“I’m Ethan. I’m 17. Apparently, girls love me.” Ethan stares dead-eyed at the camera, daring us to contradict him. Love that “apparently”. Mind you, I would like to hear the girls’ side of the story. But there is a more pressing problem. If Ethan, a willowy Mancunian with frizzy ginger hair, matching freckles and an unexpectedly beguiling smile, is going to break into the modelling business, he will have to have a word with himself. “We can’t represent anybody that’s involved in criminality,” says Nigel, the head of a model agency that calls itself, presumably ironically, Nemesis. Ethan has a rap sheet as long as the East Lancs Road. Bored, he lists his crimes: “Possession of class A drugs with intent to supply, possession of class B drugs with intent to supply, possession of a bladed article in a public place, two robberies, perverting the course of justice, two affrays …” Hold on, Ethan, mate. “Bladed article”? Isn’t the word “knife”? Model: From Street to Catwalk (BBC Three) profiles two buff young Manc geezers trying to escape their humble lives to become paid clothes hangers for athleisurewear. While Ethan is trying to escape a life of crime, Jordan is hoping to get out of his life of grime. His nine-to-five as a labourer involved shovelling rubble and gutting soon-to-be gentrified properties that the likes of him would never be able affordon their current wages. Jordan shows his mother pictures that Nemesis’s photographers have taken of him to establish his credentials for potential clients. “Manchester look, chavvy, know what I mean?” he explains. “You can be called worse things, can’t ya?” she tells him as she scrolls. Jordan was scouted one night while walking around town. “He typifies everything we’re looking for right now,” says Nigel. “We want you to look like that, to be a lad, a scally, but we actually want you to be professional about it.” Jordan’s problem is that, in trial photo shoots, he didn’t project himself with the verve he had displayed in his natural habitat. “He’s a Manchester lad. He’s got that gritty northern look, if you like.” Ethan and Jordan are the success stories, the pair who are selected from a waiting room of 20 possibles. Some of the 18 rejects, though, were more handsome. But that is not the point. What Nemesis wants is not looks. It is a look. An attitude. If you are to be persuaded to purchase trackie bottoms and a no-less-flammable top, you won’t want to buy them just because the model is gorgeous. You will want to buy into the lifestyle inscribed on the model’s body and clobber. You must be made to believe that their badass strut, thousand-yard stare and ostensibly antinomian persona can be yours for the price of a hoodie. The day before Jordan’s first assignment, his mum texts him: “Bed at 9pm for you gotta look after that face get your bum hole waxed.” Some mothers hope their sons will be doctors, others that they will be cosmetically enhanced where the sun don’t shine. “I don’t think they’ll be getting many shots of my bum hole, Mum.” Well, probably not for his first client, JD Sports. But you never know, Jordan, what future clients may require. Best be, like the Scouts, prepared. I would have liked more on what it is like to be a man and to be objectified by photographers for a living, but neither Ethan nor Jordan reflect on that aspect of their chosen profession. But both nail what it means to them. “It’s a bit easier staying still taking pictures than robbing people and selling their stuff – and at least it’s legit,” says Ethan. Jordan’s first day as a model pays more than a week’s labouring. Like boxing or football for previous Ethans and Jordans of this world, modelling could be an escape from the streets. Fingers crossed they will emulate another success story, 23-year-old Ruby, who has been modelling for less than a year and already earns more than £10,000 a month. If she cracks the US, she could triple that. “She’s got the badass look,” explains a Nemesis functionary. “We know she will sell for us.” We see her shooting in a Welsh quarry, the grey slate rhyming with her tough-girl check strides and black quilted puffer jacket. If I wanted to look like a badass young woman, I would definitely buy what Ruby is modelling.