Editorial & sourcing policy

How a desk assessment works

A Cast Index page is a desk assessment unless it explicitly says otherwise. That means: we have not necessarily attended the show, worn the product, or interviewed the subject. We have read public, citable records — Wikipedia and equivalent biographies, industry press, agency boards, official brand and organiser pages — summarised them in our own words, and linked the sources. We do not invent people, credits, quotes, dates, awards or walks.

Where evidence is incomplete, the page says so. A missing 2026 fashion-week link is not a claim that the model did not walk; it is a claim that this desk has not yet attached a verified record. Absence of data is not evidence of absence. Confidence labels (verified, corroborated, baseline) tell you how much of the score rests on primary sources versus a thinner public record.

Update cadence: the Global 50 recalculates on a published Monday cycle. Event calendars, beauty finishes and handbook guides are revised when a primary source changes, not on a rumour. The dateModified on a page is the date this desk last checked the claims, not the date the industry last moved.

Real people, sourced facts

Every model, creative, agency, event and product on this site is a real, public figure or entity. Biographical facts are summarised in our own words from public records. Sources are linked on the page. We do not scrape private social accounts into profiles, and we do not rewrite other publishers’ copy as if it were ours.

How to cite us: use the canonical URL, the Index Rating with its date, and the methodology version. Do not round a score into a different rank, and do not present People’s Choice or a paid directory listing as an editorial rank. Markdown twins (append .md to a content URL) and llms.txt exist so agents can quote the same facts without scraping layout chrome.

Photography

Portraits are either freely-licensed images (Wikimedia Commons and similar, credited on Image Credits under their licences) or omitted. Each image is checked to confirm it depicts the correct named person before it is published. Where no verifiable image exists, a profile shows a typographic placeholder rather than a substituted or AI-generated photo. We never publish an AI likeness of a named real person.

How scores are set

The Index Rating weighs runway presence (40%), blue-chip campaigns (30%), editorial authority (20%) and cultural impact (10%), with time decay favouring recent work. Every ranked profile shows its four pillar sub-scores, the evidence behind them, and a confidence label. Scores are editorial assessments, not statements about a person’s worth. See the full methodology. Formula changes ship as numbered versions on the changelog; we do not silently rewrite history.

We do not mark supplier or third-party ratings up as aggregateRating or as a self-serving Review of another organisation. Beauty product pages are evidence-led desk reviews of official specifications, labelled as such — not implied hands-on tests.

What money cannot buy

Editorial rankings are never for sale. That includes: an Index Rating, a Global 50 place, Rising / Watch placement, a Season Beauty Index rank, a fabricated walk in the casting ledger, or a softened confidence label. Paid directory listings, event listings, Cast Index Pro subscriptions, affiliate commissions and donations — including the desk’s 10% of profits pledge to World Animal Rescue Network — are firewalled from those editorial surfaces. People’s Choice is a separate community vote and does not move the Index.

Affiliate links, when live, are labelled and carry rel="sponsored nofollow noopener". If the official or unpaid option is the honest recommendation, we say so even when that costs a commission.

Use of AI

We use AI tools to help research, draft and cross-check content. All published facts are grounded in the linked human-published sources, and material claims are verified against those sources before publication. AI is a drafting and checking aid, not a source of fact. If a model or tool cannot cite a source we can open, the claim does not ship.

What triggers a correction

A correction is triggered by a material factual error: a wrong date, a mis-attributed walk, a score published against the methodology, a photograph of the wrong person, or a claim that invents evidence. Typos and style edits are not logged. Material corrections are applied at the next recalculation (or sooner if the error is harmful) and listed on the public corrections log.

Who decides: the editor, Kaiser Khan. Subjects, agencies and brands may request a correction; they may not negotiate a rank. Rights-holders with a concern about an image use the same address.

What we will not publish

We will not publish under-18 listings or nominations; rumour presented as booking; unpaid “guaranteed fashion week” schemes; AI faces of named people; or a negative claim inferred only from a missing field. We will not take down a sourced, public-interest editorial profile because someone dislikes a number — we will correct the number if the evidence is wrong.

Under-18s

The Cast Index does not list, nominate or rank anyone under 18. Directory listings and People’s Choice nominations for minors are refused. Career guidance for young people lives in the handbook as safety information — see Modelling under 18 — not as a recruitment funnel. If a profile is later found to have been under 18 at publication, it is removed and logged.

Beauty desk reviews

Product pages in the Season Beauty Index are evidence-led desk reviews of official specifications, shade ranges and named press — labelled as such. They are not implied hands-on tests, and they do not carry a self-serving star rating or aggregateRating. Inclusion in a finish kit is an editorial judgement about what the season’s face language requires, not a paid placement.

How to reach the desk

Corrections and sourcing: desk@thecastindex.com. Legal: legal@thecastindex.com. The named editor is Kaiser Khan. The Cast Index is owned and operated by Elite Digital AI Solutions Ltd, Company No. 17250017.