The young woman who passes me on the stairs is tall and slim, with dramatic makeup and sleek dark hair parted in the middle. We briefly make eye contact before she continues her way down, the click-click of her high heels echoing throughout the stairwell. I assume she was coming from the office of Plutino Group. I also assume she was a model.
Plutino Group, founded by Roseanna Plutino twenty years ago, represents hair and makeup artists, fashion stylists, producers, off-figure stylists, props and décor designers, and creative directors. There isn’t an aspect of the fashion industry that Plutino doesn’t have a hand in. With the closing of Ford Models’ Toronto office last year, the timing was right to start representing models.
“Would you like a coffee or a glass of water?” a man at reception asks me when I arrive at the office. It is the type of airy, two-storied, high ceilinged loft space that designers inevitably have in TV commercials. I decline the offer just as Plutino introduces herself.
“I don’t know if you recognized him,” she says quietly. “But that’s the designer Mikhael Kale.”
“Oh!” I turn back to the reception desk. “You were very convincing when you asked me if I wanted water.”
“Thanks,” he laughs.
On our quick tour, Plutino explains she’s currently sharing her space with Kale, pointing out the row of sewing machines. Upstairs, sitting at a long table, her team busily tap away at computers.
“This place is amazing,” I say. The office is located near Lansdowne and Dupont, an area I just moved from. “I had no idea anything like this was here.”
“Everything is moving west,” Plutino pronounces.
Back downstairs, we chat in a glass-walled meeting room. The only interruption is the occasional scratching on the door by her small dog wanting to get in.
Originally hailing from North Bay, Ontario, Plutino moved to Toronto to become a makeup artist. She always knew that she wanted to be part of the fashion industry. She loved the creativity of hair and makeup, the infinite ways of transforming people. “It’s not just the lipstick–it’s what you can do with lipstick,” she says. “Seeing how makeup affects people…is something that gets into your blood. You can’t let go of it.” But she found the experience of working freelance “gut wrenching.”
“I don’t know how freelancers do it! I would get up and be all ready to go, but there’d be days that I wouldn’t get any work. And the not knowing where I was going on a day-to-day basis was terrible for me.” She found working as an agent at Sherrida Models to be more stable. When the group of hairstylists and makeup artists she had been working with proposed that they go off on their own, Plutino founded her group. It was a risk that paid off right away.
I ask her if her early experience as a makeup artist helped in her role as an agent.
“I don’t think it was an accident. My heart goes out for the struggles of new artists. And when they come to me and they want to go into the business, I’m very, very, very upfront. I don’t paint a pretty picture for them, and I don’t make them any promises. I try to teach them at a very young time in their careers all the frustrations and all the rewards of the industry.”
When talking with Plutino, it becomes apparent there isn’t one area of the fashion industry she feels specifically passionate about. Rather, she loves all of it and takes on people of different professions based on their talent. That’s how Pluntio Group grew into such a diverse company.
“Back when I started, I had a couple artists who were starting to do things like off-figure styling with nobody representing them. You could see the craft was incredible. It was never ever an option to say no to somebody like that. So whenever somebody really moved me, really inspired me, I’d take him on.”
She attributes her success to hiring the best agents and knowing the industry inside and out. She explains that when working with a client you must understand what they are trying to do and everything they will need to achieve it.
“Understand their needs before they even know what their needs are.”
Plutino uses Kale as an example of how she’s attracted to talent; “When Mikhael came into my studio, that was a no brainer. You want to have the studio? Take it! I support him in anyway that I can. When you see what he does, taking a little bead and embroidering it into Italian lace, one at a time, and building a dress, it’s incredible. Who wouldn’t want to be around that?”
Talent isn’t the only thing. She also looks for a no-drama personality.
“People often hear about divas in the industry,” she sighs. “Sure, there are people like that in all aspects of life, in all different industries. More and more, over the years, I’ve tried to stay away from people like that… I don’t have it around me any more. Was it around me?” She pauses. “Yeah. But the day of the diva, where you have to cater to an artist on set, is gone.” She repeats it. “The day of the diva is gone. Nobody wants that.”
This wasn’t the first time a fashion insider brought up her aversion to diva behavior unprompted during an interview. I want to believe it’s our down-to-earth Canadian humility coming to the surface, but it’s possible it’s also a warning to young people just breaking into the business– be malleable, work hard, and don’t act like you’re on Project Runway.
From divas, we finally get around to talking about Plutino’s expansion into models.
“Was it something that I was thinking of?” she asks herself. “No.” But when Ford closed down their Toronto office, Plutino jumped at the chance to work with their director Cathy LeDrew again. LeDrew became the group’s Managing Director and Allison MacGillvray, also from Ford, was put in charge of Model Management. “It is the most incredible opportunity for both the models and the artists alike because our reach is going to be that much bigger. The opportunities are going to be more diverse with having them here…I’ll be hitting every aspect of the industry from every side you can think of.”
“What’s wonderful about this industry is that it’s ever changing,” she says. “What’s so hard about this industry is that it’s ever changing.”
A few years ago, Plutino noted the degree to which social media was influencing the industry and decided to get ahead of the curve. Plutino Group is working on an online channel with Google TV and FashionNation. Named Got Style, it will feature shows about photographers, models, hair and makeup artists, and designers like Kale. One program will follow the Plutino Group staff as they go about their everyday jobs. With Fashion File and Fashion Television off the air, Plutino senses an opportunity to take on where they left off.
“We’re going to be seen all around the world,” Plutino says proudly. “Toronto’s going to be at the forefront of fashion, if we have anything to do with it. It’s going to happen. It is happening.”
You might call it a trend. Over and over again you can see the fashion industry opening its doors to camera crews as an alternative means of creating publicity. Those behind this move recognize that viewers are just as interested in the personalities of the industry as the clothes and hairstyles they create. Here’s hoping that Got Style will build an audience without indulging in reality TV show diva drama. Plutino may not want drama around her, but viewers often do.
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Max Mosher writes about style for Toronto Standard. You can follow him on Twitter at @max_mosher_.
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