Chromat Casting Director Gilleon Smith on Chance Meetings, Hard Work, and Diversity

For Chromat designer Becca McCharen-Tran and her casting director, Gilleon Smith, diversity and inclusion aren’t seasonal crushes but integral to everything they do. The pair’s introduction was kismet (a sofa and hummus were involved, as you’ll read below). For the past three seasons, they have shown—as Vogue’s Chioma Nnadi put it—that fashion can be part of the resistance. What can we expect this afternoon? Even more curves, says Smith, whose career path has followed anything but a straight line. There are no recruiters for casting specialists, after all. Here, she talks to us about how she got started, the power of a database, and the changes she’d like to see in fashion—and the world.

Casting isn’t a career track kind of job; how did you break into the field?I moved here to be an actor and 20 minutes later decided that that was a mistake. The dream just deflated so quickly. When you’re in theater school they teach you how to act, but they don’t really teach you the business of acting. I really wanted more control, more say in what was going on. I wanted to know what it was like for the people who actually make the decisions, so I went to a casting agency and asked if I could work for them for free. Obviously, I was intelligent and hardworking, and I did a great job, so they hired me.

During an audition with Zan Ludlum for an HBO show, I told her I was on my lunch break from my casting job. She kind of took an interest [in me], and I started working with her. Then I started freelancing with, you know, 10 different companies—just getting a lot of experience in all different mediums. It was such an interesting job to me. Never a dull day, that’s always my motto. It’s always different. Eventually, I kind of plateaued in an assistant position and didn’t really know where I was going with it. At that same moment, a good friend of mine who had owned the first casting agency that I worked for (called Extra Mile) was having her second kid and she asked me to buy and take over her company [in 2012]. The stars just aligned.

I run a full-service casting agency. I do a lot of street scouting and I meet interesting people. I know people who are retired, handicapped, homeless—people from all walks of life. I have a vast database of people and resources that I can pull from when I’m doing castings in all arenas and all mediums.

How did you first meet Becca?Her roommate was my assistant, and he bought a couch from me. I delivered the couch to his house with my husband, who met Becca first; she was upstairs making hummus. He was like, “You’ve got to meet this girl, she’s so cool. She makes swimsuits.” We just started talking. I ran into her when she was doing her first show, and she was like, “Hey, want to collaborate?” The rest is history. It is just the way [things work in] New York City.

Through Becca I met the guys from Rochambeau, so they were my first two runway clients, and then it progressed from there.

How do you work together?It’s always been collaborative with her—very different from any other designer I work with. Of course, we really focus on diversity, but I think we both started from the bottom, in a way, and so we’re always inclined to give opportunities to people who wouldn’t necessarily get them otherwise. I know from when I used to assist at castings that it’s a super-cutthroat process. It’s so sad to see the models; it’s such a judgmental industry to begin with, it’s enough to have to deal with the abuse that they endure. Becca and I are always just welcoming to anybody who’s heard about the casting, especially because the models are being paid in trade.

To begin with, we just wanted to have people who were interested in the job and okay with the rate, but then there was such a social media following and everyone was super-interested, so the castings ended up being these huge turnouts because we were welcoming of all different types. If you weren’t with an agency, you could still be seen. I think that’s where it kind of took flight, because so many models were able to get in front of us as opposed to only signed talent.

I’m so into women’s empowerment and just creating opportunities for yourself, because I am a business owner and I started from the bottom. Everything I have, I worked very hard for. I have a kind of philosophy with my business that I generally meet everyone who reaches out to me. Once a month or once every two months, I do a big open call for people and we find so many great, unsigned talent. It’s so great to work and collaborate with somebody like Becca, because I can say to these women, “Well, at the very least I can invite you to the Chromat casting.” It’s giving them that opportunity. [For so many of the models], it’s the first time they’ve ever walked in a show. It’s so rewarding for us and so inspiring for them. It gives them hope to continue plugging away to achieve success, whatever their dreams are.

Swimsuits aren’t the easiest things to model . . .It’s nerve-racking [to try on swimsuits], [but with our casting] you don’t necessarily need to have a Victoria’s Secret body. For us, it was quite inspiring when a woman walked in and was able to put on a swimsuit and exude confidence and power and strength. I think that we had that same vision all along. It’s always just about a feeling that we get in the room—obviously, you do need to look good in the clothing—but when you rock it, it looks so much better. It’s a very vulnerable moment for the women, and it’s often very clear when it’s going to sell and when it’s just not going to work.

Can you tell us anything about the Chromat casting for Spring 2018?We continue to set the bar higher every season; for Spring we’re really focusing on age diversity. We’ve always included curvy models in the show, but this season there are even more sizes and shapes. I’m extremely proud of this season and what we’ve come up with.

Are you doing other shows as well?I’m doing Yajun, and for Harlem’s Fashion Row we did the K. Rashae show. She is such a fantastic designer. Her fabrics are wow, and her design aesthetic is really classic and beautiful. I had never attended that event; it was so wonderful as a woman of color to see so many successful people of color there. It was very enriching. We’re also doing the Berenik show. She just opened a boutique in Soho and—this is another reason why it’s so great that I have my database of thousands of people who do crazy things—she’s casting 100 dancers. So we have our hands full.

What changes would you like to see in fashion?I would like diversity to hit on a more global scale. We’re in New York and there’s this press about it here, but then you go over to Milan and you go over to London and it’s just kind of the same old thing, very traditional. I would like for this not to be a trend, but something that has lasting power and something that we don’t even need to discuss anymore because it’s just a part of our society. We shouldn’t even have to write an article about it, you know. Everyone should just be included. That’s where I feel that social media has an effect—everybody can weigh in. When we see curvy models and beautiful women of color on every runway, in every city, that’s when we can be satisfied.