#ThisIsMe. Kristina Wang

I started modeling in China a few years ago. It was my friend in Beijing who introduced me to the local freelance agency. Digging more into this business, I started getting to know more and more people, meeting other models and agents. Even though I worked quite well, there were always some problems I had to deal with as a freelance model. This market has been pretty chaotic for a long time already. Big money always attracts many unreliable and greedy people who want to take their piece of cake. Unfortunately, I met a lot of bad “bookers “ who can just not pay you or change the working conditions, or just lie to you about the working terms, and so on. So just working like this, you always have a big risk to get in troubles.
Sometimes though, by talking to other people, of course, you can know more information. But some agents often don’t allow you to talk to anyone. You can’t speak with another fellow models or clients, because you must keep everything in secret — your price, your working conditions, terms, and so forth. But still, I wasn’t going to shut my mouth down and be like, oh, ok, nothing is happening, because I realized that I was obviously being screwed. Of course, I talked to other people and found out that, in fact, we are getting paid much higher or a client is paying much higher. And, apparently, almost half of the salary goes quickly to the agent’s pocket. I also found out, thanks to other models, that we can be paid much higher. So I started to raise my price higher, higher, and higher. But then, if you do that, some agents stop working with you because they can’t get the half of your salary, so it becomes useless for them to push you to the job. Even sometimes when the client can choose you, they say, “Oh, sorry, this model is not in town.” Or, “She already has another job.” Just things like this. They can screw you without you knowing this, without the client knowing this. This lie is terrible. Even though you are a high-quality model, you still don’t work because agents don’t allow you to do so.

When I heard that the MDL team is building up an app that is going to help some models and clients, hopefully, avoid this kind of troubles and get some decent work for a decent price, it kind of inspired me and cheered me up. Finally, we can get some nice jobs for the fair price and honest conditions.
So big thanks to MDL Talent Hub for building the better industry for us.
Follow Kristina on Facebook and Instagram to find out more about her!