Fashion and Beauty Marketing 101 - It's a height issue
As a photographer I had the pleasure to shoot with models short and tall. The one thing I don’t like is how people judge a model by how tall they are. How about judging a model on how well she models? Even though a model is 6 feet tall doesn’t mean she’s better than a model that is only 5’7 or 5’5 or 5’3. In my opinion it should be how hard that model is willing to work and how well she models. TALENT should trump everything. I’ve shot some tall models who gave nothing to the camera. They were lifeless. I’ve also shot some “small” models who were full of life. Their pictures turned out great!
Last week I saw an article online that reinforces that notion. The people in the article weren’t models but athletes but for one company selecting the taller person meant missing out on being number one in their industry.
According to an article on yahoo, Michael Jordan’s first sneaker choice wasn’t Nike. It was Adidas. Adidas was known for having tall players endorse their shoes. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was the biggest star Adidas had under contract and they were looking for more big men like him. Adidas didn’t sign Michael Jordan because he wasn’t tall enough.
Wow, because Michael Jordan wasn’t tall enough Adidas didn’t sign him. The man won 6 NBA championships and never lost in a NBA Finals and will probably go down as the best basketball player ever and Adidas didn’t sign him because he wasn’t tall enough. Really? You can read the full article here.
Nobody could ever predict that he would win 6 NBA championships but you knew the man was TALENTED and worked hard. So why not give the guy a chance? Because they didn’t, they missed out on being number one in the shoe industry.
The moral of the article about Adidas is don’t be narrow minded in your thinking and look at the whole picture. If you don’t, you will regret it.
I did the photo below a while ago because I saw a clothing line that had the tagline “Embrace your Femininity” and I wanted to see what I could come up with and how I would shoot that theme.. It doesn’t matter what SIZE the model is but rather if you can get the shot you need. I actually got a lot of shots with the model that worked well with that tagline theme. Like I said before it doesn’t matter if she is 6’7 or 5’7, your talent and how hard you work should trump everything. You wouldn’t want to miss out on the next big thing.
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