Cynthia Cully

October 2005

Cynthia Cully
circa 1981 Just steps away from modelresource, in the west end of Toronto's fashion district, someone is promoting top fashion and beauty artists. Simultaneously, in the back of her mind she is putting together the next issue of a trendsetting magazine. When she steps outside, her eyes scan the streets, evaluating the modelling potential of passing pedestrians. Welcome to a typical day for Cynthia Cully.

Since leaving her position as the head of Ford Canada in 2003, things haven't slowed for the lifelong Toronto resident. She sums it up thusly: "I'm like a fish flopping around all over the place."

It's a new situation for Cully, who for most of the 30+ years she has been connected with Toronto's modelling industry, has had someone else responsible for writing her paycheque. A former model, booker and agency director, she is now learning a new way of life, and is truly one of the more intriguing personalities in the Canadian industry.

It started when, as a teenager, she attended a party with her boyfriend and was approached by a photographer. Her mother had been a model, so Cully already had an awareness of the industry, but never the urge to pursue it. Shortly after though, she booked her first job - an eight page spread in a local magazine.


International Top Model's headsheetThe following decade saw Cully modelling successfully, gaining experience and composure in an industry that would evolve into her career. But Cully, whose artist father had raised her in a creative, constructive environment, realized in her mid-twenties that the right side of the brain wasn't being adequately nurtured. She remedied that by enrolling in a program to become a goldsmith.

Ironically, despite making herself less available for modelling, she ended up earning more. Cully had made it known she wasn't interested in attending go-sees, but would still work for those clients with whom she had an existing relationship. Clients like Holt Renfrew continued to book her and modelling ended up paying for college, her own apartment and vacations.

The very intimate nature of her new career though - designing jewellery, dealing in diamonds and engagement rings - left something else missing. "It was a very quiet business, shall we say... and I'm a very social individual, so I missed a lot of the interaction, and the people, and moving, and all the action..."

Through some friends she ended up taking a part-time job at a small modelling agency (Sutherland), helping new models develop their portfolios. When one of the bookers moved to France however, Cully ended up moving into a more prominent role. "I became a booker and sort of jumped in there at the time this small agency found a model (Shalom Harlow) that went on to become a supermodel. I just kept gravitating towards it."

A few years later when Montreal's Giovanni Models planned its expansion into Toronto, Cully was invited to become its Director - a position she held for seven years until the lure of overseeing Ford's foray into Canada pulled her away.

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