Elite Model Look Contest, Paris, Haute Couture, and Closing a Show at 14
Okay so with Fashion Week happening right now, I've been feeling nostalgic and wanted to finally share this story with you guys.
I was 14 when I got discovered at the Elite Model Look Contest. I genuinely had no idea what was about to happen to my life. I got scouted in Serbia, and not long after, I won the Elite Model Look Contest - which meant one thing: I was flying to China. Alone. My first time flying ALONE ever, and it wasn't a quick hop, it was across the entire world into something I had zero context for. Surreal doesn't even cover it.
Simona at Elite Model Look in Sanya, 2009
The contest was in Sanya in China, and suddenly I'm standing there surrounded by girls from literally every corner of the globe, all repping their countries, all just as wide-eyed as I was. Agents from Paris, Milan, London were there scouting us, and we had real runway coaches teaching us how to walk. It's still one of the most incredible life changing events in my life.
Here's the part that gets me every time I think back on it: I'd just started high school in Serbia when I won that contest. I had absolutely no idea my life was about to fast-forward — that I'd soon be walking runways at fashion weeks around the world, continuing my studies in the U.S., and calling New York City home.
But before New York, before any of it... my first trip was Paris.
Not long after the world final of Elite Model Look, I was on a plane to Paris to start building my book — for anyone who doesn't know, that's basically your portfolio, prints of your shoots that you carry around to castings. So that's what I did. I shot with photographer after photographer, some of them huge names, which honestly felt insane for someone who'd barely been doing this a few months.
Some of my first jobs? Sonia Rykiel. Emanuel Ungaro. Dior. At fourteen. I still think about that.
But the moment that really changed everything was booking my first runway show — Paris Haute Couture Week. And it wasn't just any spot in the lineup. I closed the show.
I remember standing backstage getting the final look pinned on me, pure chaos, and then walking out last as the closing girl at one of the biggest fashion weeks in the world. I'm posting the photo of that exact outfit below because honestly I still look at it and can't believe that was me.
After that everything moved fast. My book filled up, the jobs kept coming, and my mother agency sent my digitals to New York. Next thing I knew, I had a contract with one of the biggest agencies out there.
More on my next post… 🤍
Simona at her first runway show in Paris, during Haute Couture, 2010