Ali Michael. (Photo by Yelena Yemchuck/Courtesy of DNA Models)
I wrote this piece originally for the Dallas Observer blog Unfair Park, but since it was not published there, I am posting it here. —Michelle
Ah, this takes me back. As I search for my seat once again in NorthPark Center’s Fashion at the Park tent, the emo sounds of Dashboard Confessional’s “Screaming Infidelities” pour out of the speakers. In 2001, when this song debuted, I had just graduated from college, moved to Dallas and had a bright future ahead of me as a shill for the tanning industry. As I look around at the kids in the tent—lots of teens and tweens are here to ogle/support the young finalists of the Fashion!Dallas/Kim Dawson Model Search—I realize that most of them were probably in elementary school when this song was big. I also wonder how many of them snagged a glass of Champagne from the Moet & Chandon trays circulating through the Sunday afternoon crowd.
Perhaps as a function of the lower average age in the tent and the time of day, jeans are out in full force. Still, some attendees are dressed to the teeth. Since I welcome any opportunity to forgo heels, I gotta respect the Sunday-afternoon stiletto wearers. I raise my Champagne flute to you, ladies; you have stronger ankles and a higher pain threshold than I do.
Among the teen onlookers in the crowd is a face familiar to both Dallas and the fashion world: 2006 F!D/KD Model Search winner Ali Michael, who has since walked runways for Chanel, Dior, Yohji Yamamoto, Lanvin and more. Yet, aside from the bold eyebrows, the willowy frame and the leather Prada hobo slung over her shoulder, this gum-popping 18-year-old looks just like a regular teen. Her presence is apparently a pleasant surprise to model search organizers Tracy Hayes and Lisa Dawson, who introduce her as they introduce the 10 finalists. The male models seem to get the most applause and cheers from the audience when the finalists walk the runway (and someone screams “Sexy boy!” when Michael Fjordbak struts).
Dawson goes on to explain the role that technology played in the readers’ choice vote: This year, text-message votes (which were unlimited) outnumbered mail and online votes, and the final vote count far surpassed previous years’. 2007’s readers’ choice winner won with 8,000 votes; this year’s winner had more than 80,000. A friend of finalist Fjordbak confesses to text-voting for him 40 times in one day. And the convenience of text-messaging isn’t the only technology that drove votes: A few of the finalists—including Kyle Ellison, Diaby Mo Jr. and Alex Long—set up “vote for me” Facebook groups with hundreds of members to remind fans to keep the text votes rolling in.
In the end, it’s no real surprise when Mo is announced as the readers’ choice winner and Ellison is selected as the winner of the grand prize of $1,000 in NorthPark Gold (a mall shopping spree, basically), a Toni & Guy national ad campaign and a modeling contract. But Dawson assures the crowd that all of the finalists are talented. In fact, she told Unfair Park that the Kim Dawson agency might even sign them all. All in all, F!D/KD Model Search’s first year with a live audience is a huge success in Dawson’s eyes. “I am amazed at what it’s become,” she says. “How are we going to top this?”
Beauty Crucible 