http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/26/fashion/milan-fashion-week-models-agents.html 2016-09-26 06:39:47 The Model Makers Barbara Nicoli and Leila Ananna are among two of the most influential agents in the modeling business. === MILAN — The Elibeidy Danis Martinez It’s a heady beginning for a career, catapulting Ms. Martinez straight into the ranks of Vogue’s “new faces to know.” And it is increasingly common. The sped-up cycles of fashion don’t apply only to clothes, but also to the women (or girls) who wear them. In the digital era, the pressure is constantly on for brands to feature new faces each season, the better to make themselves look new, too. Which, in turn, means that a small coterie of global casting directors — the individuals responsible for selecting the Next Big Thing from modeling agency books and putting them on the runway before anyone else — are becoming more important. Barbara Nicoli and Leila Ananna, long-term collaborators with Gucci and Burberry, are two of the most influential agents. (Other names include Piergiorgio Del Moro, James Scully, Anita Bitton and Ashley Brokaw.) Each season for more than a decade, the two women have cast as many as 100 models per show for the two luxury powerhouses, up to a quarter of whom are likely to be faces no one has seen before on the catwalk. Based between Milan and Paris, they have also worked with Saint Laurent, Long gone are the days where brands looked for a standardized female aesthetic: reed-thin white mannequins whose personalities were largely kept out of the spotlight. Today, with the demands of the digital age and new customers in new markets, the ground shifts constantly when it comes to both the identity and the values that companies need to project. So while creative directors may come and go, casting agents like Ms. Nicoli and Ms. Ananna remain entrenched on the fashion front line, filtering and shaping our perceptions of beauty and its personification. “Certainly there are no supermodels anymore — like That is where they come in. Casting often ends up being a year-round process for shows, according to Ms. Ananna — 42, and originally from Paris — as agencies continually send new girls for consideration, usually scouted straight from the streets of their hometowns. “The major advantage of casting for the biggest houses is that it gives you the best possible 360-degree view of the marketplace,” said Ms. Nicoli, 44, an Italian who began her career as a backstage dresser in Milan after earning a doctorate in political science. “Agencies from even the most remote countries have you on their mailing lists.” The demands are such, she adds, that, “most casting directors now work in teams rather than independently — it can be incredibly difficult to carry the stress and client needs on your own. Leila and I might do the same job, but our different personalities and tastes, and healthy exchange of opinion, unquestionably make us better at our jobs.” The priority, they say, is always to find and to introduce faces unseen by anyone else. Models like Ms. Martinez go on to be cast elsewhere, of course (in her case, Prada is a client of Ms. Brokaw’s), but brands want the kudos of being first — and are willing to pay for results. “Barbara and Leila have a very international point of view, and are always able to combine established models with a cool new crew of girls,” Mr. de Vincenzo said after his show in Milan on Friday. Yet Burberry, Gucci and Jil Sander all declined to comment on the record about their model searches, sensitive to revealing the marketing puppetry that goes on behind the scenes of a show. Both Ms. Nicoli and Ms. Ananna, for their part, say it is hard to describe the magic formula involved in finding a new face to launch a thousand advertising campaigns. The balancing act wobbles among a girl’s age, shape, skin color and personality; and a client’s creative vision, budget and timing; and the public mood. And, increasingly, a model’s presence on social media plays a role. “Obviously the idea of casting a model and considering how many Instagram followers she had was unheard-of five years ago, but models who have built their own powerful brands? That is very important to lots of fashion houses now. I think it was Riccardo Tisci at Givenchy who started that trend,” Ms. Nicoli said. “I wouldn’t say whether it was a good or bad thing — but the Gigis and Kendalls are a need of the market we live in at the moment. And for some, it clearly works.” Personality comes into play, too. “They need to be a certain size, obviously, but Alessandro Michele at Gucci, for example, is far more focused on who a girl is and the fit of a look, rather than how tall she is or her hip size,” Ms. Nicoli continued — though she also acknowledged, “Of course, many will work purely on measurements. Last season, when we cast Céline, we made 200 cards with digits on, nothing more, and that’s what we took to fashion week.” When it comes to diversity on the runway (or the lack of it), however, the duo becomes a bit defensive and nervous; indicative, perhaps, of the sensitivity of the topic. “I feel as if it is more of a spotlight issue in the U.S. than Europe — and I think in Europe we are further behind on tackling the diversity topic,” Ms. Nicoli said. “But I would cast a beautiful model, whatever her color. Black, white, yellow, blue or red; a model is a model. But different brands have different specifications for what they want. That’s the reality we work in.” Ms. Ananna agreed, noting she thought the situation was improving as scouts actively look for more variation in new models — like Ms. Martinez, who is black, and who walked her fourth show, “Who is she, she is gorgeous,” one editor whispered as Ms. Martinez made her way down the runway. “She has a such a commanding presence. She’s clearly going to be a star.” Now, on to Paris.