Model X
The Documentary Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 25 September 2018
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In Paris, aspiring models have to adjust to rather spartan conditions - from sharing a flat with strangers to moving around an unknown city all alone and surviving on a mere 80 euros a week. Despite their best efforts to get a job, most of the girls will leave Paris with empty pockets. Former model and now BBC journalist, Alina Isachenka, follows 17-year-old schoolgirl Anna Vasileva from the city of Nizhny Novgorod in Russia on her challenging journey through tough competition and over-demanding casting directors to the top of the fashion industry.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | You are like a close hanger. I don't think that anyone would like this job. |
| 0:08.0 | The boys watch the girls while the girls |
| 0:10.0 | Paris Fashion Week. |
| 0:12.0 | They have to be perfect. |
| 0:15.0 | Not the perfect body for life, it's the perfect body for the work |
| 0:20.0 | catwalk. In Paris everybody likes skinny girl, really skinny girl. |
| 0:27.0 | Hundreds of girls being rejected. |
| 0:30.0 | Don't know what is wrong, but you can improve. |
| 0:34.0 | It is so hard, so that sucks. |
| 0:37.0 | It has to be the best walk every time I walk. |
| 0:40.0 | Every year, thousands of girls come to Paris Fashion Week hoping to walk the catwalk for a big designer brand. |
| 0:48.0 | I have to give my awe, like my entire soul. So they come into places and are chosen you know they don't have really the right to say or do anything |
| 1:01.1 | apart from walking and being what they are. |
| 1:05.0 | I'm Alina Sachchenko, a former model, now BBC. |
| 1:11.0 | I came to Paris 10 years ago to pursue my dream of becoming a famous model. Now in this bitterly cold and windy city here is 17-year-old Anna Vasiliva from Nizhny Novgorod in Russia, who also hopes to make it big. |
| 1:29.0 | If they like you now, would they make you change? |
| 1:33.0 | I think so. |
| 1:34.0 | One model is actually changing clothes right now, |
| 1:37.0 | so we can see her in a designer clothes walking back and forth. |
| 1:42.0 | It's all about the casting. |
| 1:45.0 | Casting means a 10 seconds walk, first, |
| 1:49.0 | away from the director sitting at the table holding your ID, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.