Model booker

Henry Budd

Being a model booker calls for tactfulness and an eye for talent.

Scoop Management assistant model booker Cara Le Provost was working as a hostess on a luxury boat in the US when a brush with designer Calvin Klein made her decide to get into the fashion industry. Less than 12 months after the encounter, Le Provost has returned to Sydney after five years travelling the world and has begun her new career.

In July last year, Le Provost was working on a boat moored next to Klein’s luxury yacht. But it wasn’t Klein’s party that night that piqued her interest in fashion.

“In the morning, everybody was gone and it was him and, possibly, his wife, standing out on the jetty playing with yo-yos … and they just looked like normal people,” she says.

“It just made fashion tangible for me, it was something anyone could do and it wasn’t all about celebrities and glamour.”

As an assistant model booker Le Provost helps find and manage an array of talent.

“It starts by scouting the model,” she says. “Then we bring them in and test shoot them and get them to meet some clients. From there on my role is to assist the senior bookers with managing their careers.”

Scouting for potential models can happen anywhere, from Bondi Beach to suburban shopping malls. Le Provost says she is still training her eye to spot male models with that special something.

“You can see a 16-year-old surfie guy and know he is going to be perfect for a Dolly shoot and we can pick out certain people for magazines
and clients.”

Turning away people is heartbreaking, Le Provost says.

“It is painstaking to explain why they are not right, especially if it is something they have wanted to do for a long time,” she says.

After returning to Australia, Le Provost enrolled at FBI Fashion College in a Certificate IV in Fashion Business. The college was important in helping her land the job at Scoop, despite only being a few months into her course.

“Because I was doing the Fashion Business course and because Scoop was looking for someone to get into their agency, I was recommended by FBI to go for the interview,” she says. “Somehow within four months of coming back I had this full-time job, I was just blown away by how lucky I am.”

Despite the industry’s reputation for having its share of prima donnas, Le Provost says only models who get along with photographers and clients get booked.

“I do not want people to think the fashion industry is all fighting tooth and nail and being bitchy all the way to the top,” she says.

She attributes part of her quick success to advice she received from her boss: try to be nice to people and efficient.