Ugly Models Agency Finds Only the Most Peculiar-Looking Talent 'No one is too abstract for our books!' By David Kiefaber

When modeling agencies say they use "unconventional models," that's usually code for "pretty but not famous yet." Not at the Ugly Models Agency, though. They've gone full John Waters, by which I mean they use the weirdest-looking people they can find, which is all kinds of refreshing. "We like our women fat and our men geeky," the company says on its website. "We like the extremely tall and the shockingly small. No one is too abstract for our books! We are Ugly. And we are the leaders in character modeling. With a unique outlook on modeling, our philosophy is simple: 'Any beauty can be airbrushed but we want our look to have true character.' " They also put their aesthetic choices in context, noting that their buck-toothed, gangly model Dell (who looks like a post-stroke Michael Richards) is "ugly in a great way and … quite striking." His face and body have character, in other words, and those things are precisely what's missing from the fashion industry at large—and advertising, too, of course (Skittles commercials aside). All that aside, Ugly Models Agency's success will ultimately be measured by whether or not the, shall we say, facial integrity of its models is resistant to Photoshop. Via Laughing Squid.