SIGNED up at the age of only 15 by one of the top modelling agencies in the world, Issy Knowles was delighted when she secured work with high-end brands like Paco Rabanne and Abercrombie and Fitch.

However, it wasn’t long before she began to see the darker side of the industry after being told to shed two inches from her hips in just seven days for London Fashion Week.

She was later asked to pose topless during a shoot and after a few more jobs that made her feel extremely uncomfortable, she quit the industry.

Now aged 22, she has turned her experience into a darkly funny, one-woman play which has been given the seal of approval by comic David Walliams.

The play, Model Behaviour, will make its debut at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August.

For Knowles, who quit modelling when she was 20 to pursue her acting dream, writing it has been a cathartic experience.

“It got to the point where I just couldn’t model any longer,” she remembers. “I started to feel I was completely voiceless and was just a product. Models aren’t meant to have voices. We’re just meant to be an image on a page. So that makes it very difficult to talk about things you are not happy with.

“I wanted to have my say after so many years of being voiceless.”

WHAT IS HER AIM?

KNOWLES hopes the play will help highlight the changes needed within the fashion industry to protect young teenagers of both sexes signed up by the agencies.

“When you are young and start modelling you are so impressionable,” she explains. “You’re led to believe that everything that happens is normal and expected.

“Fortunately, I was luckier than a lot of the models as my booker did care about me and that is often not the case. One of the things I have learned is there is no guarantee that the booker will make sure the models are happy and healthy or even ensure their safety. Their pay cheque relies on how many jobs they can book and if the jobs are for skinny girls then they will put pressure on the girls to be skinny so they can be booked.

“There needs to be somewhere for models to turn when things go wrong and they don’t feel supported by their agency. Before I learned how to stand up for myself I did a lot of jobs outside, barely clothed in the dead of winter. The hours were long and often we would not be offered food or anything to drink on editorial shoots with low budgets. It would have been useful to have somewhere to report to when I felt my working rights were being violated.”

AND THE PLAY?

MODEL Behaviour is set during fashion week which Knowles says is the hardest time of the year for models.

“It’s usually a complete and utter nightmare and dreaded by most models. Which seemed like the perfect setting for a one-woman play. You’re juggling a million things at once and throwing terrible dates and a bad case of thrush into the mix seemed like a great way to keep the play interesting.

“The central ‘model’ character is basically everything I was afraid of becoming rolled into one person. I was turning into a bit of a nightmare in my late teens and I probably quit just in time. I was definitely falling into the category of girls that get chewed up and spat out by the industry. It was fun to creatively dip back into that mindset, and I feel like I’ve got to exorcise a few of my bitchy demons by playing her.”

Knowles didn’t realise how much she had to say until she began writing Model Behaviour.

“Partly I want to hold the industry accountable for their treatment of models as no-one ever takes any responsibility when something goes wrong. It just pinballs back and forth between the bookers, the casting directors, the photographers or the industry as a whole. Although Model Behaviour is a comedy at heart, I hope that it can also serve to educate the audience in a small way of the fundamental problems that exist within the modelling industry.”

HOW DID THEY AFFECT HER?

KNOWLES’S experience of seedier shoots began when she moved to a smaller agency than the one she had worked with previously.

“I found the level of care was quite shoddy and I had experiences with photographers that prompted me to write the play,” she says.

“I did a shoot where no-one else was there and ended up shooting topless, which I had never previously agreed to do. I was not comfortable during the shoot and later discovered that my booker had met the photographer when he was sitting next to him on a plane. He had then basically lined up a bunch of girls for him even though he was practically a stranger who had wandered in off the streets.”

Much to her discomfort, the unregulated nature of the industry led to more shoots where she felt uncomfortable.

“I started feeling like I didn’t have proper control of my body. One shoot wanted raunchy pics and I really didn’t want to do them.”

HOW DID SHE REACT?

AS she was by then studying at acting school, Knowles decided to take her name off all the agency books but found the process surprisingly scary.

“I felt at sea because I did not have a safety net but it made me realise how much my identity was caught up in being a model.”

She hopes Model Behaviour will have a positive effect on the industry.

“At the moment, there is very little protection for young models but that’s something the industry can quite easily change just by introducing criminal records checks. I would also like to see HR departments within the modelling agencies. There needs to be someone there that has no other motivation than the welfare of the models. I also think the whole issue of weight has to be tackled by all the agencies – there has to be some kind of regulation to make sure agencies look after the models’ health.”

Previews of Model Behaviour are on August 3 and 4 with the performance running from August 6-11 at The Space@Jurys Inn, Edinburgh. Box office 0131 510 2381