Illustration by Tom Bachtell

Last summer, Lucianna Amato, who turns twelve this month and lives in Sayville, on Long Island, went to a science camp, where she spent a lot of time outside, looking at plants and birds. This summer, Lucianna wanted to try something different, which is why one recent afternoon she was on the deck of a photography studio in Chelsea wearing a pair of black lace shorts and a short-sleeved blue poncho, leaning against a wall with one ankle crossed artfully over the other, a lovely if slightly nervous smile on her pink-glossed lips. She was one of forty-nine campers attending Modeling Camp NYC, a four-day course that instructs girls aged twelve to eighteen in the arts of runway walking, makeup application, and camera engagement. Fierceness is commended. Lanyards are not involved.

Lucianna was the youngest camper, and the shortest. “I’m five-four,” she said, then reconsidered. “I mean, four-five. I always get that mixed up.” There are no height or weight restrictions for campers, although a disproportionate number of them might have fit in equally well at basketball camp or volleyball camp. “It’s modelling camp, not modelling school,” Heather Cole, the camp’s founder, a former model from Surrey, England, explained. “To me, this camp is about life skills, and just walking away with confidence.”

Warnings about the darker side of modelling—eating disorders, drug abuse, photographers who urge girls to take their clothes off—are not included in the curriculum. In one session, a nutritionist gave advice on healthy eating. “We learned about the four parts of the plate: a protein, dairy from a drink, vegetables and fruits, and grain,” a camper named Amanda Anderson (fourteen; five-seven) explained. Anderson had come all the way from South Burlington, Vermont, to attend. “There’s not anything in Vermont for modelling,” she said, feelingly. Like many of the campers, Anderson said that she had acquired useful knowledge, such as how to make an entrance on a fashion-show runway. “You’ve got to go bam! when you come out,” she explained, planting a hand on one hip and jutting it out dramatically.

Sashaying, strutting, and twirling techniques were taught in a conference room at the New York Helmsley Hotel, which was where most of the camp’s activities took place, including visits from agency scouts and editors from Seventeen. (The girls did get outside every day; they walked a block to get lunch at a pizzeria on Second Avenue.) Runway instruction was provided by Dean Modah, a young man in ultra-skinny jeans and a topknot, who stood at the foot of the runway as girls descended to thumping dance music, calling out exhortations like “Eye contact!” and “Do your thing!” and “Work!” During a water-and-bathroom break, Modah said, “It’s my responsibility to take girls like this, to build their confidence. Practice makes perfect.”

Several of the campers already had modelling experience. Sixteen-year-old Ellexia Hill’s résumé included a commercial for a car dealership in Columbia, South Carolina, where she lives, and she had mastered the ambulatory art of leading with both her pelvis and her chin. Brigit Ferry, a fourteen-year-old camper from Deerfield, Massachusetts, was working on developing a signature runway style: as she made her entrance, she popped the collar of the sleeveless naval jacket that she was wearing over a floral romper; when she turned at the runway’s end, she placed a hand behind her hair, which was adorned with a fake flower. “I like to think of myself as one of the bolder and more daring of my friends,” Ferry explained.

At the photo shoot, expressions of boldness and daring (wearing a skintight, gold-sequinned dress from Baby Phat, in the case of fifteen-year-old Maribel Martinez, from White Plains) were interspersed with moments of self-consciousness and caution (folding one’s arms defensively across the front of said dress, while tugging its plunging neckline upward). Margaret Rix, sixteen, from Rye, New York, looked ready for Milan, with honey-colored hair tumbling over sharp shoulder blades, an eggplant-colored minidress, and heels that put her well over six feet. She showed off how Modah had taught her to extend her legs—which were the same tan color as the stripes on the extremely abbreviated skirt of her dress. “I feel like my walk has improved tenfold,” she said. ♦