How to Make Herself Agreeable to Everyone

A fierce and innovative memoir that explores who holds the power in an image-obsessed culture, from the model and activist who helped organize the movement to bring equity to the fashion industry.

Now I measure the distance from model to president. You can see it in pictures. It’s the distance between Trump’s hand and the small of a teenage model’s back. It’s Marilyn Monroe’s breasts to JFK’s jaw as he leans in to speak in the only photo that exists of the two.

Scouted by a modeling agent when she was just sixteen years old, Cameron Russell first approached her job with some she was a serious student with her sights set on college—not the runway. But it was a job, and modeling seemed to offer young women like herself unprecedented access to wealth, fame, and influence. Besides, as she was often reminded, “there are a million girls in line” who would eagerly replace her.

In her fierce and innovative memoir, Russell chronicles how she learned to navigate the dizzying space between physical appearance and interiority, and making money in an often-exploitative system. Being "agreeable," she found, led to more more bookings, more opportunities to work with the world's top photographers and biggest brands.

But as her prominence grew, Russell found that achievement under these conditions was deeply isolating and ultimately unsatisfying. Instead of freedom, she was often required to perform the role of compliant femme fatale. So she began organizing with her peers, helping to coordinate movements for labor rights, climate and racial justice, and bringing MeToo to the fashion industry.

Intimate and illuminating, How to Make Herself Agreeable to Everyone is a nuanced, deeply felt work about beauty, complicity, and the fight for a better world.