Fashion Model Directory

Infobox Website
name = The Fashion Model Directory



caption = FMD Home Page at present
url = [http://www.fashionmodeldirectory.com/ www.fashionmodeldirectory.com] and [http://www.fmd1.com/ fmd1.com]
commercial = No
type = Online fashion models, modeling agencies, and fashion designers databases
language = English, German
registration = Optional
owner = FashionOne Group
author = Stuart Howard
launch date = September 13 1996
current status = Active
revenue = non-profitThe Fashion Model Directory (FMD) is an online database of information about female fashion models, modeling agencies and fashion designers. FMD is often denoted as the IMDb of the fashion industry. The project was started in 1996 by Stuart Howard and was taken over by FashionOne Group in 2002.

Overview

The Fashion Model Directory consists of the largest database about professional female fashion models, modeling agencies and fashion designers. In many cases, the information about the fashion models goes beyond simple statistics or biographical details to include complete information about advertisements, magazine covers, fashion shows, hobbies, notes and links to official and other websites.
Furthermore, FMD provides an extensive picture gallery for each fashion model including copyright information and photographer credit where available. The modeling agencies database includes contact information such as the address, official website, divisions, type of business, offices and notes. Each agency is being marked with a MVA-logo after being reviewed and verified by a selected team of modeling experts.
FMD offers an identification tool for unknown models, a regular model of the month interview, modeling news and gossip, user polls, ratings and special features such as the favorites lists and submission options. The website has also an active but insignificant message board.
FMD is a free site, which requires registration to access its complete range of functions. To register you need to have a valid e-mail account and a web browser that accepts cookies.
Registered users can also create a "my favorites list," which is a list of favorite fashion models that can be shared with the public.
Site visitors wishing only to view information without accessing interactive features can do so without registration.The site is available in two languages: English and German.

History

FMD was started as a private offline project in early 1996 by Stuart Howard. One year later the database went online and was updated every week and the only way to submit information was to send an email. The design used to be very basic and there were no advanced features except a simple search engine.
The first online URL for FMD was www.threestrings.com/stuart/, which was part of a personal website before changing to the current webaddress in 2001.
In 2002 the database was destined to disappear from the web because the time exposure of the project exceeded the possible.
After a short offline-time, the project was taken over by FashionOne Group, which invested time and money to restart with a new design as well as new functions.
Three years later, in 2005, the project has been reprogrammed and redesigned again.

The home page

The home page has had some changes over the years. Mostly showing new features on the site and recent releases.

Present

At present, the FMD database includes over 7,000 fashion models, 160 fashion designers and 900 modeling agencies. In 2007, FMD announced the launch of MVA (Most Valuable Agency), a new verification, testing and certification program for modeling agencies. Main objective is to provide credible information about modeling agencies and to sort out or render public all fraudulent and dubious agencies before they can do any harm. Therefore MVA also provides scam alerts and warnings as well as complaints submitted by professional fashion models. Furthermore, the information is being synchronized with a selected list of consumer protection services of several countries around the world such as the BBB or FTC.

ervice/Help

Questions or submissions are being dealth with and verified by the panel. At times when there are many submissions response time can be slower.There is a shorter URL [http://www.fmd1.com FMD1.com] for quick access.

ee also

* Supermodels
* Modeling agency
* Fashion Designer
* Internet Movie Database
* Certification

External links

* [http://www.fashionmodeldirectory.com/ Fashion Model Directory] — official website
* [http://www.aboutus.org/FashionModelDirectory.com FMD - AboutUS statistics]