I am 20 years old and I Moved to Phoenix Arizona last year. I put my picture up on a modeling search site for scouts to recognize and cast me for photo shoot. I had not known anything in the way of modeling so it was something i did not think i would get feedback on. One day i got a call from the "main" person at John Casablancas and they seemed so excited to get me in! But they also made it clear that they only had a few spots left for orientation. I was nieve so of course i jumped on the opportunity.
I show up for orientation and wait a while to finally be directed to a room with a small runway type uplift and a screen behind it. I was in the room with about 6 or 7 other young girls and one boy. So far so good.
The "orientation" was directed by the "manager" i suppose you would call him. He went the whole time bragging about the company and separately had us do "comercials" and walk on the runway, in order to "grade" us on how advanced we were. So i got called back again for another interview and the woman i met with basically looked like a clown. She was old, wrinkly, and had her face painted on like she was trying to be a teenager again. So she was very persuasive and told me that since i had sooo much confidence that she would put me in advanced clases right off the bat. (10 classes instead of 20).
I of course was happy until... She showed me how expensive it was. You have to pay 300 up front to "hold your spot" and that 300 covers your start up bag.
I was extremely upset when i got this start up kit and found out that we had to all buy our own makeup and have every specific peice. This probably totalled about 50$ if you shopped cheap, but of course they urged going to macy's or a big expensive make-up store.
The start up kit included a text book (a 30 page paper back book)
and head band
an oversized shirt
a mirror
some brushes, which i only use a few of them to this day
and some foam wedges for foundation.
This was a HUGE rip off and it was rediculous.
Not to mention that they did not make any cuts and even the people who were shy and DID NOT LOOK THAT GREAT made it to the advanced classes, thats when everyone realized that NO ONE was special, we were all just dollar signs.
My classes were once a week for 10 weeks and they were only 3 hours each. The majority of the classes had a model from the school who didnt make it, the only work they could find was working at that school, and they were pretty people! On most occasions, the "teachers" didnt know what they were talking about and left the room multiple times. They would tell us what was in the book and they would basically "supervise". Most of the classes were confusing and the teachers did not know which class they were supposed to be teaching and a lot of them were late. I also found out that the people who paid all the money up front got to have 2 extra FREE photoshoots. This enraged me! They were favoring the rich kids! And it also infuriated a few of the other girls i was in class with. I brought this up to the staff and all they could say was "talk to so and so" so the receptionist finally told me that if i wanted to i could say i didnt like my other photo shoots and "re-take them" this made me a little more calm... BUT IT SHOULDNT COME TO THIS.
It is now a year later, i have to pay all my bills and am still trying to pay off john casablancas, the funny thing is, if you are not caught up on the payments, you cant even meet with their agent so that you can get money to pay them back!
This was a rediculous waste of time and money, and its a very stressful situation.
Kaybabe1321
phoenix, Arizona
U.S.A.
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