience the notorious show, complete with the after parties. There is however one point first time and repeat attendees ponder. Why do supermodels not smile when they are strutting their stuff down the runway?
LEADERSHIP Sunday gathered that though a few designers sometimes ask their models to smile, eighty per cent of them believe that fashion shows are truly all about the clothing line and smiling at the audience takes the emphasis off of the clothes.
They insists, that any expression in general or a showing in personality truly takes emphasis off of the designer’s clothes.
Not smiling also exudes confidence, and models certainly need confidence to strut down the runway in general. On a historical note, not smiling was a look of aristocratic domain that has appeared throughout paintings throughout the decades. Take a look at historical portraits and note that none of the subjects are smiling.
A Smile Can Make A Controversial New Trend Look Ridiculous:
While this speaks a little to the point above, smiling while wearing an over-the-top new design can come across as mocking the designer. This obviously is not a good thing when a model is wanting repeat work. When the design modelled is unconventional, any expression for that matter can come up as amusing or even embarrassing. The lack of smile again exudes confidence in the designer and ensemble worn. The non-smiling face makes most outrageous of new design lines come across as highly fashionable.
Runway Smiles Can Imply Interaction With The Audience:
The last thing any model should do from a professional standpoint is to interact with the audience. Again, the fashion show is all about the fashion designer’s clothes. A smiling face invites interaction and a potential conversation. A non-smiling model elevates their status in a classic European way, showcases an attitude on nonchalance and portrays the utmost display of self-control. Fashion models on the catwalk are also in a particularly tricky business. It is not an easy feat to walk down a catwalk with all eyes on you. The ability to walk in high heels smoothly and appear unflustered is very appealing to the audience in attendance, as well as the designers.
A Model’s Lack Of Smile Creates Vision Of An Unshakable Personality
From a professional standpoint, lack of smiling on the runway will lead to more work to come. The very fact any model lets the audience and designer know their emotions do not take over during shows is priceless. It is best to appear unshakable when any model is wearing something that is completely out of their comfort zone. In addition, the lack of smiling appearance gives off the impression of a model being emotionally controlled. This also suggests for the model an attitude of elevation above earthly concerns, access to higher knowledge and most importantly, in the modern fashion world.
According to some designers, the truth is, it’s awfully hard to maintain a believable expression of great joy when you are walking in front of hundreds, if not thousands, of strangers, all there to render their judgment on what you are wearing. When your shoes probably don’t fit, since they are samples, and you are concentrating very hard to avoid slipping or falling, and you are modeling chiffon in winter or leather in September, when it’s still 80 degrees, and you are partially blinded by the flashes of a zillion photographers.
Besides, while clothes are meant to make consumers feel good, they should also make them feel safe, strong, confident, protected.
Michael Kors , used to have posters backstage scrawled with phrases like “own the room” and “walk like you mean it” to inspire his models. That kind of pantomiming doesn’t always come with a beaming face. Smiling can make one seem like a supplicant, and fashion is supposed to make you feel powerful in your skin.
In 2023, Giorgio Armani in his Emporio Armani show “Sonia Rykiel” used to do it all the time. She even had her models skip down the catwalk to add extra zest.
In his decade as a top model, 26- year-old Nigerian born Londoner, Ty Ogunkoya as catwalk star never once permitted himself a grin.
He was quoted to have said, “You don’t smile. It is just not done.
Fashion historian Lydia Kamitsis said it was not always so.
The vogue for expressionless models is actually very recent, she said, dating from the rise of the Japanese designers Yohji Yamamoto and Commes des Garcon in the early 1980s.
“This was also the period of the supermodels (Cindy Crawford, Imam and Elle Macpherson) who very much had their own personalties, and it was a reaction against this,” she said.
“In the 1960s, when collections were first presented as shows, models often smiled, laughed and even danced to music.
Walking clothes hangers Now they are seen as walking clothes hangers. It’s all about effacing their personality… the clothes are it.”
Anthropologist Leyla Neri, the director of fashion at the New School Parsons Paris, agreed.
She dates the first appearance of moody, often scowling models to Brigitte Bardot and Jane Birkin in the 1960s.
It then sped up with the rise feminism and “women’s need to be taken seriously in their professional lives, so you see women striking strong, unsmiling poses in Armani suits.
“Men have never smiled on the catwalk because they never have had to smile to please,” Neri insisted.
“In the 1950s models smiled all the time, in fact they were kind of living dolls,” she added.
“With emancipation and designers like Yves Saint Laurent you get more a androgynous look, and women became more masculine and powerful.”
Contemporary designers have an “even more minimalist vision”, Neri argued. “They want the most neutral faces and bodies possible to show their work.
“They do not see their models as an ideal of beauty any longer. That is something that the public has not quite understood.”
Every few years, however, iconoclasts like French designer Jean Paul Gaultier send models out smiling.
Indian creator Manish Arora also cheers things up by casting his bohemian friends.
And several models ended up beaming through British designer Paul Smith’s last Paris menswear show.
“I didn’t tell them to smile,” he told AFP afterwards. “I have nothing against smiling. If the clothes make them happy, go for it,” he said.
Villot, who took part in that show but didn’t dare a smile, said models are often afraid to look too happy in case they end up looking ridiculous.
“The serious face you can do every time, but if you smile you don’t know how you are going to look.”
Ogunkoya agreed. “It’s easier to just walk and zone out. Smiling is definitely more of a challenge.”
