Thanks to her modeling career, a British woman says she doing things “that I never would’ve thought about doing before.” Her face graces the covers of magazines and she’s been featured in some of the U.K.’s largest High Street campaigns.
Evon Brennan, 58, nearly missed out on the opportunity, however, after ignoring repeated messages from a modeling scout for a year, thinking she was being scammed. In an interview with the UK’s Metro, Brennan said she found herself “deleting everything” in an effort to dodge social media messages and phone calls from the agency.
British model Evon Brennan spent a year dodging messages and calls from Mrs Robinson Management before signing with the modeling agency. (Image courtesy of Evon Brennan IG / @brennanevon)
“I thought it was a scam. I heard modeling and I thought “no way,'” she said. “I just didn’t take it seriously or anything.”
“I think maybe I was frightened,” she added. “Maybe I didn’t see myself as a model, or I had a bad impression of what it means to be a model.”
Fleur Brady, a co-founder of the Mrs Robinson Management modeling agency in London, spotted Brady on Instagram and liked what she saw. Brady reached out, but her efforts went ignored — for a long time.
The agency, which focuses on representing older women, stayed persistent and spent almost a year trying to convince Brennan to join their team of models. Brennan, who was studying literature at the time, admits she was at her wits end at that point, and marched down to Mrs Robinsons’ offices to demand they stop contacting her.
“Eventually, I thought to get them off my back, I would just go see them,” she said, after learning the agency’s office was around the corner from where she was studying.
Brennan was pleasantly surprised by the visit, and quickly realized that the requests from the agency were genuine. She even got a change to meet with Fleur, and the two bonded over their shared Irish heritage.
Within three days, the music teacher said was asked to go to Germany to do a shoot with professional salon brand Schwarzkopf. Things have only gone up from there, as Brennan has been featured in campaigns for big brands like retailers JD Williams and Primark.
“It’s been great, but it’s taken me three years to finally say, ‘I love this,’” she told Metro.
Brennan also noted how the industry is changing, saying that the focus is now on personality rather than youth.
“At my first casting, I was just blown away by all the glamorous grey -haired ladies and I thought, ‘Gosh, am I part of that?’” she said.
“Mrs Robinson is exceptional,” Brennan added. “They understand what it’s like to be an older woman. They make sure you are treated respectably, you have rest breaks and you are comfortable. I probably wouldn’t still be doing this if it wasn’t for them.”
With a few years of experience under her belt, the singer/songwriter-turned-model said she now has a better understanding of how things work in the modeling industry, along with a new appreciation for the amount of work that goes into taking a great photo.
Her 20-year-old son, Callum Stoddart, has followed in her footsteps to become a model, too.
“He’s doing all the big brands and he loves it,” said Brennan. “He really loves traveling and the freedom.”
Brennan said she most likes the flexibility modeling has afforded her, and that she has her “real life” to go back to. According to Metro, she now schedules her modeling around her job as a music teacher.
“I love my job,” Brennan told the outlet. “It really is the best in the world and it’s different to modeling, but I could never give it up completely for modeling.”
