Become a Model: Success Tips from Janice Dickinson

Janice Dickinson has become one of the most famous models around nowadays. At one time she was a supermodel gracing the pages of magazines like Vogue and Cosmo, as well as commanding the catwalks of Paris and Milan. More recently, she has starred in America’s Next Top Model as well as The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency. Janice was also the person who coined the term supermodel.

In the 1980s, Janice burned up the catwalks all around the world. She lived a very drug fuelled-life, filled with sexual escapades with rock stars such as Mick Jagger, Sylvester Stallone, Warren Beatty, and Jack Nicholson.

She has written several funny and enlightening books about the modeling profession such as No Lifeguard on Duty and Everything About Me is Fake…And I’m Perfect. If anybody can give aspiring models the “straight” talk, without embellishment, it is Janice Dickinson.

First Rule: Do Not Chase an Unattainable Goal
Janice’s top advice to any aspiring model, male or female, is that you should not chase something that is not within your reach. The first thing you need to have is a good splash of reality in your face. Many young men and women see these modeling shows magazines and think that they can be part of this glittering lifestyle—and they delude themselves. Janice says that modeling is a tough business. And if you’re not careful, it’s a business that can destroy your life.

But most aspiring models don’t want to hear that. They want to hear that the dream is within reach, to each and every one of them.

Second Rule: Act Like a Model Even If You Aren’t
The Second Rule seems to be the opposite of the first rule. Not at all. If you have the guts and confidence to become a model—and if you have done your reality-check and determined that you have what it takes to be a model—then you have to “fake it till you make it.”

After all, who was born a model? No one was born a model. Models are made, not born. In fact, all the modeling schools in the world will not prepare you to be a model. See, modeling is a profession, it is something that you learn by being out in the world and getting to know people within the industry; by going on shoots and learning all the tricks of the trade. It’s about rising to the challenge.

So what you first have to do is be confident. If you’re not confident, then you have to pretend that you’re confident. What this means is that you have to observe people who are confident. We do not necessarily mean other models. A friend, teacher, parent, practically anyone within your own walk of life might be confident and you can observe the habits and behaviors of confidence from them.

Third Rule: Get in Shape
Even back in the 1980s, when it seemed that everybody was doing drugs and partying, Janice would be working out first thing in the morning with her boyfriend of the time Sylvester Stallone. No, Janice wasn’t really happy about this.

She says that she would have preferred to be eating room service breakfast at the time. But as a model, part of it is to always be in top shape.

Janice has a lot of great advice for keeping in shape and eating right. And surprisingly, it’s much easier than you might think.

First of all she says that yoga works, and it is one of the best things that you can do for your modeling career. She recommends one yoga movement called the Breath of Fire which she says keeps your abs very flat. Another thing that she recommends is walking uphill. It’s not enough just to stroll down to the grocery store, or around the block. She says that you need to walk at a reasonable rate of speed on hills. If you can’t find hills or if you live in a bad climate, then you need to use a treadmill that is set on incline.

Bonus Tip:  Guaranteed to Flatten Your Abs…Breath of Fire!

1. Start with your hand on your belly. Inhale until your hand extends and your belly moves out. 2. As you exhale, pull your navel into towards your spine and again inhaling through your nose and exhale.
2. Retract your navel in towards your spine and exhale. Repeat inhaling and exhaling 2 more times.
3. Speed up the process, inhaling and exhaling. Every time you inhale your belly comes in. Be sure not to emphasize inhaling more than exhaling, or vice versa.

– From the video Series Kundali Yoga for Beginners (See free video: http://www.expertvillage.com/video/6614_kundalini-yoga-breath-of-fire.htm)

Fourth Rule: Models are Made, Not Born
Have you ever seen Cindy Crawford or Stephanie Seymour in one of the tabloids without makeup, and wearing only sweat pants, or maybe just wearing a pair of flips flops while pushing a baby in a stroller in a supermarket? Yes, they do look beautiful. But the thing that turns them into models–the one thing that really makes them a model–is all of the things that they do to themselves or that are done to them by others. The supermodels have lots of people attending to them, fixing their hair, urging them to work out, dressing them, and all sorts of other things that make them into a model or even a supermodel.

Fifth Rule: You Will be Touched Up
Back in the day, it was called “airbrushing” because artists would actually use an airbrush to touch up a model’s features. Today, digital artists will alter your appearance in the pictures. It doesn’t matter how ugly you are, or how beautifully you are. You will always be touched up.

Sixth Rule: Dependable and Punctual
In her book Everything About Me is Fake…And I’m Perfect, Janice puts it very simply: if you’re late, you’re dead. She says that in the modeling world anyone who is tardy is sent home. Janice says that she is old school and that she has “chronic punctuality disease.”

Seventh Rule: A Sense of Entitlement
This last rule is one that you often hear a lot in the modeling world, and this rule is entitlement. Entitlement means that you believe that you’re entitled not only to be a model but to have a certain modeling job that you may be auditioning for.

If you feel a sense of entitlement, then you are way ahead of 75% of the models already there. Case in point: Janice in her book talks about a large cattle call of models at Bloomingdale’s, which was being conducted by a famous photographer for a lingerie shoot. Over 100 models were there, and when she got there she was in the back of the room. Instead of waiting at the back of the room, Janice pushed her way up to the front of the room. The photographer, she says, “loved her sense of superiority and hired her on the spot.”

All rules of wisdom from a true survivor—and winner—in the highly charged world of fashion modeling: Janice Dickinson.