you are not broken

In the Mother City, change is always brewing. Nestled on the side of Signal Hill, the

interior of My Friend Ned’s headquarters is spacious and bright. A couple of people

sit waiting for a casting in the foyer. On the walls are the faces of their models, many

of whom were discovered amidst the community of Cape Town’s creatives, scouted

from the streets of the city or on the dancefloors of Long Street’s club scene. They

don’t all look the same; My Friend Ned is an agency that celebrates those who don’t

fit the mould, and they’re reshaping the industry from within.

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I sat down with Candice Hatting, who co-founded the agency with stylist Karen

Wieffer in 2007, to discuss the state of the industry, the story of the agency, and her

hopes for the future. Hatting had personally experienced the harsh demands of the

industry while modelling herself and was working as a freelance street caster for a Levi’s campaign when she realised that the world needed something new. Instead of trying to style and pose models to fit the mould, Hatting tried a different strategy. “When they came to the shoot, I said I don’t want posing, just be yourself. Let’s capture you. We've approached you because of what you look like, not what we think you could look like.” The response to the campaign was unexpected. People felt drawn to the photos and the people in them - there was something exciting and enigmatic in the images that set them apart. 

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In the early 2000s, overheads and industry expectations kept the international agencies playing it safe, grooming new faces to fit the ‘model’ image; an image that was tall and thin, with soft Eurocentric features. “They’re trying to channel you to be another copy of models they've already got, because they know that people want that. That's the market. They categorise you immediately.” The industry is full of guidelines, with many agency websites suggesting that female models should weigh between 40 and 55 kg and stand 5’9’’ to 5’11’’ tall, according to models.com. These same agencies consider models above a size 12 to be ‘plus-size’.

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Media representation is important. Scholars like Chomsky argue that the media informs our understanding of reality and defines our perceptions of what is normal. Carl Capitaine, a transitional justice scholar whose master’s thesis focuses on the power of queer visual activism, believes that the visual representation of marginalised groups holds immense power.

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“It’s a physical manifestation that says ‘regardless of my marginality, regardless of the ways that you tried to erase me, silence me, kill me through socioeconomic access, gender policing, racism, ableism, I‘m still here. I feel. I live.” Photography is especially powerful. “It’s like a memory-making project, it’s the opposite of erasure. Your portrait is taken to capture you as you are… and those images last forever.” For those who see themselves represented in models on screen and in print, it gives them permission to exist in their own skin.

 

While My Friend Ned established themselves in the creative scene of Cape Town,

they remained largely unnoticed by the international industry. “The people who ran

the more professional grooming agencies overseas weren’t threatened by our

existence at all,” says Hatting. “They saw us as just two kids who didn't know what we

were doing. But we were kids who understood what was so wrong with what they

were doing.” Slowly, what started as a hopeful idea grew into something much bigger.

Today, My Friend Ned’s models have worked with brands like Adidas, i-D and GQ

and walked the runways in fashion capitals across the world.

 

As My Friend Ned grew in size and reputation, they became evidence of a hunger for

media that didn’t aim to serve only the male gaze. Hatting noticed that international

agencies were following suit - diversity had become trendy. 

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I asked Hatting what made the agency different from those around them, now that

the image of a typical runway model is a far cry from the conventional archetype of the early 2000s, but Hatting warns that tokenistic casting to ‘tick diversity boxes’ is not enough. Acceptance, support, and collaboration with models brings about the real change. It gives power to the work. “If you feel comfortable in a space and with the people around you, you're gonna feel a lot more open to giving them a part of yourself that’s more vulnerable.” 

 

The work was also based on mutual respect. My Friend Ned doesn’t see their models as clones who can be easily replaced, and they demand the production studios and casting agencies with whom they collaborated treat their models with respect for their bodies, their identities, and their time. Because their models were in such high demand, the agency was able to raise the bar. If brands didn’t align with their vision and standards, they refused to work with them.   

 

As the agency started to develop, Hatting realised there was discomfort amongst some of the models. “They said, I feel like I'm coming to the castings and have to put male or female, but I'm not either.” It was 2012, and despite not having heard the term ‘non-binary’ before, it wasn’t long before Hatting made My Friend Ned the first agency in the world to have a category for gender non-conforming models. Today, the agency invites a fluid approach to expression and identity, with no distinct categorisation of the models by gender identity at all. That’s why Carl Capitaine signed with the agency, after being put off from joining the industry for years. “As a black non-binary transfeminine model, I was like, what can you do with me, how would you market me?” 

 

Diversity in front of the camera is not enough. Production teams are

still predominantly led by white, cis-gendered men and women. “We

need more representation behind the cameras. In the people who make

the image, who think of the concept, I still haven’t seen a lot of people

who look like me,” says Capitaine. Under the same roof as the

modelling agency, Hatting heads up Disco Creatives, a production

company striving to create content that celebrates those in the frame.

Despite their vision, they are struggling to bring transformation into

their teams because the expense of training and tools remain a barrier

to entry for most South Africans. “Our number one thing that we

wanted to change in Cape Town was representation of colour and

gender within the film industry,” says Hatting.

 

While a glance at today’s media may present us with an array of

skin tones, bodies and styles, profit-driven campaigns still place limits

on who is allowed into the spotlight. Despite significant progress,

featurism and colourism are still big issues in the industry. Capitaine acknowledges that these new ideals privilege them and have aided their success in the industry. They say “Your nose is so buttony and small, and your eyes are so big. In terms of a beauty ideal, it's associated with a more Eurocentric standard.” They’ve also had producers complain that their dark skin was difficult to work with.   

Diverse body representation also remains an issue. Only a week ago, Hatting received an email following a shoot with one of her most up-and-coming models. The production company complained that a standard day-rate for someone “overweight” and “ungraceful” was exorbitant. When acceptance is based on a model’s ability to assimilate, real inclusivity is absent. 

 

Even with diversity displayed proudly on the covers of magazines and campaigns, the industry has a long way before it achieves real inclusivity. But agencies like My Friend Ned seem to have found the recipe for change that’s more than skin deep. Real people, real stories, and real respect.