From Gisele to Naomi: why women are the ones leading the catwalk cash charts

It is a rare exception to the rule: in the fashion industry, the gender salary gap means female models are paid more than their male counterparts for doing the same job.

None of the dozens of buffed and toned men who have been parading at the latest Milan menswear shows since Friday can dream of earning anything close to the female catwalk stars, or of finding equivalent fame.

While the likes of Gisele Bündchen, Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell have long passed beyond the confines to fashion to become A-list celebrities, male equivalents – such as American Sean O’Pry or Britain’s David Gandy – remain largely unknown to the general public.

“Trust me to end up working in the only industry in the world where women get paid more than men, and treated loads better,” Gandy once said.

“In the hierarchy of a shoot, you have the photographer, the female model, the stylists, the assistants, then the male model. You are the lowest of the low.”

Frederic Godart is a sociologist who specialises in fashion’s place in society.

“Even if the markets for designer men’s and women’s clothes generate roughly the same sales, about US$30 billion (Dh110bn) each, fashion remains an industry primarily aimed at women,” he says.

“The brands and the fashion magazines are more interested in a women’s aesthetic assets, which help to sell products better and, as a result, that pushes up the value of female models.”

Godart says about 1,000 women worldwide make a comfortable living from top-end modelling. “In this world, it’s ‘winner takes all’, which means the top female models tend to hit the jackpot and increase the gap with their male counterparts,” he adds.

A 2013 survey by Forbes estimated Bundchen earned $42 million in the previous year, 28 times the amount O'Pry, the best-earning male model, managed to pull in.

Brazilian Bundchen, however, is an exception even within the fashion sphere. At the top of her game for more than 15 years, she commands fees that exceed those paid to even the likes of her compatriot, Adriana Lima, or Australia’s Miranda Kerr by tens of thousands of dollars a show.

“The more you go down the hierarchy, the pay gap tends to narrow,” says Godart. Not everyone manages even to reach this modest level. Many models live precariously and are forced to take other jobs to make ends meet between assignments.

When they do get work, sometimes employers will expect them to accept clothes as part of their payment.

Nonetheless, 32-year-old French male model Baptiste Nicol says “you can still earn a good living without being in the top 100 in the world”.

What about the pay differentials with female models? “They exist but also between different men,” he says. “And you have to take into account that a male model will have his best earning years between 30 and 50 by which time most female models’ maximum earning potential is behind them.”

* Agence France-Presse

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