Chicago books commercial work before fashion — catalog, packaging, retail e-commerce, healthcare, food and financial advertising, sold to the 14 Fortune 500 companies headquartered in the city and the ad network built around them, Leo Burnett and DDB among them. The boards that decide a career here are Ford Models Chicago, Factor Chosen, 10 MGMT, BMG Models and Stewart Talent. Layered on top is a record $703 million of Illinois film and television spending in 2025, plus Illinois statutes on digital replicas, biometrics and child creators that hand a model here contractual protection no other American market offers.
The economics behind every Chicago booking
Chicago counts 14 Fortune 500 and 24 Fortune 1000 headquarters as of 2026, together around $414 billion in revenue and 827,000 employees. That base pays for the unglamorous, year-round work — retail e-commerce, packaging, healthcare and pharmaceutical campaigns, food and corporate print — which is why the strongest local rosters are commercial before they are editorial.
The film layer is the newer money. Illinois production spending hit a record $703 million in 2025 according to figures released by Governor J.B. Pritzker's office, the state credit now runs through 2039, and seven series were shooting in Chicago in the first quarter of 2026 alone. The terms matter to you, not only to producers: for productions starting on or after July 1, 2025, Illinois-resident labour earns a 35 percent credit on wages up to $500,000 per worker, raised from 30 percent, while non-resident salaries qualify at 30 percent and are capped at thirteen employees other than actors. Read that resident premium as a hiring incentive aimed straight at local faces: an Illinois address is worth real money to a production's accountant, which is why Chicago casting so often stays in Chicago.
The fashion boards
Ford Models Chicago
Ford was founded in New York in 1946 by Eileen and Jerry Ford and entered Chicago by acquisition. Per Reel Chicago's account, it bought the David & Lee Talent Agency in the late 1990s, took over A-Plus Models' runway division in 1999, then absorbed Aria Talent — founded in January 1992 by Marie Anderson and Mary Boncher — in September 2003 to create the city's largest talent operation: 20 staff in a 5,000-square-foot West Loop loft. The office at 850 West Jackson Boulevard also houses Ford Artists, the hair, make-up and styling division, so one building can crew a whole shoot.
Factor Chosen
The high-fashion pipeline, at 58 West Huron Street in River North. Factor Women and Chosen Men launched in 2010 after separating from the Elite network, with company records dating the underlying operation to 1983, and MP Management acquired the Chicago, Los Angeles and Atlanta offices in January 2018 — which is how a Chicago signing now reaches Milan and Paris. That Elite lineage produced the city's one true fashion legend: Cindy Crawford, born in DeKalb, Illinois, was photographed at 16 by a newspaper photographer while detasseling corn on a summer job, reached the national finals of Elite's Look of the Year in 1983 at 17, signed with Elite's Chicago branch, and moved to New York only in 1986.
10 MGMT
The boutique that rewrote the local entry rules. Founded in 2013 by David Sanchez, a former model and agent, it runs Main, Commercial, Direct & Classic, Curve and New Faces model boards alongside union and non-union actors, content creators and a Real Families division — and states plainly that it has eliminated measurement requirements. If your numbers fall outside the ranges in our height requirements guide, read this board carefully.
The commercial and hybrid rosters
BMG Models, founded in 1993 by Gregory Brown, now runs seven offices nationally; its Chicago boards cover mainboard, men, non-binary, lifestyle, youth, teens, new faces and curve, and in 2006 the company added BMG Talent Group for union representation. Stewart Talent, founded in Chicago in 1984 by Jane Stewart and now in four cities, describes itself as the Midwest's largest and oldest talent agency, handling print, commercial, industrial, voice-over and theatrical from one roster. Hybrid representation is the correct structure here rather than a compromise: corporate video, healthcare, food and voice-over run in every month of the year, while fashion editorial is thin and mostly commissioned elsewhere. The trade-off is that on camera you compete with trained actors, so a reel eventually matters as much as your book — and while you wait on agency answers, our freelance modeling guide covers booking yourself directly.
What Chicago actually pays
Treat aggregate salary data carefully. ZipRecruiter's Chicago listing for model work averages $47.13 an hour, about $98,030 a year as of May 29, 2026, but that pool mixes in fitting, promotional and non-fashion roles. The narrower figures are more honest: a commercial model in Illinois averages $63,225 a year, roughly $30.40 an hour, and US commercial print averages $34.46 an hour. Agency commission of about 20 percent comes off the top of all of it.
The city's distinctive income stream is the convention floor. Booth models and hostesses at McCormick Place shows are quoted at $35 to $60 an hour, general event staffing at $35 to $65, and trade show presenters — the scripted, microphone-in-hand role — at $55 to $95. The Chicago Auto Show ran February 7 to 16, 2026 in its 118th edition as the nation's longest-running auto exposition, having drawn nearly 217,000 attendees in 2025 with close to 1,000 vehicles from more than 20 manufacturers; product-specialist work there pays for the ability to explain a drivetrain for eight hours, not to pose. The runway calendar is smaller: Chicago Fashion Week runs October 8 to 18, 2026 in its third edition, with FashionBar's shows from September 28 to October 4 presenting spring/summer 2027.
The Illinois protections worth knowing
Illinois became the second state after Tennessee to ban unauthorised AI digital replicas when Governor Pritzker signed HB 4875 on August 9, 2024, effective January 1, 2025; it amends the state's Right of Publicity Act to cover a computer-generated version of your voice, image or likeness in work you never performed. Companion law HB 4762 created the Digital Voice and Likeness Protection Act: a contract clause letting a digital replica stand in for work you would otherwise have done in person is unenforceable unless it specifically describes every intended use and you were represented by counsel or a union.
Illinois also has the country's strictest biometric statute. BIPA carries statutory damages of $1,000 for negligent and $5,000 for intentional or reckless violations with a private right of action, though SB 2979, effective August 2, 2024, limited recovery to once per type of violation rather than per scan — which applies the moment a client wants a face or body scan on set. For parents there is a fourth law: SB 1782, signed August 11, 2023 and effective July 1, 2024, made Illinois first in the nation on child creators. If a minor under 16 appears in more than 30 percent of a channel's monetised content over any 30-day period, the operator must set aside at least 15 percent of gross earnings in a blocked trust until the child turns 18, keep records of on-camera time and earnings, and can be sued by that child at majority. The practical instruction is short: on any Chicago release, read the AI and likeness clause and get use, term and territory in writing.
How to submit
10 MGMT's form is the clearest local template: four images — headshot, shoulder up, waist up and full length — plus complete measurements, no baby or kids submissions, and no open calls at all, appointments only. Rejected applicants may resubmit after six months and not sooner, and the site names the only three people authorised to contact applicants by email, phone or Instagram, which doubles as a ready-made scam test. Shoot to the standard in our digitals guide and expect softer physical criteria than the boards in our New York agency guide, because a pharmacy chain or hospital campaign is cast on believability rather than sample size — the same reason our petite modeling guide travels well here. Submit to four to six agencies in parallel, answer live briefs on the casting board meanwhile, and compare rosters in the agency directory. A real agency earns commission on work it books you, so anyone demanding payment for a photoshoot as a condition of signing is selling you something.
