the answers as to how to bring the money back ...to the modeling agencies, to the stores, to the magazines, to the internet are not self-evident.

I think the first step is to stop treating people like they're still dumb enough to buy crap with a label on it.

What i love about the creative people behind fashion is their (h)ability to reinvent things, like the designers (try to) do - some of them - every 3 months, when it is physically and mentally possible. The Zeroes might be coming to an end, and im sure that the 'same old references' wont suffice.
Nothing stays on top for too long, it is a dogma, its the pure physics of time. Fashion, like any other subject, is related to the capacity of the human-being to absorb what is around him, and those inspirations should become fuel to ignite his mind and his ingenuities - if there´s any left.
Today, with the rise of the internet and all that black mass that comes along - pornography, spoilers of any kind, a so called 'freedom' that has become a real cybernetic slavery - people are bombarded with too many information that comes from too many sources that always find new ways to throw numbers, images and characters right in front of our eyes like if we were begging for it - which we dont. People feel weak and sometimes weakness cannot be converted into something new, groundbreaking or even nice. Take for instance the Art scene: every week there´s a new artist whose works of art can be easily around 5 or 6 figures just a couple years later after he gets praised by some almost-relevant art critic - and i thank God that Roberta Smith and Robert Hughes are still alive and keen on writing those extra fabulous reviews that can enlight our minds about the perils of the art market.
When it comes about fashion - which is the principal subject of my life AND this website - it gets even worse. I remember a post entitled 'Kim Peers was here' that mentioned how girls used to get paid really high for showing their pretty faces in front of the camera. That golden age of fashion is GONE and you know what? Im somewhat happy that it happened, because right now, if agencies still wanna make money, they will have to stop throwing girls in the market like garbage in the trashcan. Where is their humanity with the new models?
Why we love Kristen McMenamy, Nadja Auermann and Linda? Its not just because they started 20 years ago when fashion was more faity tale than mexican drama but because back in that time they knew if a model´s career was well conducted, it could end up earning money and prestige to both model and agent. Like i said once - becoming a model nowadays is like a fad; girls wanna be models today like women wanted to be stewardesses in the ´50s.
You fantasize about something thats on the media, something that´s thrown in your face in a very glamorous way. Hannibal Lecter cited to Clarice Starling that "You only covet what you see" and that glorious line from The Silence of the Lambs brings a lot of light to me right this minute. Girls buy magazines, girls log on the internet, girls see Gisele in the media, Cindy in a work out video and then everybody wants to be a model. What happens is that there are many pretty girls out there and many of them could become successful in the fashion biz IF their careers are conducted properly by the agents. Twenty years ago you had a handful of models who could sell from $100 sunglasses to 40K travel backpacks because they were worthy, they were taken care of, not only the supers, but also the other ordinary ones.Now you have a bunch of teenagers who look like vampires, lifeless walking hangers moving their twiggy legs back and forth on the runways around the globe, trying to act like supermodels that they miserably fail to resemble. If they dont have the perfect skin, it doesnt matter, there´s Photoshop to put an end to those imperfections. The models cant pose? The photographers and assistants yell at her telling how easily they would replace her so that she can shut up, dry her tears and try to feel relieved that the 4500 dollars she´ll get are enough to pay rent for a month and also to buy lettuce. She´s not Naomi, not Christy, no one will notice if she disappears at any moment, nobody knows her name because there are too many names to memorize. The girl is just worth the money she makes!
Good photographers come every once in a while and i hope there´s a new crop of them coming because !oh my friends!, ten years from now Meisel might be dead and Bruce and Inez and the others might be sailing around the globe in a 7 million dollar yatch. Those 'kingpins' get paid what they want because their magic transcended time, fashion editors, bad models, supermodels, and new faces. There were enought people paying attention at what they did and
do, praising them for their skills and willingness to sacrifice health and life in favor of fashion. PLus, they´re few and good at what they do. Can you imagine if every week there was a new 'it photographer'? What a nightmare that would be! The pictures a photographer take should contain magic, making the consumers fly to the stores and satisfy their thirst for consumerism...but there are sooo many products to be bought, so many new labels, it bags, it shoes, it personal buyers, it stylists, it everything.
Its a mess, a total chaos. So many things going on at the same time that we just simply cannot absorb it. The Media should be more careful from now on, what they´re doing is not promoting, is more like a boom of information that leads to a sort of numbness.
Photoshop cannot erase the blatant lifelessness of a model picked among a thousand girls who look the same, surrounded by an industry that tries to sell dreams in the form of a lie, a merchandise made yesterday that came out of a 5-minute-brainstorm that is destined to rotten in the shelves around the globe. I wish i could buy thousands of books from Zygmunt Baumand and handle them to every person involved with the fashion business. We´re living in an age of excess, where happiness means money. And making money is becoming more important than satisfaction, and when a human need like personal satisfaction is left aside, things are about to go really wrong.

Im delighted with every character of this very insightful text, though i need to read it twice or even more to write an appropriate reply! But thank you Wayne!