Found Before The Industry Finds You

The best faces in fashion rarely walk into an agency; they get found. Our scouts work the places new talent actually lives — city streets, sports fields, music venues, university campuses and, increasingly, the open submission channels of this website. The New Faces division exists to take a person with zero industry experience and turn them, over six to eighteen months, into a working model who understands the job. It is the pipeline that feeds our Women and Men boards, and we treat it as the most important desk in the agency.

One thing before anything else: development at Barnett Ellman is free. We never charge for scouting, coaching, classes or "registration". Any agency that asks new talent for money upfront is running a different business than modeling. We invest in you and recoup through standard commission once you book — which means we only sign people we genuinely believe will work.

The Development Program

Every new face follows a plan tailored to their starting point, but the structure is consistent. The first weeks cover fundamentals: walking, posing, movement on set, and the unglamorous professional skills — punctuality, communication, managing a schedule — that determine who gets rebooked. In parallel we build your book through test shoots with photographers we trust, at no cost to you, curated so the finished portfolio tells one clear story about who you are as a model.

Coaching: runway walking, posing vocabulary, on-set etiquette and casting technique, taught in small sessions at the SoHo office.
Testing: three to five curated test shoots that build a market-ready portfolio, styled and art-directed by our team.
Digitals and comp cards: clean, current materials refreshed every eight weeks during development.
Market strategy: a written plan for which market you debut in, which season, and what a realistic first year looks like.

The Managed Debut

When your book, walk and confidence are ready, we introduce you to clients gradually — showroom work and small editorials first, then bigger castings as feedback comes in. New models are never thrown into fashion week untested. If you are still in school, we schedule around your education without exception; a diploma outlasts any season, and guardians are part of every conversation for talent under eighteen.

Think You Have It?

We review every submission that comes through the site, and we look at the person, not the photography — phone snapshots in daylight against a plain wall are exactly what we want. Send front and profile shots, your height and city, and an honest line about yourself through the contact page, choosing "I want to become a model". If our scouts see potential, you will hear from us within two weeks. And if you want to know what scouts actually look for first, read our journal guide on how to get scouted.