You don't need to be amazing and have an outstanding figure, as long as a certain part of the body looks good, you can also become a professional model.
Alexandra Berrocal, a handmodel sister who recently exploded on the Internet, shared her daily work and life, which attracted countless netizens to exclaim: "Do it casually" can earn 30,000 dollars a year, and this side business is indeed too enviable...
Berrokar is 37 years old and has a full-time job in the footwear design industry. In 2019, she began to try to do part-time hand models, YSL, Microsoft, Shake Shack... Many brands have asked her to shoot.
Compared to a regular model, the job of a hand model is much simpler. Berrocal's friends were even a little skeptical when they first learned about her work: pour a cup of coffee, wear a ring, put on a hand cream, and the money will be transferred to your account.
Of course, in Berrocar's own eyes, the job is not as easy as it seems.
Although the final product is only a set of photos and one shot, each shooting process lasts from 40 minutes to 5 hours, plus the time for audition and preparation, and the time to travel to and from the shooting site... Leave a full day of space for each job.
From groping to become a hand model, to now being proficient in it, Berrokar has also summed up his experience over the years. For example, she learned that brands prefer even skin tones, slender fingers, beautiful nails, and clean skin, with tattoos or scars being deductibles.
The size of my hands is also a key factor in the success of my auditions: "My hands look small, which is a good thing for my career, because I mainly shoot a lot of beauty products, and small hands make them look bigger. ”
Berrocal also explores other areas of the "body part model", feet, eyes, arms, legs and shoulders... However, because she didn't have much advantage in other parts compared to others, she finally focused on the work of hand models.
Making money by hand means that Berokar has to keep a high level of attention to the condition of her hands, and applying hand cream frequently, especially immediately after washing dishes, has become a part of her life that she has to pay attention to.
British hand model Nina Taylor's work is similar to Berrocar's, except that Taylor's hand has also been featured in many film and television productions.
She has worked as a "hand substitute" for Demi Moore, Jennifer Lawrence and Scarlett Johansson, sometimes for a few seconds of footage, and can get paid thousands of dollars.
Taylor has been in the hand model business for more than 20 years, and her first opportunity was when her cousin complimented her on the beauty of her hands: "I wish my hands could be like yours." ”
Taylor was in college at the time, and access to information wasn't as easy as it is now, but his cousin's compliment made him wonder if those shots of the commercials showing only hands were also shot by people with good hands?
She got a photocopy list of top modeling agencies from her classmates, and called her parents' bedroom phone to ask one by one if there were any audition opportunities in the field of "hand modeling".
After successfully passing an interview with a modeling agency in London, Taylor felt like he had opened the door to a new world: it turned out that there really were specialized "hand models" that could play an irreplaceable role in niche fields.
Over the past 20 years, Taylor has become a well-known hand model in the industry, and the brands/artists he has cooperated with are simply uncountable.
She is also becoming more and more "strict" in the maintenance of her hands: wear gloves when doing things at home, avoid leaving her hands too cold or too hot, pay attention to moisturizing at all times, treat the stratum corneum, use hand scrubs to remove dead skin cells...
Taylor doesn't have to think about going to a regular salon to get his nails done, and will only work with top nail technicians on set, because only they know what to pay attention to when working with hand models.
In the field of "body part models", in addition to hand models, foot models are also one of the most popular choices.
Maria Sivakova has been a foot model for 10 years, and her feet and legs have appeared in advertisements for a range of brands such as Calvin Klein, Coach, Prada and more.
The highest pay in Maria's career was $8,000 for a shoot, which she says is amazing, after all, most of the time, you can't get that much money for a shoot as a regular model.
In a 2022 interview, Maria revealed that she can shoot 10-15 times a month and earn more than $80,000 a year in foot modeling.
As with hand models, Maria mentioned that customers also like small feet when choosing foot models. In addition, the feet will be covered when shooting footwear commercials, so it is also necessary for the foot model to have a pair of slender, toned legs.
Becoming a foot model requires maintaining the habit of exercising all the time, building leg muscles and core strength in order to strike a variety of poses during shooting.
For example, splitting, standing on one leg for a long time... Compared to hand models, foot molds are more like hard physical work.
Foot care has become quite important, such as getting a pedicure every two weeks, avoiding uncomfortable shoes such as high heels... We need to do our best to maintain the condition of our feet.
As easy as it sounds, a job like a hand and foot model requires a lot of effort.
With the expansion of the market, some specialized "body part model" management companies have developed business opportunities beyond hand molds and foot molds. Body parts such as eyes and back can be a stepping stone to enter the modeling industry to make money.
But compared to the hands and feet, the "monetization power" of the eyes is still too limited: apart from makeup and eye care ads, there doesn't seem to be much to use the eyes exclusively.
Hands and feet, as the top of the industry for body parts, are still unshakable at least for a short time. People like Berrocal and Taylor, who entered the game earlier, are now able to sit firmly in the industry.
Things that sound strange have become more and more common nowadays, and there are also a lot of experience sharing about hand models on domestic platforms.
(Related content on social media)
The segmentation of the modeling industry has given rise to more elaborate categories of models, with a relatively lower threshold and opportunities for ordinary people to participate.
With the emergence of new fields and new business opportunities, it is possible that in the future, the eyes, back, collarbones and other parts will also "pop up", and there will be more refined body parts model classification.