Omaha Fashion Week had the chance to chat with James Scully - virtually, of course - and discuss issues in the fashion industry, sustainability, and his work to improve the treatment of models. Hear more from the New York-based fashion figure and ask him your own questions at Omaha Fashion Week’s Beyond the Runway Discussion: Ethics & Fashion: A Conversation with James Scully.
Photo by Neil Rasmus.
Why fashion?
I have wanted to be in fashion since I was a boy. I thought for a minute I wanted to be an actor and went in that direction when I was a kid but ultimately, fashion won out. When I got into high school and was more exposed to things like magazines and other people who thought that would also be a good career choice for me, I switched my focus. I knew I wanted to work around models and fashion shows. It just ended up happening.
How did you put your foot in the door? What was your first gig in the fashion world?
Funny enough, I had applied to a couple of schools for an acting degree. I was waiting to hear from Carnegie Mellon and Oberlin. Once those applications went out, that was when I had my “this is not what I want to do” moment. At that point, it was already too late to switch and go to Parsons or FIT because I had missed the deadlines for applications. A friend of mine had told me that Laboratory Institute of Merchandising, which is where I ended up going, took applications once a year for one student to be accepted during an interview period. Grades didn’t matter; you had this one interview and 300-400 kids go up for that interview. I got the interview and found out in June that I had gotten in. I moved to New York.
On my first day of school, there was a sign up on the bulletin board that said: Bergdorf Goodman. We need dressers for a fashion show. No experience necessary. Be here at 9:30 AM. Of course, I should have gone to class but I decided to cut because I had never been to a fashion show. I showed up at Bergdorf’s and went backstage. It turned out to be Karl Lagerfeld’s first Chanel Couture show, which they flew to New York to premiere at the store. I was bit by the fashion show bug. The Public Relations Company that produced that was called Christina Godfrey & Leving and they pretty much produced every fashion show in New York then, which I didn’t know. I went up to them and asked if I could work for them while I was paying my way through school. They hired me as a freelance worker for backstage fashion shows, and it was paid. It was a lucky first day. I hit the jackpot.
You’ve had a lot of careers in the fashion industry. What was your favorite?
I would have to say a little of each because I wanted all of those jobs and I went for them, even though I didn’t necessarily get them upon first try. A lot of these jobs were many tries and many tries. When I got the jobs, I was so happy to have them and then expand within those jobs. I love all of them, although I do have to say at the moment I have more nostalgia for when I was a buyer. Now that I’m taking a little time off to look at the business from the outside, that’s the one. I look at things that way as opposed to seeing fashion shows as a show producer or a casting director or a magazine editor. With a buyer’s eye, you can just look at things and how they affect you passionately. I was very young when I had that job. That job was an accident and it was somewhere I really wanted to work my whole life. That’s the one, particularly, that I have the most nostalgia for at this moment.
Charivari in 1983. In the middle, Barbara Weiser is surrounded by daughter and son at her family-owned business. Photo from Vanity Fair.
What was one of the biggest lessons that you learned from your buying job?
The boss I had was a woman named Barbara Weiser and the store was named Charivari. It was run by a family. The son was the men’s buyer, the mother mostly Italy and classic things, and the daughter covered the avant-garde, which I don’t think the word really means anything anymore. She covered the Japanese, Gaultier Paris, Azzedine {Alaïa}, and all of London. I was 21 when I had that job and going to all those shows as a buyer. Her mother {Selma Weiser}, in the 60s, worked within the department store system. There wasn’t a designer business then, so her mother thought in trend, “We need mini skirts from this person and turtlenecks from this person.” So, Barbara’s eye was trained that way but she was a great seer. The thing she taught me the most was, even if you wouldn’t personally like it or wear it, you still should be able to look at it with as much passion as if you would. I find that a lot of people in fashion can only look at things with their personal eye. She could be incredibly passionate about something and it wasn’t personal, but it was right for our store and it was right for our customer. Since she was so excited about what was new at the time, another lesson from her would be to keep your eye open. A lot of things you don’t expect you will find in places that you wouldn’t normally be led to.
Amber Valletta modeling Tom Ford’s Gucci. Fall/Winter 1995. Photo from Vogue.
What has been the most extraordinary fashion moment for you?
It's interesting to experience a show from each side, but it's almost more interesting to experience from backstage. Even though there is a stage in front of you and a wall, you feel when a show is happening and it’s a hit. One of the biggest ones was the second Tom Ford for Gucci show, which was the one that put him on the map. It was mid-90’s during this whole minimalist period and he had said, “I’m tired of this. I want hair and makeup. I want sex.” We didn’t even have enough outfits to make the show. He decided that each model would have a spotlight to make the show longer. Everyone, at that moment, just hadn’t seen anything joyful for a while. We knew the show was good, we just thought we were going to get through the show, and then he was ready to get on with the next collection. The lights came up and Amber {Valletta} walked out and the audience just went nuts. As each outfit came out, people went crazy. They were clapping and the girls felt sexy and the performance level of what they did, you could hear it backstage. Before he went out to take his bow, we had a monitor and we saw the audience get up for a standing ovation. You knew that moment was about to happen and you felt it. There’s something so exciting about knowing a real industry change just happened, and this was pre-Instagram, so it took a long time for that message to get out there. I don’t even think we knew at that Tom Ford show how big it was going to be two days later. He had many of those moments in his career, but that was the first one and that was pretty incredible. I don’t think fashion moments happen anymore because people have their phones at shows and nobody is directly paying attention to what’s going on.
