![]() ![]() The girls learn to pose like the supers a good percentage of them are destined to become Michelangelo and Janie appear relieved that the girls, who have been at the contest for ten days before we arrive, are on such good form – not least because it is no mean feat persuading the mums and dads of young teenagers to allow them to travel 6,000 miles unaccompanied. She has already proved her model credentials by travelling to Sanya alone – a 25-hour journey via Paris and Beijing. ‘It’s been amazing, just amazing,’ agrees Bethany, runner-up in London, whose elder brother secretly entered her for the competition. We made it!’ says Nyasha, whose impossibly symmetrical features won her the London event (though in China, due to Elite agency politics that would allow only two British entries, she is representing Zimbabwe where she is originally from). ![]() ‘Ohmygod how crazy is it that we are here. I remind Liverpudlian Bethany Leader, 16, and 15-year-old Nyasha Matonhodze from Northampton that we met at the UK heat of the competition, held in a London club in August, but it takes a while for them to click – we all seem a bit out of context transplanted to China. Emily was given a wild card to the competition after she walked into an open casting at Elite’s Islington offices, in North London, only a month previously. One winner and three runners-up catwalk off with a share of $325,000 (£190,000) in guaranteed modelling income.įrom left: Romania’s Georgiana sports her souvenir hat models Marketa and ZuzanaĮmily is one of three contestants from the UK who I am introduced to by Elite London’s director Michelangelo Chiacchio and head of production Janie Everett. Here for what is essentially a two-week model boot camp, they’ll learn to walk, pose and behave like the supers a good percentage of them are destined to become (Cindy Crawford, Helena Christensen and Gisele Bündchen are all alumni, so it’s not a bad club to be part of).Īt the end of the fortnight a gala show at the resort’s 3,500-seat arena will see This year 350,000 entrants have been whittled down to the 67 girls from 54 countries who are milling about the hotel in matching Elite-branded white vests and shorts that make them look like members of a school sports club. The Next Top Model franchise may create good TV, but Elite Model Look – now in its 26th year – creates supermodels. It is a tropical 33 degrees and we are surrounded by teenage girls – all potential supermodels, all plucked from the high streets and high schools of the world and all flown to Sanya to compete in the Elite Model Look, which is certainly the largest, arguably the most thorough and possibly the most extravagant model competition in the world. It’s mid-October when I meet Emily in the foyer of a five-star beachside hotel in Sanya, a holiday resort on Hainan Island off the southern coast of China. Not that this should now concern the softly spoken 5ft 10in schoolgirl from Basingstoke because, having entered the Elite Model Look (EML) contest instead, she really is Britain’s next top model. But, by her own admission, lacking any of the brash, attention-seeking qualities required and being three years underage, she would never have made the cut at this year’s auditions. Nikola from Czech Republic works her model magic for a photographerĮmily Smith, like so many 15-year-olds, is a huge fan of the reality TV show Britain’s Next Top Model. ![]()
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