By many accounts, Rep. Anthony Weiner has established himself as the leading wonk among mayoral wannabes. Now it appears that he also may be establishing himself as the favorite candidate of the tweezed-eyebrow set.

Mr. Weiner, a Democrat whose House district straddles Brooklyn and Queens, has reported that he received contributions last month totaling $10,000 from eight major modeling agencies.

According to his most recent campaign-finance filing, representatives from Click Model Management and Major Model Management each provided $2,000 for Mr. Weiner’s mayoral bid, and DNA Model Management, Elite Model Management, Ford Models, Next Model Management, Karin Models of America, and New York Model Management each donated $1,000.

The outpouring of pecuniary affection from the city’s arbiters of modishness may have seemed out of place, given the candidate’s avian features. Mr. Weiner is, however, relatively young at 40, he is single, and he has a slender physique – he frequently refers to himself as “undernourished.”

Yet those who entertained visions of modeling-agency moguls jockeying to sign up Mr. Weiner for struts on the catwalk will be disappointed.

“A model he’s never going to be,” the vice president of Click, Joseph Grill, said. “We told him to keep his day job.”

By Mr. Weiner’s account, his relationship with the city’s fashion, modeling, night-life, and entertainment industries is simply the result of his continuing commitment to small businesses.

It was his work as a member of the City Council that first endeared him to the modeling industry. In the early 1990s, Mr. Grill said, Mr. Weiner held hearings investigating faux modeling agencies and photographers that scammed naive would-be models. In addition to pushing for the city to crack down on the fraud, as a council member Mr. Weiner proved “sympathetic” to the modeling and fashion industries by making it easier to get permits for photo shoots and by relaxing parking regulations, Mr. Grill said.

Impressed by Mr. Weiner’s record, Mr. Grill approached an attorney who represents several of the city’s major modeling agencies, Eric Bland, about organizing a fund-raising event for the congressman’s mayoral campaign, Mr. Bland said. Held on March 10 at a downtown restaurant, the event was “extremely well-attended,” Mr. Grill said, leading to the contributions reported March 15.

By helping Mr. Weiner in his efforts to become mayor, however, some modeling-agency executives may have done themselves a disservice. They acknowledge that Mr. Weiner may be most helpful to the industry in his capacity as congressman.

The president of Karin Models, Jeff Fuller, said his company’s contribution to Mr. Weiner had “nothing to do with anything that was reflective of the mayoral campaign,” but was instead “a fund-raiser for lobbying Congress to change some of the laws regarding the working visas for foreigners.”

As a member of the House Judiciary Committee, Mr. Weiner supports changing immigration laws to increase the number of visas available for models, Messrs. Bland and Grill said. The change would end a shortage that, they say, has caused American agencies to lose business to more welcoming international venues.

According to a campaign spokesman for Mr. Weiner, Anson Kaye, models were shifted into the H1 B visa class – with skilled workers possessing advanced degrees – in the early 1980s. The technology boom of the 1990s, however, led such companies as Microsoft and IBM to exhaust the available H1 B visas by bringing programmers and other highly skilled information-technology workers to American shores.

Out of concern for protecting American jobs, Mr. Kaye said, the federal government attached high fees to H1 B visas, fees Mr. Grill said the modeling industry cannot afford. “How do you go up against Microsoft, Silicon Graphics, and other gigantic public companies?” he said.

Mr. Kaye said Mr. Weiner is developing legislation that would move models out of the H1 B group and into the O visa category reserved for performers. That would lower the fees paid by modeling agencies and might increase the number of visas available for models.

“I feel like he’s more useful as a representative than as mayor of New York,” the president of DNA Model Management, Jerome Bonnouvrier, said.

Mr. Bland, however, said Mr. Weiner can assist the modeling industry just as well as mayor – and would be helping other businesses, too.

“It’s photo studios, hair and makeup companies, and catering houses, and location vans, and all of the ancillary businesses that bring hundreds of millions in New York revenue,” Mr. Bland said.

Keeping New York a modeling friendly city is, in Mr. Grill’s view, vital to an industry that faces heavy competition from exotic international locales. The increasing flexibility afforded by digital photography, too, means models can be photographed virtually anywhere, their images superimposed on an artificial New York City background, making it all the more necessary for the city to create incentives for on-location filming.

Those business concerns, Mr. Weiner maintained, are the only inspiration behind his overtures to the modeling industry.

“My motives are entirely pure,” he said. “I certainly haven’t met the future Mrs. Weiner through this.”

Mr. Bonnouvrier concurred, saying, “I’m sure he hasn’t seen a model in his whole life.”

Nor did Mr. Bonnouvrier think Mr. Weiner’s ties to the industry would add chic to his public persona, or help the candidate shake his wonkish image.

“He didn’t look that cool to me. He looked like a very serious guy,” Mr. Bonnouvrier said.

Thus, besides campaign contributions and votes, Mr. Weiner might have little to gain from his alliance with the modeling agencies – certainly not a backup career if he decides to leave politics.

“There is no danger of me winning any modeling contracts in the near future,” Mr. Weiner said.

“But if the fashion industry ever starts looking for slightly undernourished Jewish guys with receding hairlines and big noses, I’ll be ready,” he added.