Has the age of technology we're in completely removed fashion moments?
I think that they’re gone because of the age of technology. The problem is that we're giving everything away. You can go watch the shows and then we move on. Before, you had to wait six months for 20 still images to come out. The power of fashion to say, “This is what we're doing as a business,” has kind of ended because now, all of that will get watered down. It makes it very hard for creators.
A lot of what I post on Instagram is my feeling about the difference between the people that still create and that are exciting, which there are a lot of, and the big companies who are putting out clothes that don’t help the community because it's not sustainable work. A company like Dior can't put out merchandise at the same speed as H&M. Everything gets lost and because of that and the short attention span of people, every four years there’s someone new at Givenchy. Everyone is just trying to get on a hook and ride this ride and the problem is when the ride is over. The one thing that has been lost in this business is evolution over revolution because now, people just want revolution all the time and they need content. There are still so many people that have craft that are making clothes that people want to buy and will save. That will keep the business going for a long time, but I think it’s hard for a lot of those people because they have to straddle the business and a lot of those people aren’t meant for the world as it is today.
Photo by John Phillips.
How do you personally shop for brands with a focus on sustainability?
I can’t do anything trendy because unfortunately I’m very conventional-looking and it doesn’t matter what I put on, it ends up looking like Brooks Brothers. So, I have to stay in my lane. That’s why I like the Japanese so much because they will twist something American and conventional and give you, whether it’s a cut or a button or a lining, a special touch. When I worked in fashion full-time, I had a lot of clothing allowance. Unlike other people, I could just walk into a store and take something. One day, I opened my closet and I got stressed out because I had too much stuff and I didn't wear it, so I sold a huge amount of my clothes.
A couple of years ago, I discovered Grailed. I call Grailed the place for the pieces that got away. When I am watching a show and I’m like, “I cannot afford that right now," two years from now, I’m going to get that same jacket from some kid with buyer’s remorse who never wore it. That’s personally how I shop these days. I don’t ever do Gap or H&M or Zara; I never have. The difference between men’s and women’s clothes is that, in women’s, it’s easier to mix high and low. For a man, a cheap jacket looks like a really cheap jacket. There is no such thing as a well-cut piece that’s cheap, so on that level, it’s impossible.
How do you find quality clothing for a reasonable price?
There are all these incredible vintage dealers on Instagram now, especially for men. You have oswaldghost {Goodform}, Sean Crowley {Crowley Vintage & Antiques}, and you have Gauthier Borsarello in Paris {Le Vif Boutique}. Most of them specialize in Ivy, so you’re getting amazing navy blazers from the 1950s. With women, when you’re in that level of luxury you’re going to pay a lot, unfortunately. Another thing about these thrift dealers is, they hit the Midwest and then they bring it back to London or Paris and charge a fortune for it. Japan in the ’80s and ’90s wiped out any good vintage in America, so if you want good vintage, you’ll have to pay for it.
How have you worked to improve the treatment of models?
In the early 2000s, the business first became not diverse. That was my first thing to call out, the lack of diversity in the business and calling out people for being blatantly non-diverse. For many years, I partnered with Bethann Hardison who started the Black Girls Coalition, and then it became her fight, but I was definitely a foot soldier for her.
When I became a casting director, I noticed the age of models because the business became flooded with models and the average age went from 18 to 14. It was very distressing to find people asking a teenage child to do the job of an adult and treating them like adults, then discarding them not like adults. It became this circle of abuse. There were probably six major industry people that were perpetuating this and I made a public statement that if it continued, I would start calling them out. It did and I did.
With my first big call-out, both LVMH and Kering approached me because it caused such a controversy. They both called me in and asked me what I wanted to see in the business. It was actually my goal to get both of them to sit down in a room together and I thought it was going to be many years down the road, but because I called them both out as companies in one afternoon for someone that was working for them both, they agreed. Over the year, we came up with the LVMH & Kering Model Charter, which was followed by the Condé Nast Model Charter. There were many protections in that, but the main part of it was that advertising, fashion show, and magazine jobs would no longer employ anyone under 18. That stopped the flood of models, period. After that happened, I thought it was the right time to take a break.
From left to right: Derek Lam, James Scully, Jan-Hendrik Schlottmann. Photo by Julie Skarratt Photography.
What impact did it make?
While I was in it, it made a great impact. When things go awry, I get notes and letters from people. That seems to have stopped. The people who were problems are definitely not problems anymore; that was also good. Now, there’s a whole new generation of talent in the last four years. As far as stylists and hair and makeup people go, especially with that part of the business, it is becoming more diverse. I would say the majority of this next wave are people of color, so they have a whole different idea. They have been brought into this world of charters and how to treat people, and because of callout culture, you just get caught. People don’t sit back anymore; they say it out loud. That was one of the good things about social media because a lot of models did take to social media. I assume that things are continuing, but I know that they’re way better than they were. Definitely lots of work to go.
