New York is the market every other US market gets compared to, and the one where the gap between the fashion-week headlines and how working models actually pay their rent is widest. Most of what gets written about "becoming a model in New York" is fashion-week trivia. This is the part that is actually useful before you submit anywhere.
Our instructors are working agents, casting directors and runway producers, several of whom have built careers inside this exact market. This is the New York version of the process.
The NYC Market in One Paragraph
Manhattan holds the deepest bench of modelling agencies in the country, across every board from fashion through commercial, curve, parts and classic. New York Fashion Week runs twice a year, in February and September, and pulls in bookers, clients and international models for a concentrated few weeks each time, which is useful to know because casting activity genuinely spikes around it. But fashion week is the visible layer, not the income layer. The large majority of working New York models earn most of their money from commercial, catalogue and e-commerce bookings, the same steady, less glamorous work that pays the bills everywhere else, just with more of it available here than almost anywhere in the country.
Step 1: Find Your Board
- Fashion and runway. Women roughly 5'9" to 6'0", men roughly 6'0" to 6'3", driven by sample sizing rather than preference.
- Commercial. The largest board by volume and where most working New York models actually earn. No meaningful height requirement.
- Curve and plus. Its own board with its own client list. See our guide to breaking in.
- Parts. Hands, feet, hair, skin, lips. Specialist, well paid hourly.
- Fit. Stable specific measurements used in garment development, steady work that stays almost invisible from outside the industry.
- Classic. Roughly 35 and up, consistently under-supplied relative to client demand.
For the full map of categories and what each pays, see our guide to the different types of modeling.
Step 2: Measurements, Properly Taken
Height, bust or chest, waist, hips, dress or suit size, shoe size, hair and eye colour, measured properly rather than estimated. New York agencies remeasure at the first meeting, and a discrepancy from what you submitted is the fastest way to look unreliable before anyone has judged your look at all.
Step 3: Digitals, Not a Photoshoot
Four to six phone photos in daylight against a plain wall: front, side, back, one smiling, one neutral, plus a face close-up. No makeup, no filters, no retouching, hair down, fitted plain clothing. This costs nothing and takes twenty minutes; see our no-experience guide for the full detail.
New York agents see thousands of submissions a year. A retouched or professionally shot submission reads as concealment, not effort, and gets passed over for exactly that reason.
Step 4: Target the Right Agencies
Shortlist agencies that actually run your board. Many of the agencies with the deepest client books are based in Manhattan, historically concentrated around the Flatiron District and the Garment District, though the industry has spread out from there over the years. Our guides to finding a real agency and choosing between agencies cover how to vet any of them: commission-based rather than fee-based by default, traceable clients and campaigns, models on the board who visibly work, a real office you can find.
You do not need to already live in New York to submit. Digital submissions from anywhere in the country, and beyond, are entirely normal, and a video call before any travel is common practice now.
The Model Apartment System
New York is one of the few US markets where housing is a genuine part of the conversation. Some agencies broker or arrange shared "model apartments," several models to a unit near the agency, for anyone relocating to the city for a season without anywhere to live yet. It solves a real problem, but it is a paid service, not a favour: the rent is frequently above what the same room would cost you directly, and it is typically deducted straight out of your earnings rather than billed separately, which makes the real cost easy to lose track of. Ask for the weekly figure in writing before you agree, and weigh it honestly against finding your own place once you know the city.
Step 5: Submit and Attend Open Calls
Follow each agency's submission instructions exactly, in the format they specify. Then attend open calls where an agency runs them, still the most direct route into a room with a New York booker, typically over in two or three minutes. Our open casting call guide covers how to prepare.
What New York State Law Actually Requires of Your Agency
New York State's Fashion Workers Act gives models here protections most other US markets simply do not have in writing. Every model management company operating in the state has to register with the New York Department of Labor. They cannot collect a deposit or a fee from you just for signing or agreeing to represent you. Commission is capped at 20% of what you actually earn. A representation agreement cannot run longer than three years. And the law puts an explicit duty on the agency to act in your best interest and with good faith, not just take a cut of whatever work happens to come in.
None of that makes every agency in the city automatically trustworthy, and none of it replaces doing your own checking. It does mean that if an agency asks you for money before it has found you a single booking, or tries to lock you into a five-year exclusive, it is not operating within New York's own rules, whatever it tells you in the room.
Scams Specific to This Market
- A compulsory in-house photographer. Told you must shoot with one specific photographer, at your own cost, before anything else happens. Not covered by any fee exemption, anywhere.
- A "model apartment" priced like a trap, not a service. A legitimate version is a convenience you pay a fair rate for. A scam version is rent far above market with no real figure disclosed until you are already living there.
- Scouted by DM with a hard close. Real scouting happens on Instagram and TikTok too, but a genuine scout lets you go home, look them up, and verify them through the agency's own published number.
- A "casting week" pop-up with no permanent office. Legitimate agencies have a findable, permanent address. A company operating out of a hotel suite for a week around fashion week, then gone, is a pattern worth being suspicious of on its own.
What to Do This Week
Measure yourself properly, shoot your digitals, decide your board honestly, shortlist three or four New York agencies that actually represent it, and submit exactly what they ask for.
Then learn what happens inside a casting room, because that is what separates models who book once from models who get rebooked. Our free runway masterclass with Jack Bedwani, who has choreographed shows for Calvin Klein, Coach and Charlotte Tilbury, is five lessons of exactly that, and it costs nothing.
