Sara Ziff – Walking the Walk

Labor activist Sara Ziff is holding the industry accountable for the way it treat models.

- By Elizabeth Segran

IN HER TWO DECADES AS A PROFESSIONAL MODEL appearing in campaigns for designers such as Stella McCartney and Tommy Hilfiger—Sara Ziff has seen the industry’s glamorous side and its underbelly, which is rife with child labor, low wages, and sexual harassment. Model Alliance, the nonprofit she founded in 2012, advocates for fair labor standards and safer workplaces for models. Under Ziff, the alliance has pushed lawmakers in New York and California to protect underage models, partnered with researchers to study human trafficking and other issues, and launched a high-profile campaign—signed by close to 140 models—to get Victoria’s Secret to commit to safeguarding its models from sexual misconduct. Here, she talks about how modeling agencies have enabled the likes of Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein, and why the exploitation of models should concern us all.

Modeling has always seemed so aspirational. But your work— and the Epstein headlines—has pointed out how vulnerable models are. What accounts for this discrepancy?