When we speak via Zoom, Cameron Russell is sitting beneath a slightly surreal sculpture of dozens of metal birds. It looks like a scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. ‘I’m in a hotel in Los Angeles,’ he says, laughing. Russell was my traveling companion of sorts throughout fashion month. In brief moments, I devoured her thoughtful new memoir, How to Make Yourself Acceptable to Everyone. In it, she details the seedy, exploitative sides of the fashion industry: being told to lose weight, being teased with alcohol when she was underage, sexual assault, secret topless pictures, racism.
Russell, 36, has been modeling since she was 16; She became the face of Louis Vuitton’s campaign, Calvin Klein, Vogue’s cover girl and a Victoria’s Secret Angel at a time when the lingerie brand’s show fantasies were at their peak. She grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and moved to New York after graduating high school. His first kiss was with a male model. ‘Photographers call me jailbait,’ he writes, ‘someone invites me out for drinks. Eventually I will find my body in the bed next to his. Not me: a surprisingly large part of me will be gone by then.’
But because this is Russell, who has a degree in economics and political science, the book also questions consent, control, and the complexities of being complicit in an industry that is as much a force for good as it is a hotbed of abuse.
Russell went viral in 2013 with her Ted Talk titled Looks Aren’t Everything, Believe Me, I’m a Model (with over 40 million views), and in 2017 when other models shared #MeToo accusations. Under the heading #my work must not involve abuse. He wanted to write the book to examine his struggles in an ‘attention economy’ as more than ‘Instagram captions’.
‘Fashion encourages us to treat the industry and ourselves as superficial, unimportant, replaceable,’ he reflects. ‘We are much more than that. But to get there we have to take ourselves seriously.’ What Russell captures are the shades of gray that are present in every life, no matter where you work or exist in it. ‘There is a widely accepted story about the fashion industry. But I think [it] It’s mainly made up of people who are here because it’s trendy. [about] culture, belonging, community and expression. I can say that I have been working in the fashion industry for 20 years. [that it’s] It’s not exceptionally racist or patriarchal or has exceptionally terrible business practices. As in many industries, it can be all of these things. I think what is exceptional is that fashion speaks this language of beauty, fantasy and elegance. And so there’s an expectation of those things.’His recounting of events is sobering. The book is full of corrected words and names. Most of it is obvious: experiences as a Victoria’s Secret Angel, besieged by rape allegations, alleged lucky breakup with elite modeling agency boss Gérald Marie.
‘We know what we’re selling,’ he writes. ‘Doesn’t that mean there’s no problem? Perhaps the real problem is non-contractual trades. All this flirting, casual nudity, dinners, texting, all before getting paid. Off the record, unedited. I doubt most girls want to touch these guys or show them their breasts, at least not for free. But it’s the only way in.’
Why are you leaving out the names? ‘It’s no use having a scapegoat,’ he explains thoughtfully. ‘Our media likes to say there is a victim and a villain. It doesn’t leave room for the fact that you can be a victim and you can be an accomplice, neither of which even conveys the full complexity of what’s going on.’
Continues. ‘I’m not trying to blame anyone. I blame myself and I blame everyone else. I blame the culture we all built together. And I blame the system that does not give us the right not to be complicit in crime. How do we transform this? That’s my real concern, not someone’s name.’
There are common truths and familiarities in his story. But body image and the stigma of dismantling our appearance is now a free market: we’re all in the objectification business on social media. ‘When I was 16, I discovered that I could be commodified, that my body and face could be sold. “It’s almost universal now,” she argues, citing an article about influencers making money off their children (something close to home for Russell: She lives in New York with her husband and two young children, a two-year-old daughter and a two-year-old daughter (living) five-year-old son and 13-year-old stepson.) “Their parents probably think that’s the most money they’ll ever make. I could provide them with work this way. This is how my child can be important and valuable in this world. I don’t think people are trying to harm their children. “I think they are trying to help their children survive.”
But social media has paved the way for modeling and allowed creators to have a say in their images and platforms. ‘There’s a lot to criticize about how models are asked to come into the industry, [but] That doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of examples of how you can get in front of the camera and do important, powerful work.’ Russell is certainly a prime example of this.
The book ‘How to Make Yourself Acceptable to Everyone’ by Cameron Russell (Oneworld; £18.99) is out now. amazon.co.uk