Since the initial casting back in January, Top Austin Model contestants have been trying to smize their way to the top with photo shoots and runway walks to be named this year’s “Top Austin Model.” Nicole Glenn strutted away Sunday night with the winning title. Already donning a signature walk, Nicole was a standout from the get go amongst judges Brianna Fleet of Butterfly Entertainment, photographer Peter Tung, and hair stylist Ivy Kim. Model Harlee Rae also walked away a winner being named the “Fan Favorite” based off of votes from the local online community and attendees of the runway shows. Runners up for the Top Austin Model 2013 competition were Cameron Curphey and Lani Rader.
Top Austin Model winner Nicole Glenn
Fan Favorite winner Harlee Rae
The final runway show on Sunday night not only featured the competing models of course, but highlighted a few local designers as well. The majority of the designs were unfortunately what you usually see from Austin fashion designers- clothes that aren’t very wearable for a modern woman and look homemade. However, there were a few pieces here and there that stood out.
Designer Teresa Valenzuela Basa showed a few designs from her debut collection which had premiered just a week before (I missed that show because it was the last Sunday of SXSW and I was SXSWanting a break.) I can’t say that I was particularly impressed with the collection. Following Teresa’s designs were some looks from Heart-Shaped which were for the most part reminiscent of a home sewing experiment involving zippers. The peplum dress modeled by Becca was the most interesting and unique design-wise. Navi Bleu was the last local designer to show, and besides having a couple of pieces that were a little frumptastic (pardon the use of a faux word), she also managed to have one of my favorite pieces of the night. Navi’s pastel peach sparkly dress modeled by Cameron stood out to me as being the most attractive and most wearable piece from the show.
Teresa Valenzuela Basa‘s designs:
Runner Up, Cameron Curphey
Runner Up, Lani Rader
Heart-Shaped Designs:
Navi Bleu‘s designs:
Closing out the show were some looks for the boys from Capra and Cavelli (don’t click on that link, they have a website that plays sound automatically upon arrival) modeled by some of the most “fashionable and fabulous” men of Austin including Marques Harper of the Austin American Statesman, Chris Hook from the Austin Fire Department, Mic Trottey former CW Austin star, Influential Magazine publisher William Jackson, Austin Fashion Week founder Matt Swinney, and “Best Keyboardist of Austin” AJ Vincent.
Marques said he tried convincing the guys to have a “Magic Mike” moment at the end, and I really wish this would have happened because it would have made the show a heck of a lot more interesting. I think I almost fell asleep during one of the past Top Austin Model competitor’s performance of “Girl on Fire” by Alicia Keys, and I think I almost fell asleep writing this blog post. But, I do have to give it up to all the girls who competed in this competition. Not only does it take a lot of guts to enter a modeling competition, but everyone looked like they had actually improved their runway presence since the first runway show. Congratulations to not just the winners of the competition, but to everyone who had the courage to compete and worked hard to improve throughout Top Austin Model.
Joanna Wilkinson
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