Despite, in moments, being the most public voice for my profession–giving one of most viewed TED talks, bringing the #MeToo movement to fashion–I always felt scripted, even in private, when it came to talking about my job as a model.
I started to write down words that felt difficult to say. The first was tolerate. It was more resonant than consent, so loaded and legal, a low bar inside a world of limited choices. And it felt more complex than complicity, because it got at the relational emotional reasons, the human scale reasons we do things our hearts and minds strain against.
I kept notes to hold myself accountable. When they began turning into a book I found writing oddly similar to modeling. Both were affective labor: doing something to elicit a certain feeling from someone else, most reliably, by working inside shared stories. Rather than telling a story with a predictable response, I wanted to reach beyond entertainment and influence toward collaboration.
In the story we know, a girl comes of age when she is assaulted. Behind the curtain, fashion is an extractive industry with power hungry men and women who can argue we’re empowered by objectification. To find this story insufficient was to consider the limits of a hero's journey, and the necessity of choral histories. Question the attention and authority White women receive when we tell stories of victimization. I wrote to locate repair and imagination in my body, and in bodies of models across centuries.
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PRAISE FOR HOW TO MAKE HERSELF AGREEABLE TO EVERYONE:
“Cameron Russell's How to Make Herself Agreeable to Everyone is an unforgettable book. Fiercely intellectual, deeply vulnerable, and unapologetically honest, Russell reads through the layers of gender, race, capital, and exploitation in the fashion industry. Through her personal journey, she unpacks how inheritances, commitments, and dreams can both inspire and distort our paths. A voracious reader and critical thinker, Russell reveals the complex dance of an industry that punishes even as it rewards. Her story of being a supermodel and groundbreaking activist is particular, but the lessons she shares apply to us all. She teaches us how to move away from being accomplices to our own suffering and towards being loving witnesses for one another. I highly recommend this powerful work.” –Imani Perry, author of South to America
“How to Make Herself Agreeable to Everyone somehow exists before, beside and after reckoning. I don't know of a more blistering dismantling of what makes a so-called fashion and modeling industry. And that would have been enough. But the book artfully pivots towards repair and locates truths in the actual bodies, experiences and imaginations of those who hold the clothes up. Craft matters here. Cameron Russell's writing, and its audacious scope, will become malleable legend.” –Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy: An American Memoir
"How to Make Herself Agreeable to Everyone offers a unique and honest perspective on the fashion industry. Through the story of her journey of establishing her boundaries and paving a path to activism, Cameron doesn’t just hold the door open for more voices from within fashion, she makes a compelling argument as to why they must be heard.” –Christy Turlington Burns, Founder & President of Every Mother Counts and Model
"In an image-obsessed era that reduces women to--or encourages us to reduce ourselves to--our bodies, Cameron Russell's How to Make Herself Agreeable to Everyone is both a mirror and a window. Her struggle to maintain her agency is so deeply familiar, while her experience in an industry that often exploits and objectifies its workers in the name of "beauty" ultimately affects us all. Russell's voice is steady and compelling throughout, offering young women, especially, a thoughtful and powerful way through.” –Peggy Orenstein, New York Times bestselling author of Girls and Sex
“A poignant and expertly-crafted memoir, How to Make Herself Agreeable to Everyone tells the story of a woman finding her power and using it to uplift others—from workers rights to climate justice. This book holds lessons for us all.” –Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, co-founder of Urban Ocean Lab and the All We Can Save Project
"How to Make Herself Agreeable to Everyone is a gripping tour of a twenty year modeling career. In visceral and relatable story telling Cameron Russell confirms our worst fears about the industry and then topples them to reveal hope, humanity, and solidarity. She affirms that fashion can be space and a tool for liberation. I am grateful for this tender and powerful book." –Geena Rocero, model and author of Horse Barbie