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No sign of Shanghai modelling agency, days after B.C. model found dead |
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Written by Greg Joyce, THE CANADIAN PRESS
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Tuesday, 08 July 2008 |
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VANCOUVER - Just days after a young B.C. woman was found dead in China in what police are investigating as a homicide, the modelling agency that she worked for seems to have disappeared.
A young man who answered the door at the Shanghai address listed for JH Model Management told an Associated Press reporter he didn't know of any modeling agency at that address.
Friends say Diana O'Brien, 22, left her home on B.C.'s Salt Spring Island in mid-June to pursue a modelling contract with the Chinese company. Her body was found early Monday in the Shanghai apartment building where she lived.
It's not only the company's office at the high-rise building complex that's missing. The website for JH, which had billed itself as "one of the leading modelling agencies in the East of China for over 100 models," became unavailable Tuesday evening.
While some reports have said O'Brien had been doing work she wasn't satisfied with, the modelling agency that represented her in Canada said the young woman was living her dream in the Chinese city.
The Barbara Coultish Agency said Tuesday that it was shattered by the news of O'Brien's death.
And the company went on the defensive over allegations that O'Brien was unhappy with the job and trying to get home.
"We have not been told all of the details of this tragedy, however we do know that she was not working at the time," the company said in a statement.
One report quoted a friend of O'Brien's as saying she got some work promoting whisky. Another said she told friends she'd been asked to work dancing partly nude for elderly men.
But the company said she was working as a professional fashion model with a legitimate agency with which they are associated.
"JH Model escorts their models to each casting and assignment they are booked for. Models are not accompanied on their personal free time," the company said.
One model agency owner said Tuesday that hundreds of Canadian male and female models work regularly overseas, including Asia, because they "love it there."
"As far as models working in Asia, 99.9 per cent of the models we send there never have a problem," said Murray Tennant, owner of BMG Models of Vancouver. "They go back and back again."
Tennant, whose agency has no connection with O'Brien, said a typical model working on a two-to three-month contract in Asia can earn as much as $15,000 to $20,000 before taxes.
He and others in the industry said models from Canada go to Asia for experience and exposure, and because the industry there and in Europe is much bigger than in Canada.
"It's a very good market for models to start their career. They usually go there first."
He roughly estimated about 1,000 male and female Canadians are now modelling overseas, although Richard Hawley, of Richards Agency, said the figure was more likely in the hundreds.
The models can work the runway circuit that might include Shanghai - "the Paris of China," said Tennant - as well Hong Kong, Singapore and Bangkok.
They also work for photo shoots for magazines, brochures and calendars.
Model Erica van Briehl has been to Japan eight times for jobs, but never to China.
Models head to Asia "to start up their portfolio because they'll have a better chance in getting experience," she said.
In Canada, "there is no experience to get," said van Briehl. "Canadian models definitely have to go overseas because there is nothing going on here."
Tennant echoed the absence of work in Canada.
"No model can make a full-time career in Canada. That's why we have to send them overseas," he said. "There are only two to three magazines in Canada."
Ciara Brazier said her former classmate was a quiet girl when they attended the Gulf Island Senior Secondary School.
"She wasn't a party girl. She was just really sweet, always smiling and really nice," Brazier said.
"She had lots of friends and I can't believe what I've heard."
Brazier said she didn't believe that O'Brien was into modelling while in high school.
After graduation, she saw some pictures of O'Brien on Facebook "and she was just gorgeous."
"I remember thinking, 'Oh, my God. She could be a model.' And then shortly after that I heard she was off to Milan for a modelling contract."
On Salt Spring, Glenna Berry, mother of Diana's boyfriend Joel, said he is "not doing very well at all."
"They were a beautiful couple," she said.
A spokesman for Foreign Affairs in Ottawa was not immediately available to comment about the investigation.
The Barbara Coultish Agency said O'Brien was an extremely good model "that expressed her happiness to be working in the fashion industry to us on numerous occasions.
"She often said it was a dream come true for her and wanted to travel the world with her career," the company said in the statement.
"She told us that she was happy in Shanghai and enjoyed the agency, the city and her roommates."
With files from the Associated Press in Shanghai
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 08 July 2008 )
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