The modeling world of the 1990s possessed a particular, dangerous chic. Call sheets arrived by fax, portfolios were carried rather than scrolled, and the office soundtrack was a riot of ringing landlines, clicking heels and agents negotiating three cities at once. A diet might consist of Diet Coke, cigarettes and the occasional unbuttered thought. Everyone wore black, everyone claimed to be fine, and sensitivity was best concealed beneath an excellent leather jacket.
It was glamorous, certainly, although that glamour often concealed a rather ruthless machinery.
New York Model Management was born within that era. Founded in 1995 by Austrian-born fashion executive Heinz Holba as the sister agency to L.A. Models, it entered Manhattan when supermodels still felt mythological and fashion operated on instinct, nerve and an occasionally terrifying appetite for the new.
Holba understood, however, that discovering a remarkable face was only the beginning. Over three decades, New York Model Management built its reputation through long relationships and personalized guidance, placing talent in Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, WWD and WSJ, securing campaigns for Versace, Coach, Calvin Klein, Gucci and Prada, and sending models onto the runways of New York, London, Milan and Paris. The business was beauty; the deeper work was helping a person transform potential into a lasting career.
Now, as the agency marks 30 years, Holba and Vice President Karine Roman are shaping its next chapter through a rebrand, a new headquarters and a belief that might once have been dismissed as softness: talent develops more fully when it is treated with genuine compassion.
In many ways, Heinz built an agency around endurance and relationships, while Karine has given that philosophy a physical language.
Roman designed the company’s new 10,000-square-foot home across two floors and a private rooftop deck. Greenery, natural materials and quiet rooms soften the traditional machinery of a modeling office. These are not merely attractive gestures. A door that closes for a private conversation, a corner in which to breathe and an atmosphere that does not immediately demand performance can communicate something essential: you are safe enough to tell the truth here.
That, perhaps, is the most intimate act of caring. It is rarely blaring. More often, it means noticing when someone is overwhelmed, listening before offering strategy and remembering that the face being evaluated belongs to a nervous system, a history and, frequently, a young person still learning how to separate professional rejection from personal worth.
Holba and Roman’s approach suggests that compassion can become a serious instrument of incubation. After all, a great model is not simply an exquisite structure upon which clothing may be hung; she is part athlete, performer, interpreter, entrepreneur and diplomat. Confidence cannot be bullied into existence. Instead, it develops when talent is challenged without being diminished and protected without being infantilized.
The agency is extending that philosophy through newly appointed women’s division director Jen Rubinetti, a 20-year industry veteran and certified wellness coach. Nervous-system regulation, somatic release, sound meditation and mindset work are being introduced into the culture. Thirty years ago, such language might have caused an exquisitely arched eyebrow. Today, it feels less like indulgence than overdue intelligence.
Meanwhile, the wider industry has been forced toward accountability. New York’s Fashion Workers Act provides greater contractual transparency, stronger workplace protections and safeguards surrounding digital likenesses. The last feels especially urgent in the age of artificial intelligence, when a face can continue working after its owner has left the studio. The law establishes the floor; care must determine everything built above it.
Has modeling truly changed? Perhaps not completely. Fashion has always acquired new vocabulary faster than it abandons old habits, and a meditation room cannot absolve a culture without ethical contracts, honest management and meaningful accountability.
Still, Heinz Holba and Karine Roman represent a consequential evolution. One has spent decades building careers through loyalty and instinct; the other is creating an environment in which ambition and tenderness can coexist. The sharp cheekbones may remain. The black clothing certainly will. Thankfully, the Diet Coke may now arrive with lunch.
Let us all imbibe the following: compassion does not weaken extraordinary talent. It gives the human being inside the image enough room to become it.
