Becoming a male model in Switzerland: my road to New York Fashion Week — without an agency

In early 2025 I stood alone in the woods, my phone propped against a tree trunk, filming myself walking. Anyone passing by on the trail probably wondered, briefly, whether I was all right. A few people actually asked what I was doing. The honest answer: I couldn’t walk. Not in the everyday sense — in the runway sense. My walk was stiff, my shoulders too high, my gaze unsure.

Nine months later I stood backstage at a show during New York Fashion Week, wearing an outfit by Zurich designer Ketty Nuñez, waiting for my cue. The last ten minutes before a show start are absolute chaos backstage — and then you step out, and it’s quiet, and there’s nothing left but the runway.

What happened in between was not a discovery story. No agency scouted me, nobody stopped me on Bahnhofstrasse. What happened in between was work, and fairly unglamorous work at that. Here is what it looked like — for everyone in Switzerland who wants to start modeling and doesn’t know where.

The portfolio comes before everything else

At the very beginning, as a kid, I modelled for my mother’s clothing label. When I wanted to try again at twenty, none of that was left: no pictures, no contacts, no name. What I had was time and initiative.

The way in was TFP shoots — “Time for Prints”: the photographer works for free, you work for free, both keep the images. In my first year that added up to forty or fifty shoots. That sounds like a lot, and it was a lot. But it’s the only road open to you at the start, and it’s better than its reputation.

Over time I extended the model: I wrote to designers directly and proposed collaborations. The designers lend the clothes, I organise the location and the photographer. It’s a win-win — the designers get good images of their pieces, I grow my portfolio. Nobody pays anybody, and everybody gains.

What comes out of this is more than a folder of photos. Every shoot is a training session in front of the camera, and every photographer and designer is a contact. My first TFP partners later turned into recommendations, testimonials and follow-up bookings. The portfolio on this website grew out of exactly that phase.

Castings: showing up is half the battle

My rule was simple: take every casting that fits the calendar. Not just the big ones, not just the perfect fits — all of them.

There are two reasons. The first is mathematical: the more often you show up, the more often you get booked. The second matters more: castings are training. You learn to be present within thirty seconds, to handle rejection, and to hold your ground in front of strangers who look you over without a flicker. You cannot practise that at home.

I did rather well at castings — clearly better than my experience would have suggested. I don’t put that down to talent, but to preparation: the walk was there, the poses were there, and I knew how I come across. All of it things you can work for.

One of those castings changed everything: a big casting with Ketty Nuñez, who brings her own models to shows with her label Kenu Boutique. It turned into a competition — and the best got to come along to New York. Around ten winners flew out; we lived together in an Airbnb for a week and prepared for the fashion show on site. A week of very different personalities in a small space is not always easy. But we grew together as a group, and I learned more in that week than in some entire months before it.

The walk is a craft

There is a romantic idea of modeling: either you have it or you don’t. My experience is more sober. The walk is a craft, and a craft can be learned.

Concretely, that meant: filming myself walking, watching the footage, correcting, filming again. Building and holding poses in front of the mirror. Experimenting with light to understand how shadow works on a face and a body — what works in the studio, what works outside. And: asking successful models. Most share what they know surprisingly openly if you ask honestly instead of flattering.

The training out in nature, where this story started, I never gave up, by the way. Walking outside — no mirror, no audience — forces you to develop a feel for your own body instead of waiting for correction from the outside.

Agencies: many rejections, one contract, one exit

Now for the part most guides leave out.

I was rejected by many agencies. That’s part of it, and it says less about you than you believe in the moment of the rejection — agencies are looking for gaps in their roster, not for an objective truth about your potential.

At some point I was under contract with an agency, for a few months. In that entire time, not a single booking came in through the agency. Everything I booked in that phase, I had organised myself. So I left. It wasn’t a dramatic break-up but a sober calculation: an agency that doesn’t book you isn’t a career step — it’s just a signature.

Out of that experience — and out of later contract offers I reviewed and turned down — came two rules I pass on to every beginner:

If someone wants money from you as a model, that’s a red flag. Always. Serious agencies earn a commission on your bookings, not your upfront payments. Paid “academies”, registration fees, mandatory sedcard packages as a condition of joining: walk away.

Read the contract before you fall in love with it. Exclusivity without any obligation on the agency’s side means: you commit, the agency promises nothing. Penalty clauses on exit, worldwide exclusivity, missing image-rights provisions — all of that appears in real contracts put in front of real beginners. I’ve had one of those contracts on my table and didn’t sign it.

Being unique is not a platitude

One more point, more important than any technique.

At castings you’ll find rows of people who are all tall, lean and well groomed. If that’s your entire offer, you’re interchangeable — and interchangeable is the opposite of booked. What makes the difference is the energy you bring that’s yours alone. Fashion means expression: a show isn’t a parade of clothes racks but a staging, and the designer is looking for people who can carry her vision without disappearing inside it.

That’s exactly what fascinates me about the fashion world: when a designer creates something special and tries to break out of the norm. Contributing to that on the runway gives me a kick I don’t get in front of the camera. Both have their place — but you should know where your fire burns, because people can see it.

So, honestly asked: do you have what it takes to walk the really big runway? The more honest answer than any gut feeling is: that doesn’t get decided today. It gets decided across the forty TFP shoots, the castings, the hours in front of the mirror and out in the woods. What it takes is, for the most part, what you make of it.

What I’d pass on

If I boil my road down to the essentials:

1. Portfolio first. TFP shoots, as many as you can get. Working for free at the start isn’t a flaw — it’s the ticket in.
2. Take every casting. Castings are training, not just opportunity.
3. Practise the walk like an instrument. Film, review, correct. Mirror, light, posing. Ask experienced models.
4. Stay sober about agencies. No upfront payments, read the contracts. An agency is a business partner, not a knighthood.
5. Cultivate your own energy. It’s the only thing that separates you from the row.

And maybe the most important point: to this day I don’t model full-time, and that’s deliberate. Alongside modeling I’m building my own company. Working in the fashion industry every day would put too much pressure on something I love — this way the runway stays what it should be: the place that gives me a kick.

Questions about your own start — or a booking enquiry? Write to me directly.