What are some of the biggest obstacles you have faced when you were calling people out?
There were not obstacles once I called people out because it made them afraid. The one thing that makes me crazy in fashion is when you hear all these stories of these people and every agency says, “Oh yeah, we knew that they were doing this, but, you know, I wasn’t going to say anything. We made $30 million of that person last year, I’m just going to close my eyes and hope nothing bad happens.” Then, when their models complain they’re like, “I had no idea.” You sent a girl out and she got sexually assaulted. Why do you think she’d tell you? She thinks you’re a part of it. You sent her to that job so she thought you must have known, so it’s your fault. The only way to break that system was to call people out. When I saw the obstacles, I saw no other choice but to say, “I’ve had it. Here we go.” I pressed the button and it was done.
The obstacles were, as long as people were making money and the business was running, everyone was willing to turn their heads. A lot of these people were bullies; a lot of people were afraid of them. They would say, "If you don’t give me my demands then I’m just going to blackball your whole agency." They created these monsters. Somebody had to do something and it was also affecting my work, so I thought, “To hell with this. I’m just doing it.” The minute I called the first person out, there were no obstacles ever again. Then, people all joined in.
Do you do any work calling people out nowadays?
No, not so far. There were a couple of times over the last few years that someone came to me with little issues and I would go on social media and say, “I’m still here and you did this last night. Don’t do it again.” I haven’t had to call anything or anyone out, so I’m assuming that things at this moment are fine. Now, we’re in Covid so everything is pretty much shut down. I’ll be curious to see how things go.
Photo by Patrick McMullan.
What would you say to prepare young models for the industry?
The first thing I tell every parent is, “Wait until they’re 18.” Now, you can’t go to New York and work at 16 or 17. My first thing would be, wait until you’re 18 because if you’re pretty now, you’re going to be pretty when you’re 18. That’s not going to change. Your body changes a lot from 16-18 and by the time you’re 18-21, there’s not going to be a lot of people saying derogatory things about your body because you’ve fallen into what you will be for the next five or ten years. It’s a lot of rejection. You’re being judged like an athlete on the state of your body all the time. Back in the old days, there was more of a standard. That’s why people’s careers lasted long, too. You had to be a certain height and if your weight fluctuated from a size six to eight, which was the era of Cindy Crawford, you could go forever. You didn’t have to starve yourself to maintain that body. Maintaining an athletic body was harder than losing weight and being skinny. Now, there’s no standard so it’s easier to abuse someone in that realm. If you’re under 18 and you model locally, be wary. Make sure you have someone with you all the time because it means you’re serious and people can't mess around with you if your brother or your mother shows up with you. If they say you can’t, don’t do the job because that’s how people get taken advantage of.
The other thing is, there isn't money in the modeling business the way there used to be, either. There was an entire group of women who made millions of dollars and the field was just enormous, now it’s really big, but there was enough room for everyone on every level. You could make as much being a catalog girl as you could being Cindy Crawford. It was different then. The options aren’t as great as they used to be; it’s even more difficult. Sadly, I think people are going more in the clickbait, influencer, daughter of someone famous incentive, rather than real beauty.
What would you tell hopeful models in terms of the social media age?
A lot of agencies look on Instagram; they definitely do. I don’t know how scouting works on Instagram, but it does. Again, I don’t think being popular on Instagram makes you a model. Some people really do just have a hook and good looks. Quite a few of the models who are on Instagram have platforms. You could be a social justice warrior on Instagram and just happen to have good looks and IMG Models will notice. It works both ways. If a modeling agency hires you and you’re not good on Instagram, they train people to be good on Instagram. It becomes a part of a model’s training. Considering, if you’re a successful model you’re busy, you don’t have time for social media at that point.
You’re taking a break from the fashion world right now. What have you been up to during the pandemic and how have you kept your creativity and spark alive?
My plan was to travel the world for a couple of years. I was one year into that when the pandemic happened. Even when things are normal again, the travel bug has taken a rest for a minute. It {the panedemic} almost didn’t allow you to do anything because there were just new stages. The first stage was the pandemic, then it was lockdown, then there was summer and we thought everything was great and it wasn’t, then we were all locked down again. I would say I pretty much spent the last year just riding this ride and that whole part of my brain just shut down. In the last few months, my creative brain has turned back on. I’m wishfully thinking that by fall, we’ll kind of start to see the beginning of things. I’ll be curious to see what it’s like to be communal again. I’m sure when traveling, I would have figured out what was next. Now, because of all of this, I just shut every thought down. I get offers, none of which are that interesting to me because I don’t want to go back to what I did before. It’s definitely time to do something else. Other than that, the only thing I did was learn to cook and that was pretty shocking.
Hear more from James Scully during Omaha Fashion Week’s Beyond the Runway Conversation. Attend the virtual discussion, Ethics & Fashion: A Conversation with James Scully. Reserve your FREE spot before the event fills up!
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