The Fashion World Needs An Automated Modeling Agencies Rating System And Here's Why

This article originally appeared in Issue # 2 Of LoveFMD magazine.


For most of the 20th century, business leaders have relied on 'scientific' studies and 'statistical significance' to determine what information they could trust. Today, technology is making those assumptions obsolete with our economy increasingly becoming a semantic one. When it comes to the fashion industry the appliance of scientific measurements is no different than any other industry. It’s 2015, we have self-driving cars and quantum computers, and while there has been varying use of technology in the realm of fashion forecasting there has been a considerable lack of a scientific approach when it comes to other aspects of the fashion economy.

In a competitive and fast moving business like modeling, an agency plays a pivotal part. In fact, the modeling business hosts some of the world’s most rapidly growing agencies. For decades, there has always been the need for competitive advantage of the fashion business globally and to regulate the agencies market with a fully transparent and non-profit instrument. Existing services in the market still haven’t solved this problem. Although you can view a list of top agencies on a multitude of sites in the fashion fraternity, they aren't focused on a scientific rating nor concerned with providing the best possible calibration. With the size of the modeling agency business growing rapidly all of these challenges come with great opportunities. Thankfully, the dynamics of the modeling business are about to change dramatically through the use of Data Analytics by one company.

Data Analytics (DA),which is the idea of examining large amounts of raw data with the purpose of drawing conclusions, finding patterns, establishing correlations and identifying emerging trends is a big trend these days and is used in many industries and fields to allow companies and organizations to make better business decisions. Putting that to use and finding new answers to old questions in the fashion industry is the MARS. As the first digital automated quotation system of its kind, the MARS (acronym for Modeling Agencies Rating System),which is also billed as 'a novum with full transparency', was born out of a feature on FMD* a decade ago.The concept of defining the seriousness and financial liquidity of a modeling agency was picked up by no less than the EDAQS, a scientific research company that develops digital automated quotation systems on an entirely new level for a wide range of industries as well as for governments and public entities. After two years of development in cooperation with the FMD and a pool of fashion experts, the scientists and analysts of EDAQS specified an outstanding and precisely calibrated algorithm that reflects the overall status of a modeling agency like nothing else before.

This algorithm gives MARS the power to not only act as a tool to facilitate business decisions with the next bookings, but moreover to regulate the agencies market. While the list of official ratings is currently not much bigger than 10, the mission for 2015 has been declared to be of a much higher frequency and impact. Recently, the committee announced its plans to release a mass rating after having evaluated and analyzed the already issued ratings, which included Triple A’s for Storm Models in London and Wilhelmina New York. As part of the cooperation, the FMD agreed to publish all ratings on the respective agency profiles on their website, giving the fashion industry free access along with a detailed information sheet.

But what exactly does the triple A rating of a modeling agency tell us?

On its website, MARS explains in a short but expressive sentence: 'The better the position of a model agency in the market, the higher its reputation and the longer its history, the better will its rating be.' As is widely known in the financial industry, the power of ratings can have enormous effects. The team of the MARS rating committee has decided to base its rating-algorithm on a broad set of data and individual expertise.

In fact, the ratings of the agencies, which range from AAA to D, offer a perfect instrument to evaluate the overall risks that you could face by working with an agency, and not just the credit or reputation risks. Be it that outstanding invoices could only be paid with a delay or not at all due to insufficient liquidity, or that the agency has not enough market power and reach to offer a model enough jobs. There are many examples of use for such a rating tool.

While one knows from the economy that the power of ratings can have tremendous effects, the folks at MARS were wondering how accurate such a modeling agency rating can be and how it is defined. The answers from the committee have revealed that the MARS is based on a versatile, dynamic and highly sophisticated algorithm that takes advantage of other instruments to refine its rating. Factors that should be highlighted here, are the geographical market power of the agency’s location, the local and global modeling market share and the market reach calculated from the model contracts along with the number and value of the modeling jobs, among many other important factors.*

To define the first two factors, the MARS uses another tool, the aptly called FACER (abbreviation for Fashion Economic City Rating), which specifies the exact value of a city within the fashion industry by taking economic data sets and considering the competition on the local market. EDAQS is expected to publish this list of the most important cities in fashion sometime in the first half of 2015.

MARS is also being used in the IFDAQ-algorithm to maximize the analytical accuracy of the same. The IFDAQ, is a digital automated quotation system that is said to be the most powerful fashion instrument, and is another venture between FMD and EDAQS that is being used by selected fashion leaders since 2008, but will be open to the public very soon. Altogether, the industry is keen on seeing the influence of these fashion analytical instruments in the near future.

In his critically acclaimed book 'Blink', author Malcolm Gladwell described how humans can often detect and act on patterns before they understand them, now computers are learning to do the same. Often we assume that the goal of a rating system is to accurately capture and quantify the things that we see. It’s a reasonable explanation. But that’s the beauty of big data, it can be dumb and still be incredibly useful. We don’t need to find a rhyme or reason in order to make judgments about the world around us. What is perhaps even more exciting is, when vast computational power is applied to simpler patterns. That’s when dumb data starts to become smart.

And that is exactly why the team of researchers and scientists built MARS – to further progress toward a more agile, modern, scientifically exact measurement summary of the overall position of a legit fashion model agency unique to the fashion industry. However, against the backdrop of these trends, before we can manage effectively in a big data world, we must first change our business culture from one that values clever ideas to one that embraces testing and action. The fashion industry needs to take its cues from the mass aggregation of information, for success to grow further, remain successful, or regain lost ground. In particular and in essence, systems like this, will enable us to create a simulation economy where businesses can function much more efficiently.

At present, MARS is providing an overview of the world of professional modeling agencies to interested parties. Ratings give an informed opinion based on facts, expert knowledge and mathematical formulae, representing the overall position of an agency in the market. As those positions change, the ratings might as well do so. So if your agency belongs to la cr?me de la cr?me “It’s a Triple A!” could be your outcry.



For more information about the MARS, please visit www.mars.im the product’s profile at FOG or on The FMD



*1. The Fashion Model Directory (FMD) is the most comprehensive and authoritative source of professional fashion information, which operates several online databases of information about professional models, brands, designers, modeling agencies, magazines and editorials.
*2. Information shared within the scope of a defensive publication issued by MARS/EDAQS on January 2014.