Sara Ziff, founder of Model Alliance, said business leaders need to be hauled before House oversight committee
A top modeling industry activist has called for business leaders to be hauled before lawmakers in Washington to investigate what role modeling agencies may have played in theJeffrey Epsteinsex-trafficking scandal.
Sara Ziff is the founder of the Model Alliance, a non-profit advocacy group calling for fair treatment, labor rights and safe working conditions for fashion industry workers.
“I’d like to see a proper investigation into how modeling agencies facilitated Epstein’s abuse,” she told the Guardian in an interview, adding that bringing the heads of the companies before the oversight committee is “totally appropriate”.
Ziff and more than 40 Epstein survivors have signed a letter sent toNew Yorkattorney general Letitia James, and congressmen Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie to ask for an inquiry into the issue. They say the number of people in the model business – agents, owners, scouts – whose names have come up in Epstein document releases and through witness testimony “point to more than a single predator operating in isolation”.
Theletterdescribes a power structure in the fashion business that made model agencies “a pipeline through which vulnerable teenagers were regularly delivered to powerful predators” and describes Epstein as “not a rogue outlier, but a beneficiary of – and a participant in – this system”.
Citing public records, survivor testimony,investigative reporting, and entries in the US Department of Justice’s Epstein files releases, the letter states, “Epstein’s trafficking operation intersected directly with modeling agencies and executives who introduced him to young women and girls and facilitated his access to potential victims”.
Ziff, 42 and a former model, is no stranger to political pressure campaigns. Last year saw the passing of the New York Fashion Workers Act (FWA) for workers in the industry that could pave the way for unionization.
The letter calls for an investigation of modeling industry figures includingFaith Kates, who ran Next Management, which represented Ziff; the late Jean-Luc Brunel, an Epstein associate and model management owner whodiedby suicide in jail while being investigated by French prosecutors for rape and trafficking of minors; and Gérald Marie, head of Elite Model Management’s European division, accused of rape by more than 15 former models, including Model Alliance memberCarré Otis.
“It’s essential that attorney general James and representatives Massie and Khanna whether and how modeling agencies and agents facilitated Epstein’s abuse,” Ziff said “This deserves further scrutiny.”
James and Massie did not immediately respond to requests for comments. But Khanna said in a statement: “I will be taking this information to the oversight committee and will urge them to investigate this issue and subpoena individuals from the modeling industry who were involved in Epstein’s abuse. I am grateful to the survivors for speaking up and I will continue to fight for accountability.”
The call to investigate Epstein’s contacts with the modeling industry comes nine months after Model Alliance helped to push through the Fashion Workers Act that, Ziff said, has helped to address “an underlying power imbalance and to prevent this kind of abuse”.
The legislation was opposed by a group calling itself the Coalition for Fairness in Fashion, representing agencies including Next, Elite and Ford, that said it had not “not adequately account for the economic realities of operating a model management company in New York”.
Under the law, models are now able to reclaim power of attorney that had typically been handed over to agents as a condition of employment, protections against harassment and retaliation, safe work spaces, guaranteed overtime and lunch breaks. But the industry is now facing a number of problems, including a contraction of budgets, the replacement of models by actresses, influencers and celebrities, and threats from AI simulation.
But the law is only effective in New York. Model agents say it’s too soon to say how effective it has been though they see improvements in terms of awareness, though warn their role is limited in terms of how clients respond or in European capitals where the fashion industry is centered.
