Blog Tour: How Not to be a Supermodel – Ruth Crilly

‘As Miranda Priestley might say, ‘a million girls would kill for this job’.

Well, Ruth Crilly is here to tell you why that might … not … quite be true.

England. 2001. Ruth Crilly has embarked on a law degree and is destined for a life of normality and stability. That is, of course, until she sticks a polaroid of herself in a box somewhere in Birmingham and is scouted by one of the biggest agencies in the world.

Flung between Redditch and Milan, telesales and Vogue, wizard cloaks and red shearling coats, follow Ruth through a riproaring, hilarious decade of not-quite-making-it as a supermodel. Fuelled by little more than cigarettes and a fear of being measured she criss-crosses the world in pursuit of fame and fortune.

Bridget Jones meets the Devil Wears Prada as told by a mix of Marina Hyde and Bryony Gordon: How Not To Be A Supermodel is a time capsule of a book that dives into one of the world’s most fascinating industries. Offering a glimpse into both the high glamour and juddering reality of a by-gone era, this is a comic memoir gracefully relayed by a pessimistic, sardonic disaster-magnet.

Ruth is an award-winning online writer and content creator respected for her honest beauty reviews and loved for her hilarious, unfiltered life updates. After spending over a decade as a fashion model, she became one of the UK’s first social media stars in 2010 and her eponymous blog has been read more than 50 million times. Her earlier career as a successful fashion model left her with a fear of tape measures, diminished confidence in her physical appearance and a horrible tendency to rely on selfdeprecation as a form of humour. Follow Ruth on Instagram: ruthcrilly Subscribe to Ruth’s YouTube channel: amodelrecommends

“What you’re about to read is a very frank, very truthful account of what happened to me as a fashion model, twenty-ish years ago. Brace yourself. Seldom has a memoir been so misguidedly brave – rarely will you have seen an author left so vulnerable, so very exposed to utter humiliation and ridicule. I only ask that you read it in the intended spirit, which is to laugh uproariously and revel in my humiliation. Because this isn’t a grim exposé of the modelling industry in the noughties: it’s a raucous, hilarious romp through a decade of my biggest and best mishaps and catastrophes, some of which were no doubt brought upon myself. (But not the time that I accidentally performed in an informal sex show, that was entirely down to fate.)

How Not To Be A Supermodel isn’t (just) a grouse about how I was never cool enough, tall enough or thin enough to make it to true modelling stardom: it’s a catalogue of all the ways I wasn’t cut out for a life of fame and fortune. It’s a nostalgic love/hate letter to my bizarre first career and all of the ways it probably messed me up. I’m sure you will find yourself totally immersed in the world of modelling from the very first sentence (which is, incidentally, ‘You don’t see Milla Jovovich with a fluctuating arse,”) but just in case you need a little help getting into the zone, I’ve recorded a guided meditation. Take a few moments before you begin the book; find a quiet space, close your eyes and allow yourself to be transported right back to 2001, into the mind of a fledgling fashion model…”

My thoughts: I follow Ruth on Instagram and think she’s hilarious so I was excited to read her memoir, all about her modelling career in the 00s.

She is just as funny in print as on social media, turning her misadventures in the model business into an entertaining and occasionally alarming read. Viewed from 2024 the things that were accepted in the early 00s do seem completely crazy  – and Ruth is very aware of that.

It’s also the story of how Ruth met her lovely husband, a photographer then known as Filthy Rich. And why she quit modelling, having done her degree and almost died in the freezing cold, and decided to do something else – be absolutely hilarious on the Internet.

I think it helped that Ruth has a sense of humour and never took the whole modelling thing too seriously, luckily never developed any addictions or eating disorders and was down to earth and in her twenties.

There are some pretty unpleasant things she went through and some truly mean people, but on the whole she survived it all, the weird concepts (the penguin hat was particularly bizarre), the travel to stay in grim apartments and earn a total of £28.28 for a month in Tokyo, the poor health from the strange hours, the freezing cold location shoots, the standing still for ages.

The book is very funny, Ruth has a wry tone familiar to her online followers and a healthy disregard for fashion’s insanity. She’s fully aware that the obsession with thin is unhealthy and stupid, she was on the large side of modelling at a size 10, which seems bonkers when the average is a size 16, but most models are even tinier.

It was a really fascinating read but like Ruth, I’m glad she got out in one piece and is happier and enjoying the life she has now, with her family, cat, and career. 

*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.