Many cosmetic and hair product ads feature pictures that are no more than the head and shoulders of the model. You might
think that height and body measurements don’t matter for such modeling work, since it doesn’t show anyway. Sometimes you’d be right – “beauty models” can be “non-standard” fashion models, and do sometimes get selected from more “commercial” agencies. Still, the strong tendency in the high-end beauty product advertising is to use “editorial” faces. For the last decade or two that has meant high cheek bones, chiseled features – very different from the pretty “girl next door” type. Editorial fashion agencies recruit models with such faces, not only for cosmetic ads, but for all of their editorial and fashion campaign work. They have wide appeal among fashion clients. But such faces are not used much in commercial print work, which is more about attractive mainstream types. If a person “looks like a model” they may be disqualified from doing most commercial print work. So “editorial faces” that happen to be attached to tall, slim bodies get fashion agencies; the same face on a shorter body may not find any agency.
