The long awaited Fashion Worker’s Act will finally become law, providing workplace protections for models and giving fashion workers the same labor protections as other industries.  

Under the new act – which is still awaiting signature by Governor Hochul – agency commission fees will be capped at 20% of model’s pay and models will be entitled to mandatory meal breaks and overtime for jobs lasting over eight hours. Workers will also be entitled to be paid no more than 45 days from doing a job.

The modeling industry has been plagued with allegations of mistreating models for decades. A 2017 study carried out by Models.com found that sexual harassment, racism, and other forms of discrimination were rampant across the industry. In that same year, casting director James Scully made a series of allegations on his Instagram page against Balenciaga’s casting directors, Maida Gregori Boina and Rami Fernandes, whom he described as “serial abusers”. Reports of unethical business practices by modeling agencies are not uncommon with young models regularly being duped into working for free and eating disorders all but encouraged by several agencies.

Despite pushback from many big players in the fashion industry, the new act, which has been more than three years in the making, will finally address these systematic abuses of models. The Model Alliance- a small non profit founded by former model Sarah Ziff in 2012 – has been campaigning for the bill’s enactment, and said in a statement that the Fashion Worker’s Act will close the loophole through which modeling agencies evade regulation and prohibit predatory practices that keep models in debt and vulnerable to abuse.