Types Of Fashion Models And How To Use Them To The Advantage Of Your Fashion Brand

You step into a fashion show and take your seat in the audience. The models start to come out and as they walk down the runway your eyes are glued to their outfits, they seem to just jump out at you and draw you in. This is the power of models.

In the fashion industry, models play a huge role in making things happen and taking brands to the next level. Many times, shoes, clothes and bags look so much better in pictures and videos when they are worn by a model as opposed to when they are not. 

Fashion models can be used to the advantage of fashion brands in more ways than one, but before we go into that, let us take a look at the types of fashion models that there are.

Types of Fashion Models

In the fashion industry, there are majorly 6 types of models. They include;

1. High Fashion Models

High fashion models are used for editorial shoots for fashion magazines. These models are used to tell a story through pictures. They showcase designers collections, current fashion or beauty trends, the latest in makeup, hair, skin-care, and so on. 

2. Runway Models

These are models that are found on the catwalk and are hired to showcase a designer’s clothing line. They are considered to be the most influential types of models as they popularize a lot of fashion-driven content and adaptations in personal styling. 

Most designers hire models that fit into their collections and the story they are telling with their brand and collections. 

3. Fit Models 

Fit models are used to show what a garment looks like on a person, rather than a mannequin. They work with fashion designers and manufacturers to make sure that each garment has the ideal sizing, drape, fit and movement.

Since the fashion industry caters to a wider audience, their samples are made considering a variety of shapes and sizes in mind. Fit models offer feedback on how the dress feels, fits, and moves. They can also be used to present garments to buyers in a showroom.

4. Commercial Models

These are models that advertise products for a whole range of industries, not only fashion. They advertise different products for different audiences and are usually required to fit in various roles depending on what the brand wants.

For fashion retailers, commercial models can fit into your retail clothing, showcase your footwear, jewellery or makeup or successfully endorse a product. 

5. Part Models

Part models model with just certain parts of their bodies. For fashion brands, they can use their hands to model jewellery, their feet to model footwear, or their face to model makeup. A parts model works on editorial, advertising, and catalogue work.

6. Swimsuit and Lingerie Models

For fashion brands that offer swimsuit and lingerie products, swimsuit or lingerie models are the right fit. These models model specific garments like lingerie, swimsuit, summer, and nightwear.

These models can walk fashion runway shows, appear in fashion editorials and even commercial catalogues for various brands, designers and stores, depending on their skill, type, and versatility. 

Ways To Use Fashion Models to the Advantage of Your Fashion Brand

1. Promote Your Brand

As long as marketing is important in the fashion industry, models will be as well. As a fashionpreneur, you can use your models to carry out effective marketing for your fashion brand by using them to bring out and show people the value in any of your fashion products. 

The model will wear your product properly and portray it to customers and prospective customers in a manner that is graceful and elegant. As opposed to using mannequins, that are not mobile, to showcase your designs, human models showcase the functionality of your fashion products.

When customers see what an outfit looks like on a real person and all the things that the person can do while in the outfit, they are more likely to purchase it.

2. Boost Sales

This point goes hand in hand with the above point as when a model promotes and showcases a brand’s fashion products appropriately, it will lead to an increase in sales. Since models add value to a brand by promoting their products, there will naturally be more sales made when a model is included in marketing and advertising efforts. 

3. Connect Better With Your Customers

When your fashion brand uses a model that fits into the persona of your target audience to advertise products, it creates a form of connection between your brand and target market. When customers or prospective customers see a model that looks like the person they are or want to be, they become emotionally attached to the brand in some ways.

The expression on the face of the model and the model’s interaction with your brand’s fashion products can draw people in and make them want to patronise you. When you get a model that fits right with your brand, go all out to give your customers a feel of what using your fashion product will be like.

4. Provide You With Feedback

Every fashion designer needs honest feedback about products their brand makes and a model can offer this feedback to them. A model’s only job is not just to show off and help you sell your products, they also give feedback on how your product is.

For instance, in the designing of a ready-to-wear fashion collection, there is a stage where models are used to size the outfits to make sure they are the right fit. Not only does the model tell the designer how the outfit feels based on size, but the model also gives feedback on the design of the outfit and how it feels.

As a fashion entrepreneur, this is one way to use your models to the advantage of your brand. When you know the issues your outfits have, you will be able to correct them before you send them into the market. 

5. Give Design Inspiration

Sometimes, models are the source of inspiration for designs. Just seeing an outfit on your model and how it sits on him/her can cause bursts of creative juices to flow through you, as a fashion designer. Mannequins will not always cut it for you when it comes to knowing how designs will look on clients, it is at these times you need human models.

Some times based on the body structure of your model or a feature of the model, you get inspired to add or remove certain designs from your outfit to hit that mark you were aiming for from the get-go. 

Models can help you explore the different areas of the fashion industry. With some models, you can experiment with one specialized category, while with others, you can try out multiple types of modelling. Here is another great resource to read on types of models