Fashion models feel their profession is underpaid in India and working in the fashion industry comes with lot of pressure. Most of the models say they keep representing collections of various designers out of passion for their job. "Lot of people think that being in the world of glamour we are treated like goddess, but nothing is true. It is a life of glamour but it comes with lot of weightage and pressure. Our job requires us to be in shape, our skin and hair go for a toss, we work at odd hours," model Nethra Raghuraman.

Despite all this, models are not paid well in India, said Nethra, who has been in fashion world for over ten years. "I feel recession, whether it shows anywhere else or not, it definitely affects fashion world. We can get paid enough for the kind of work and things we put in for being glamorous. We are off course not paid that well," she added. Echoing similar sentiments, model Archana Akhil Kumar says, "Models are not paid well and India has to grow in payment scale. Models abroad are paid much higher. I think we need to start looking into that and be paid for the amount of work we do in India because our country is rich."

Even model Alesia Raut feels models are paid less and modelling is the only way of earning money for them as the commercial (advertisement) world is taken over by Bollywood celebrities and sports personalities. With numerous fashion weeks being organised, models earn Rs 7 to 8 lakh annually which can even go up to about Rs 30-40 lakh for India's top catwalk brigade. In fashion industry, male models are paid even lesser primarily because they get less number of shows to do.