“Of course, we always knew that the most beautiful women came from Estonia. Now everyone knows.”

By Gordon F. Sander 

"I'm in the export business," says Raul Andresson, co-president of Beatrice Mass Model Management, a model agency he runs with his wife Beatrice—herself a model and well-known celebrity in Estonia—out of a sprawling, light-filled flat in downtown Tallinn. 
       Andresson proudly handed a reporter the agency's newly-minted, lavishly-produced 2000 calendar, flowing over with seductive portraits of this year's line of long-stemmed, fine-boned, amply-proportioned beauties: Kadri the blonde, Victoria the brunette, Martina….
       "I export beauty," he said matter-of-factly, interrupting the reporter's admiring muse. 
       Indeed.
       At last count, there were at least four full-fledged model agencies based in the Estonian capital, a prodigious number for a city of half a million—and the phones are jangling in each of them.
       "Everyone is crazy about Estonian models," said Margit Jõgger, co-founder of Estonian Modeling Agency, as she reached for her cell phone for the third time in a minute. 
       Everyone, it seems, is looking for the new Carmen Kass, the Estonian model who was discovered in a Tallinn supermarket in 1992, when she was 14, and has since risen to become one of the world's top supermodels. Kass' Amazonian features graced this February's U.S. edition Vogue magazine, which pronounced her, along with Gisele Bundchen, one of the world's two top supermodels. 
       Not many people outside fashion may actually be aware that Kass is from Estonia, and many may still have some trouble placing it on a world map. No matter. Kass' success, along with the increasing worldwide demand for Estonian models, is but the latest proof—even it is but skin—deep-of the country's acceptance by the Western world.
       For model agency heads, the boom times have come hard.
       "All the things we have worked for years are finally paying off," said Marge Tilk, head of ModelNet, a local agency she founded several years ago as her own modeling career was beginning to taper off. 
       Tilk was one of the few Estonian girls who worked for the Soviet-era model agency Red Star—a period she would rather not talk about. Today the 28-year-old redhead still occasionally works as a model herself, although she is generally too busy running ModelNet.
       "The girls are out there on the runways," says Tilk with enthusiasm. "They're doing Milan. They're doing London. And people love them."
       "Of course, we always knew that the most beautiful women came from Estonia," says Margit Jõgger, at her cavernous, old town office, which is covered with magazine covers featuring her models. "Now everyone knows."
       Jõgger and her partner Katrin Rannaväli met with lots of blank Estonian stares when they left their Tallinn advertising jobs to start EMA back in 1992, a year after the country regained independence from Moscow. 
       With the Estonian economy in free fall, the notion of actually paying someone to pose for an advertisement struck many Tallinn businessmen as absurd. Nevertheless Jõgger and Rannali persisted in their quest to bring the beauty business to Estonia. When they weren't expostulating with quizzical Estonian neo-capitalists, the two were roaming the cobblestone streets near their offices looking for recruits for their  new-fangled line, asking a girl here and a girl there to pose for modeling tests.
       Somewhat surprisingly in a country known for shyness, almost all of the girls they asked said yes. After half a century of dwelling in the gray Soviet void, Estonian women, who had been known during the inter-war years for their exquisite fashion sense, were fast discovering the world of beauty. 
       The notion of becoming a fashion model in 1992 was very in. It still is. 
       By 1996, Jõgger and Rannaväli had put together a cadre of eager-to-please, assiduous Estonian models, and their girls quickly went international. The export business had begun.
       One of EMA's first major discoveries was Iris Teiter (center photo). Waiting for friends in Tallinn, Teiter was politely accosted by an out-of-breath Jõgger, who persuaded her to enter one of the increasingly popular model contests then being held in town. The contest was scheduled to begin in 30 minutes. 
The doe-eyed beauty won. 
       Within two years, Teiter was living in a flat off Champs Elysee and modeling for the likes of Chanel and L'Oreal, along with her then roommate, Marge Tilk.
       Meanwhile, another enterprising prospector, a former photographer's assistant by the name of Paolo Moglia had hit upon an even more momentous discovery-the statuesque form of Carmen Kass. 
       Faking her mother's signature on the model's release form, Kass flew straight to Milan and immediately began modeling. 
       It wasn't until two years ago—by which time the fashion-magazine world had outgrown its affinity for the evanescent, decadent "waif" look—that Kass' and Moglia's years of hard work finally paid off and she attained cover girl status.
       Today, in addition to being one of the world's top models, Kass is a partner with Moglia in Baltic Models, a Tallinn model agency. Located on the second floor of a small building off Müürivahe, in the Tallinn old city, the agency is a virtual Carmen shrine, adorned with Carmen magazine covers and posters. 
       Moglia himself already thinks he has discovered the next Carmen: a 12 year old by the name of Tatiana who he whisked off to Milan this year—though this time with her parents' permission. 
       The other agencies have their own Bright Hopes. 
At Beatrice Mass Model Management, it's a stunning brunette by the name of Katrin. At EMA, it's a svelte 18-year-old by the name of Helis. At ModelNet, the girl of the moment is a small town girl by the name of Anu whom agency head Marge Tilk discovered at a relative's wedding.
       "I'm a hunter," says Beatrice, as her dachshund-cum-mascot Elizabeth barks approvingly. "We all are."
       Given the ongoing demand for Estonian models, it looks like the hunt-and the Estonian model craze—is set to continue.

Also see Fashion Model Mania

Gordon F. Sander is a freelance writer based in London and New York. He has written for The New York Times and The Financial Times. He is also author of the book, Sterling : The Rise and Twilight of Television's Last Angry Man. He is also an accomplished photographer and has publish a book of his pictures. The above article was his first contribution to CITY PAPER.
    Photos courtesy of the Estonian Modeling Agency.

                  —CITY PAPER-The Baltic States