Sapor Rendall has found a niche market - modelling in Phnom Penh
Looking out the window of her smart office in downtown Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Sapor Rendall weighs up the contradictions of running a modelling agency in this poor, war-scarred kingdom. And at first glance, her business, Sapors Modeling Agency, with nearly 40 models on its books, seems to be totally out of place. Cambodia is one of the world's poorest countries, with only a fledgling advertising industry, few fashion shows and even fewer designers. A respected model might only earn US$20 for a day's work.
"It is very hard to make a living here," says Kevin Kouch, the Khmer-American president of International Modelling Agency, the kingdom's other modeling agency. "There are few jobs, and it is hard to find girls who have the height for overseas modelling."
He says his company has largely opted out of the modelling side because of its dependence on a very small, exclusively domestic market and instead has branched out into a different field, producing karaoke videos and stages shows and managing singers, actors and comedians.
Yet since starting her business in early 1997, Rendall says she has gone from strength to strength. The secret, she agrees, is to widen the appeal. To her, that means being accessible. She trains models in the arts of manners and beauty, but also offers classes to housewives and waitresses.
Her own story is heart-wrenching and the irony of a woman of her background teaching modelling and manners does not escape her. "When I was a little girl, my mother gave me away to another family. I had two brothers and two sisters and she just couldn't afford to feed me," the 29-year-old says.
She struggled to stay alive through the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime (1975-79). Her natural father starved to death and she lost a brother. In 1990 she was repatriated to an Australian refugee camp where she spent four years. There she met her husband, lawyer Matthew Rendall. While living in Australia, she also discovered modelling.
"I went to a modelling class sort of by accident, because I didn't like the way I looked. I didn't like my posture. My teacher taught me how to walk and I found I really liked it. It felt nice, gentle, beautiful."
So when she and her husband returned to Cambodia in 1994, she was keen to continue working in the field that had given her satisfaction and a new self-image. "I found work with a Khmer-American woman who was running a modelling agency here." Escorting the models around events, she watched in dismay as beautiful women lost their poise in a flurry of fingers and inappropriate silverware when the after-show meal appeared. "It didn't look right," she says.
When Rendall's former employer left Cambodia, she set up her own agency and took training a step further. "I made sure my models understood everything - dinner table etiquette, make-up, everything, because when they go out they represent me and my agency. Then I opened up the courses to teach other Cambodian women these basic things that we don't know about here because of all the years of war."
Now, as Cambodia's middle-class grows, her dining etiquette courses draw not only women, but also men who need to travel overseas or meet foreign clients for business dinners.
Hairstyling and make-up courses are also very popular with Khmer women of all ages and walks of life. "These skills give them confidence. A lot of people here never got to learn these things. It's true that Cambodian women until very recently were more familiar with guns than make-up techniques. "They come in here and I see women with lipstick around the outsides of their lips and white powder packed onto their faces.
"Then I teach them how to do it properly. The change is amazing - not just how they look, but also in how they feel about themselves. They gain confidence, and I think that's a really valuable thing."
Courses are flexible, ranging in length from a week-long crash course to six months, with average courses of between one month and three. The cost is about US$100 per month for makeup, hairstyling and related courses.
Rendall takes about 20 people per class and classes are usually full. She employs up to seven staff.
Recently she has branched out even further, providing a range of new courses in areas such as office skills, communication skills and "professional behaviour". These cost about US$200 a month.
"Modelling includes everything about someone, not just how they look. Most of my customers come here to please themselves or their husbands, or to make themselves more employable. They will never be models, but they still want to learn how to feel like models."
Sapors Modeling Agency
Suite 102, 1st floor
108-112 Sotheros Blvd
Hong Kong Centre
Phnom Penh
Tel: (855) 2321-7581
Fax: (855) 2321-1723