How to Make Herself Agreeable to Everyone: A Memoir

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 reservations: She was a precocious and 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 access to wealth, fame, and influence. Besides, as she was often reminded, "there are a million girls in line" who would eagerly replace her.

A ferocious, visceral memoir, How to Make Herself Agreeable to Everyone chronicles how Russell learned to navigate the dizzying space between physical appearance and interiority, and making money in an often-exploitative system. Being "agreeable" led to more success, more bookings, more opportunities to work with the world's top photographers and biggest brands.

As her prominence in fashion grew, Cameron discovered the work of modeling to be deeply isolating and frustrating. Instead of giving her freedom, her job required her to perform the role of compliant femme fatale, in which she found little room for transformation or growth. So she began organizing with her peers, and together they began finding their place in movements for labor rights, climate and racial justice, and brought MeToo to the fashion industry. 

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