A small coincidence brings C-Heads Magazine and Alisson Chornak from Way Model Managment for a short meeting together, the ideal chance to take a look over the border of Europe. Model Scout in Brazil – a small interview.

The first simple question: who are you and what is your job?
My name is Alisson Chornak, i’m 25 years old and i live in Brazil, more exactly in Sao Paolo. I mainly work for Way Model Managment and i’m responsible for two occupations -„New Faces“ and „Scouting“.

Way Model Managment is perhaps not very well known here in Europe, so can you tell us some words about it?
Way Model Managment ist one of the importants model-agencies in Brazil and represent big names like e.g. Cintia Dicker, Caroline Trentini, Viviane Orth, Alessandra Ambrosio and many more. The Agency was founded 2007 by Anderson Baumgartner and Zeca de Abreu. We have more the 100 models in our portfolio, in our team there are 30 persons.

How do you get the job – we can imagine, that you can’t find this job on every corner?
I’ve always a big interest in the world of fashion and models – when i was 14 years old, one day somebody from a model-agency asked me, if i’ve interest to work for them… so everything started. *laughing*

For somebody who is not in this world – what do you do exactly?
There are two parts – my job as Scout is to find new models and then to build them up to present them to the bookers of the fashion-business. So – i’m searching models and then present them…

How does you daily work look like – are you often on the street?
In Brazil there are two important seasons, one is the Fashion Week in Sao Paolo, the other one is Fashion Rio – in this time, i’m the most of the time in the front of the computer, after that seasons i’m normally on the streets – searching for new faces.

What does “new faces” mean exactly?
New faces is a girl or boy, who is completly new on the market and also to the agency. Many of them leave their town or villages and came to big cities like Sao Paolo. Sometimes they often abandon their school, jobs or family – in the hope, to be the next top-model of tomorrow. The difference to the other, normal models is, that new faces have most of the time no experience in this business or also no own portfolio.

Is it difficult to find models? What you are looking for?
It is really difficult to find a model, that has really potencial. It is not only the face or body, it’s everything…. the attitude, the character… which is often more important then beauty.

How does a girl react, when you ask them on the street? We can imagine, that it’s not easy…
There are many factors. One problem ist, that there many fake-scouts on the street, so sometimes they don’t trust you. It can also happen, that we find beautiful girls and boys, but they have a completely other idea of their daily life, study and so on. I’m often in the south of Brazil in small villages and there is it very difficult sometimes – the reason is, that the education is low, so they can’t or won’t interest in modeling, because they have to take care of their families or must earn money. But most of the time, after some discussions, they cange their mind or have more interest.

How old are the girls and are the scouted all on the street?
The most are around 16 years… i often plan specific tours in the south of Brazil to find new faces, but it’s a mix bewtween everything – some of them you can find in small towns or villages, other ones come to the agency by themself to try and get a job as model.

With the job as scout – we can imagine, that there are suddenly many „friends“ around you?
Yes, this is really difficult. There are a lot of people, who are looking for your friendship and have the hope, to get contacts with models – this is really bad. For this friends, it’s only relevant, what you are doing – but not, what’s your real personality.

But can you imagine an other job?
I love, love, looooooove my job and i want to work in this business – as long as possible! *laughing*

Yeah, sounds good – thanks for your time, Alisson!
Thank you too!

www.waymodel.com.br
Video @ New York Times

Interview by Emanuel Sprosec