by Brian James
Founded this year by established industry creatives Faith Guoga and Saint , Faux Pax is a new model agency that’s dedicated to doings things differently.
Bringing a wealth of experience from across a number of creative disciplines, Faith and Saint have an acute appreciation of the relationship between the fashion industry and those it entrusts to be the human representation of it’s garments.
That appreciation envisioned the birth of Faux Pax , an agency comitted to disrupting the tried-and -tested model agency formula. One that describes those on it’s roster as humans rather than models. One that looks to champion those humans uniqueness and celebrate their individuality. Faux Pax is an agency which seeks to give agency to those it represents, providing a platform to those not previously afforded one in the mainstream modelling space, empowering and encouraging them to show up as their authentic true selves.
Challenging and changing industry stereotypes , Faux Pax are widening the doors of perception as to how a model agency should look and feel. Those values and that vision were exemplified at their June launch party held at the ecclesiastically elegant St Leonards church in East London. A bold and beautiful venue that spoke to the founders determination to eschew convention and which saw the Faux Pax community reimagine that sacred space to celebrate their inclusivity and diversity.
After the launch event dust had settled, Flanelle spoke to Faith and Saint about the serendipitous meeting which led to the birth of Faux Pax, the ethos that underpins all they do, and the opportunities and impact they hope that brings.
Congratulations on the launch of FAUX PAX. What was the motivation for founding the agency and can you tell us about the ethos and vision that differentiates you from other agencies?
We are a Human agency, with an empathetic approach to representation and an appreciation for the lives and the origins of the talent we represent before they face any cameras. Our origins and stories deeply impact how we show up in the world and aren’t often emphasised let alone celebrated, especially when it comes to modelling. Our stories are what make us singular as well as unify us as humans sharing the same world. Our vision for Faux Pax is to disrupt the traditional view of what it means to be a model, by humanising our talent through storytelling, as well as through offering transparent contracts and deals. (Faith)
Our ethos and creative vision for the agency is really the foundation of what we’re trying to accomplish. What differentiates Faux is its focus on storytelling and championing the individual. Diversity to me, means story. It’s not simply diversity in the sense of visual representation, we focus on the names and stories of our talent. Our roster carries that name and their souls with them to every shoot. No longer is the model simply a canvas for a brand, they’ve become an addition to the vision and ethos of the brand itself. We don’t work with simply “models”, we work with Humans, hence our positioning as a Human Agency. Humans who model. (Saint)
Why FAUX PAX and what message do you want that highly evocative name to convey to the world?
I first came across the word ‘faux pas’ through reading fashion journals when I was younger, and noticed how ‘fashion faux pas’ was used to describe a bad outfits celebrities would wear to events. For some reason I always really loved that word and sometimes those were my favourite outfits because they were usually trying something bold and different. The name of our agency is a misspelling of a phrase that implies a mistake, and cheekily encapsulates our ethos of embracing the unconventional. It’s about turning perceived flaws or missteps into statements of individuality. (Faith)
FAUX PAX is derived from Faux Pas, meaning “miss step or wrong step” Faith came up with the name, but to me it simply means maybe the “miss step” is the “correct step”. It speaks to our vision of redefining modern beauty. (Saint)
How did you meet, and can you tell us about your respective fashion and creative backgrounds?
