By IANS
New Delhi : The upcoming edition of Wills Lifestyle India Fashion Week (WIFW), one of the country’s biggest fashion events, will see four models from abroad participating after they cleared a keenly-competed audition here Friday evening.
Four global models – Corina Bolintiru of Romania, Araceli Marianela of Argentina and Yana Malovska and Naty Slyusaryeva of Ukraine – cleared Friday’s ‘New Faces Going Places’ model hunt.
The 11th edition of the fashion fiesta, organised by the Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI), with the title sponsored by Wills Lifestyle of the ITC group, will be held March 12-16.
The 10th edition last year saw three foreign models making the cut though six international models from Britain, the Czech Republic, Brazil and Sri Lanka took part in the auditions.
The first stage of the audition Friday saw 55 aspirants sashaying down a mini ramp in a variety of outfits ranging from skirts to jeans teamed with designer boots, after which the contestants whittled down to 17.
The contest aims at providing aspiring models a platform to kick-start their careers.
“We are scouting for great looks, carriage, poise, personality and attitude on the ramp,” explained Rathi Vinay Jha, director general of FDCI.
“Not only in India, but international models walk the ramp across the globe too, which I think is a healthy trend,” Nayanika Chatterji, supermodel and one of the jury members, told IANS.
The others on the jury included designers Ranna Gill, Malini Ramani, Abhishek Gupta, Hemant Khandelwal, Anju Modi and choreographer Asha Kochhar.
The 10 lucky models will join top names in the Fashion Week. Some of them can well see their career graphs zooming as nearly a dozen models who cleared the auditions earlier have gone places.
They include the likes of Neha Kapur, Upen Patel, Piya Trivedi and Sonalika Sahay.
The audition is among the many initiatives by FDCI to broad-base the country’s burgeoning fashion industry.