When people think of modeling, they think of looking beautiful at all times, walking in high-profile fashion shows, wearing glittering designer clothes and shoes at Fashion Shows, traveling all over the world, and rubbing elbows with designers, celebrities and high-powered industry figures. In short, it is seen as an extremely ritzy profession populated by The Beautiful Elite, and fiction likes to treat it as such: if a character is mentioned to be a model, it is immediately implied that they are good-looking and enjoy some fun perks as the result of their job: money, beautiful clothes, adoring fans, their faces plastered on billboards, free travel, you name it. Historically, it was an 'acceptable' job for women, and since writers love hot girls, the sexy and worldly model character will also likely be female.
Real modeling, like all entertainment industry jobs, runs the gamut of fame and success. Even fashionnote and runwaynote modeling, the types most closely associated with the fictional portrayal, still require long hours, relatively low pay unless you're a supermodel, and uncomfortable modeling conditions on top of the psychological pressure of needing to look your best at all times.
Tropes like Rule of Glamorous, Costume Porn, and Unlimited Wardrobe are likely in play for fictional models' outfits. They might also be The Fashionista and Plastic Bitch; if they're 'mean girls' who enjoy the luxuriousness of the job, see The Diva, The Prima Donna, and Vanity Is Feminine. If characters want to date models for the presumed glamour, it overlaps with Inherently Attractive Profession.
Contrast tropes that portray the 'dark side' of the beauty/fashion industry, such as Sleazy Photoshoot and Model Scam.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You: Resident Narcissist Mimimi has aspirations of becoming a fashion model someday. When Rentarou uses her as a Lap Pillow in Chapter 56, his dream has her winning a Paris Fashion contest and inviting Rentarou onto the runway with her. When Rentarou and the gang set up merchandise stands on the roof in Chapter 87, she serves as a mannequin displaying one of the stand's outfits.
- Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!: Misuzaki is a famous teen model. Not only is she well-known at school, to the point where her involvement in the Robot Club's anime is used as its key selling point during the Culture Festival, but when the girls take a trip to Asakusa's place, the train car they're in has ads with Mizusaki in them plastered everywhere and two fans ask to shake hands with her. However, she'd much rather be an animator than a model, expressing irritation at Kanamori's persistent use of her fame as a model as a selling point for the Motion Picture Club's material, and looks
◊ like a Stepford Smiler when she's actually seen modelling in Episode 10.
- My Hero Academia: Uwabami is a beautiful snake-themed superheroine who models as a day job, and fittingly wears a slinky dress everywhere. Yaoyorozu and Kendo intern with her only to find that her schedule is mainly comprised of photoshoots, interviews, and commercials.
Comic Books
- Marvel Universe:
- Great Lakes Avengers: Ashley Crawford is a stunning swimsuit model and enjoys a glamourous lifestyle (Deadpool is a huge fan), but her superheroine alter ego is super strong but very obese. In order to return to her voluptuous swimsuit model figure, she has to puke up the excess mass, a nod to pervasive eating disorders in the modeling industry.
- Millie the Model: Millie's romantic and professional misadventures are set against the backdrop of her fun modeling career, where she meets a lot of attractive people and gets to wear a lot of beautiful clothes.
- Vixen: The heroine, Mari McCabe, is a supermodel in her day job. She has a lot of money, travels a lot, and enjoys a lot of luxuries as a result, on top of the additional public adoration from being a superhero.
Fan Works
- Lila's Lament: Deconstructed. After stealing the Earrings and Ring and impulsively making a Wish to switch lives with Adrien, Lila replaces him as Gabriel's child and becomes a rich and famous teen supermodel with access to all the gorgeous clothes and accessories she could ever want. But her new position comes with downsides, as she is restricted to eating a bland diet of vegetables and toast every day in order to stay thin for her modeling career. And now that she's a supermodel and the daughter of a famous fashion designer, she can't get away with making up grandiose Celebrity Lies as she did previously because the tabloids spread her wild stories everywhere and the celebrities she claims to know are able to easily prove that she is a liar.
