Models

Hailey Hasbrook Denies Being Marc Jacobs’ Underfed, Underage, Fashion Slave

Earlier this week, a fashion firestorm erupted when Jezebel picked up on an interview with Hailey Hasbrook, a 17-year-old model from Oregon. Ms. Hasbrook may have accidentally revealed to Women’s Wear Daily that she might not have been actually paid in dollars money for her extended-hours work for a Marc Jacobs’ show. She got free clothes though!


Jezebel’s model-in-resident Jenna Sauers picked up on the story and took certain key quotes from Ms. Hasbrook’s detailing of her hectic schedule, to exemplify the kind of workhorse labor young models are put through, and how they can be taken advantage of while trying to “break into” the industry.

Sunday was a VERY hectic and LOOOOONGG day…..

It started with a casting for Rodarte at 11:00 in the morning.

Then, I had MORE looks for Marc Jacobs. The SCHEDULED time was Noon-4:30. They ended up keeping me until 6:00, though, causing me to have to switch around my schedule and cancel some things.

I get a call from my agency saying Marc wants me BACK to do more looks. They told him that I would do it but I had to have an early night because I had shows early the next morning. They told me that I shouldn’t be there any later than 10:30.

Well, 10:30 rolls around and I ask Shawn if he knows when I will be ready to leave. Only to find out that they have me booked open-ended. Meaning that they had no specific end time for me. After a couple phone calls, they decided on 2:00 am.

Well, 2:00 rolls around…. I hadn’t been trying things on for a while so we all thought I would be good to go. I go and start to get dressed only to be called for in the other room by Marc.

I didn’t end up leaving until around 4:30 in morning.

Also, Ms. Hasbrook may have only gotten paid in “trade” (i.e. clothes) for her time; she doesn’t really know.

While this is a noble effort on Ms. Sauers’ part to lift the curtain on the horrible conditions young models work in, they didn’t take into account how this might negatively impact Ms. Hasbrook getting any more modeling jobs. So since then, Ms. Hasbrook has deleted (or made private) all her previous entries on Tumblr and Twitter, and put this message up on her Tumblr:

So I just got home and I was told that I was mentioned in the Jezebel blog. I went to check it out and I was HORRIFIED.

Let me start out by saying that I started this blog because my aunt and a couple friends back home asked me to. They thought it would be cool to be able to follow what I was doing on a day-to-day basis. I liked the idea because I hate repeating myself. I would be able to tell everybody what was going on at once.

This leads me to the Jezebel blog post, and wherever else things might have been posted.

First I want to set one thing straight, I loved working and doing looks for Marc Jacobs. I was actually one of the favorite jobs I have had so far. Everyone there were absolutely amazing and awesome to work with. It wasn’t like I was non-stop trying clothes on for a full 9 hours. There were many times where Marc and Camille were going over other things. I had many breaks where I could go and lay on the couch, read, or just relax. They took really good care of me there. All I had to do was ask if I needed anything. There was plenty of food and drinks there the entire time. They were all very understanding, flexible and accommodating.

I actually preferred to be paid in trade.
I love everything that I got, and it was well worth it. There was an entire room filled with clothes and shoes that I was asked to choose from. Everything was amazing.

I feel like the authors of these blogs tried to remake my entire post and make it seem that I was slamming the company. As I said, it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed my time there, and I would do it again in a heartbeat. I am not and was not complaining one bit about it at all. I hope that everybody can see and understand that I meant no harm by those posts and that this will help clear everybody’s mind of any false beliefs that were put there by Jezebel or any other posts that may have mentioned me in them.

Translation: Please take me back, Marc Jacobs! No one beat me, and I was given many chances to eat crackers and take three minute naps!

Marc Jacobs’ response:

Follow Drew Grant via RSS.

Next in Scene in NY