I have a vivid memory of meeting Saint at a techno party in Berlin a little less than a year ago. We had some deep chats outside the venue and hit it off right away. I was in my party girl phase and before we met, I had planned to go straight to the airport from the club and let him know this mid dance. He was more concerned about me making my flight than I was at the time and was kind enough to take me to the airport! After that night, we continued to keep in touch as friends and update each other on what was happening in our lives. Saint was one of the first people I told about Faux Pax, and his involvement quickly grew from there. Our backgrounds in different creative fields and our serendipitous meeting have been instrumental in building our agency. (Faith)
I’ve spent most of my career following the path of becoming a film and television producer and working in production, and I also worked as a photographer for Australian fashion brands in Melbourne where I grew up. (Faith)
The first time we met was at a party in Berlin, a city I don’t think either of us thought we’d end up in, but c’est la vie such is life. I lived in Berlin at the time, working at a brand whilst Faith had been visiting from London. The same night we met was the same night she was flying back to London. So we partied all night, and then I took her to the airport. We stayed friends and eventually Faith reached out for help on this new thing she was working on that we now know as Faux Pax, and we started working on things remotely, me living in Los Angeles at the time, Faith being in London. The second time we ever met was almost a year later in London at the first Faux shoot with our first roster of models. (Saint)
I’ve been in the fashion industry for almost 8 years now, ranging from running my own brand, to working with established brands, as well as doing creative directive jobs for both brands and individuals. Fashion is a beautiful medium, but what drives me is story-telling and world building. (Saint)
What attributes and life lessons have those backgrounds provided you with and how have you drawn on them when setting up the agency?
Through many years of working in film and television as well through my work as a photographer, I’ve spent a lot of time supporting high profile talent and creatives and it’s how I discovered my love for working closely with and nurturing talent, as well as my love for storytelling and passion for inclusivity and diversity in culture. I’m excited to be able to bring together these skills and areas of interest through Faux Pax and see what the future brings. (Faith)
We should all help each other. I stormed into the industry from nothing, with no formal education or connections. I watched many people stop, or give up their dream. I believe Faux Pax puts us in a position to discover, develop and help talent achieve what they want in this world, or at least try, and that truly inspires me. I’ve always been addicted to the outliers, and the non-traditional, and I love that Faux focuses on that type of human, It’s beautiful. (Saint)
As Co-Founders how do you apportion the creative and business roles and responsibilities required to run an agency?
Saint and I have been organically developing our individual and shared roles from the beginning. As Creative Director, and because of his specific background and talent for it, Saint is very much leading the way for our creative direction and marketing strategy as a brand. My role as Director is in overseeing our larger business strategy and development. However we both have a holistic view of our work and closely support each other on all fronts as needed and are always prepared to wear any hat we need to. We are still a start up and at the end of the day, we are both lucky to be very multi-faceted with both the creative and business skills we can bring to the table. I’m beyond grateful for our friendship and the synergy Saint and I share as well as our shared appreciation for open communication, which makes the whole process of working together feel very natural and organic. (Faith)
Communication is key, separating and defining the creative role was important. At this level creativity itself is a job, and I’ve taken on that role because of how intrigued and inspired I was by the ethos of Faux Pax. Taking that ethos and creating a world around it is the job. That being said, it’s always an open discussion, we talk about everything openly and freely, I appreciate the beauty of creative conversation between Faith and I. (Saint)
The launch event was a celebration of the diversity and inclusivity that’s at the core of the agencies DNA. How important was it to hold it in the hugely atmospheric St Leonard’s, Shoreditch, a venue that seemed the perfect location to showcase both your models and your vision?
We were careful in choosing a venue which would best encapsulate the spirit of our vision for Faux Pax for our launch event. We both felt a church was a beautiful and bold space to bring people together to introduce our brand and models. I’ve always found churches to be beautiful sacred places and appreciated its role in bringing people together. We chose to host our launch event in St Leonard’s Church in Shoreditch, the creative heart of London, as it didn’t feel pretentious and was nonetheless atmospheric and immediately felt like the right venue and place to introduce Faux Pax to the world. (Faith)
We talked a lot about where to hold the event, explored the idea of warehouses, lofts, stores, but when doing it at a church became a potential option for me right away I knew it was the right choice. Making a statement that we’re going to do everything in our own way was important. Using a church to showcase individualism seemed like the right fit in terms of our ethos of being disruptive and taking spaces and redefining what they mean and what they’re for and evolving spaces. At the same time it was important for us to be respectful of the church itself. (Saint)
The tagline on the launch invitation was “Redefining modern beauty”. What does modern beauty mean to you and how do you want FAUX PAX to change societies stereotypical perception of beauty?