Films — Live Action
- Darling is about Diana Scott, a beauteous model from Swinging Sixties London, who gets into multiple romantic entanglements, attends high-profile charity galas, and flies around the world for various jobs. However, her personal unfulfillment, amorality, and disillusionment with the jet set are running themes, and the film ends with her stuck in a marriage to an Italian prince.
- Triangle of Sadness: Played With. Main characters Carl and Yaya are model-influencers, and Yaya specifically is introduced as a popular and famous runway walker. They dine at fancy restaurants and get invited on a luxury cruise — though they're both anxious about money since they're aware that their good looks won't pay the bills forever.
Live-Action TV
- The hook of America's Next Top Model was seeing aspiring models partake in challenges that ostensibly had to do with the industry (such as difficult runway walks or acting) and watching them participate in glamorous photoshoots at the end of every episode.
- CSI: NY: Twice.
- "Summer in the City": A model being questioned in the theft of the largest jewel from a diamond-studded bra tells Danny she'd been jet-setting between Paris and New York, and that she made $10,000 just for getting out of bed that morning.
- "Open and Shut": An extremely entitled model parading around in a string bikini during a rooftop pool-side photo shoot gets caught on film bullying a hotel concierge about her pillow not being fluffy enough, pitches a fit about not being in the mood to work and pouts off to her dressing room for a nap, and constantly bosses her personal assistant around. Before they're aware of her true personality, Adam gushes, "I *love* Mandy Foster!" and is excited to work a case that she's involved in.
- Desperate Housewives: Gabrielle Solis was a former New York City supermodel who hung with the likes of Heidi Klum. It was through this career that she met and married her wealthy husband Carlos. This high-flying past life in NYC is contrasted with her poor upbringing and the current travails of upper-class suburbia.
- The Queen's Gambit: Cleo's a model. Beth is envious of her clothes and she gets to jet-set around the world, which is how she shows up in both Paris and New York.
- Ted Lasso: After getting hired to coach West Ham, Nate is set up on a date with Anastasia, a bombshell supermodel, at an exclusive club. Nate takes her to his favorite Greek hole-in-the-wall, but she (overdressed and overglammed) thinks it's dumpy and ditches him to hang out with similarly posh-looking people.
- Thunderbirds: Lady Penelope is a world-renowned supermodel on top of being an aristocrat and secret agent. All of these descriptors result in a very chic and beautiful woman who drives a distinct Rolls-Royce, travels around the world to attend shows and galas, is frequently photographed, and wears designer exclusives.
- Ugly Betty: Wilhelmina Slater was a rich girl turned supermodel, who was able to parlay her successful career into a high-powered fashion magazine executive. Her taste for the finer things in life has remained constant throughout, as has her imperious personality.
Music
- Subverted in the video for "Best Friend" by Foster the People. While the supermodel protagonist of the video does get to bask in the adoration of onlookers, wear fancy clothes, and get into hot nightclubs, it all comes at a great cost. Not only does modeling feed her insecurities, but the actions she takes to stay on top make her both metaphorically and literally a monster. And several women die when she ravenously devours them alive in order to steal their beauty.
Video Games
- Persona 5: Zigzagged and eventually subverted. Ann works as a part-time model, skating along on her natural good looks and high metabolism to let her put minimum effort into dieting, exercise, or maintaining her appearance, making things look quite glamorous. However, as her Confidant route progresses, it's shown just how competitive and cutthroat the Japanese modeling industry really is.
- Pokémon Scarlet and Violet: Tulip, the Alfornada Gym Leader, is a model and makeup artist. She is a hyperfeminine and elegant woman who is mentioned to have a very busy schedule.
Web Original
- Parodied with the Balenciaga Harry Potter Meme and derivations: every video has the characters' faces (or an approximation thereof) plastered on models' bodies and wearing the fashion brand's extravagant outfits. Some videos actually have the character say some lines of dialogue from the books/series/whatever their origin, altered to fit the Balenciaga image.
Western Animation
- Miraculous Ladybug: Adrien Agreste, as the only son of a famous fashion designer, may have lived a glamorous life regardless, but his modeling career for said dad's company plasters his face all over Paris, connects him with celebrities, and gives him hordes of fans.