I believe true beauty is internal, and it’s how we see and carry ourselves which radiates outwards. Culture (the media, films, print and now social media) have always influenced our perceptions of beauty. By representing individuals who may not have been traditionally seen in mainstream culture, we aim to support access to contribute to culture and set a new beauty standard. (Faith )
Beauty has become too simplistic and gate kept. A word with so much depth has been unfairly reduced to commercialism. Beauty is more human than that. Beauty truly is in the eyes of the beholder, which means their space for all of us to have our moment. With Faux Pax we’re creating a platform where beauty is fluid rather than rigid. (Saint)
You’ve assembled a model roster that totally embodies those principles. What personal qualities are you also looking for from those you invite to join the FAUX PAX family?
Our models are all muses and unique individuals, each with their own fascinating origin stories and ways of seeing and showing up in the world. We are always looking for individuals with main character energy, who are real and true to themselves. (Faith)
Honestly I think personal qualities are equal to the physical qualities we look for rather than an addition. I’d say we want people who are unapologetically themselves. (Saint)
How important is it to not only provide them with modelling opportunities but to also empower them and give visibility to those who may have previously felt invisible?
Empowerment and visibility are crucial. We want to support our models as individuals, making sure they each feel seen and valued for who they really are before all the rest. (Faith)
Extremely important. I would love for those who have felt invisible to be centre stage with all attention on them. With today’s world we live in, there’s truly space for all of us to be seen, valued, appreciated, and because of this it’s an exciting time to be alive. (Saint)
Many models have had very negative experiences in the industry. How do you want to help set new industry standards and be a blueprint for doing things differently?
We aim to have an empathetic and transparent approach to all our work. We consider and treat all our talent as we would our own family – that includes getting to know their stories and supporting them as humans first. It also means we prefer to stay boutique in our approach, ensuring we will only ever sign talent we genuinely feel we can foster and give sufficient attention to. This also means truly transparent briefs and contracts. We aim to extend the same care to our clients, aiming to foster positive and respectful relationships throughout the industry. (Faith)
We hear this a lot as we interviewed our initial roster of talent, one of the main things we hear is lack of transparency, and lack of attention. These are two of the pillars of our agency. We aren’t looking to excessive growth for the sake of growth with our roster, we won’t take on more talent than we have the capacity to handle. When it comes to transparency, yes we do the heavy lifting with negotiations and contracts, that being said we encourage our talent to be involved, and understand why they earn the amount they earn, the true conditions, where our agency profits, complete transparency. I truly believe it’s better for us to have conversations and come to agreements with all of our talents. We never want to force it, we see our relationship with our roster not as a service, but as a partnership. (Saint)
What’s the response been from the wider fashion community to the founding of the agency and what are your goals and aspirations for the second half of 2024?
The response has been overwhelmingly positive and encouraging. For the rest of 2024, we aim to focus on developing and growing our current talent roster, and working with like-minded brands and collaborators. We’re excited about the future and the potential of the impact we can make in the fashion industry through our work. (Faith)
People are curious, there’s much we have yet to show. I believe the community understands and is excited about what we’re doing and that is exciting for me. From a creative and brand side the goal for me is resonance. I believe our ethos and goal is big, and it’s emotional, and we need to connect with our community. Visually there’s a lot of exciting campaigns and partnerships we have coming to push this message of individualism. I believe Faux will transcend what a traditional agency can do in its creativity and in its brand partnerships and collaborations and that’s truly exciting. (Saint)
We live in a fashion era where the algorithim can define a season or trend and the pressures on model agencies and bookers to adhere to those algorithim analytics is immense. Faux Pax is a shape-shifting agency that’s rejecting those data-driven didactics to assemble a roster whose stories are as important as their swagger and who bring unique relatability to the runway.
Faith and Saint are change-makers who are not only redefining how we view modern beauty but also reimagining how a model agency looks, not only in terms of the faces on their humans board but also how they interact with those humans and celebrate their individuality.
As a model of how to do things differently Faux Pax is an exemplar of that change and where they lead others will surely follow.
Many thanks to Faith and Saint for speaking with Flanelle ; and to Andrea and Jasia at Idea.PR for all their help.
