July 17, Russian final of Elite Model Look professional model contest was held.

Russian castings had started March 28 in Lipetsk and finished July,17 in Moscow. Representatives from Red Stars model agency and MTV have visited 14 Russian cities, including Saint-Petersburg. Several thousand girls participated in Russian Elite Model Look and only 27 girls from all over Russia, Byelorussia and Ukraine came to Moscow. Only three of them will be chosen by jury to participate in the world finals in Nice; two of the girls will represent Russia, one will represent Ukraine.

The task was even more complicate taking in account the fact that girls of different regions are very different themselves. According to Vitaly Leiba, the Head of the Board of Directors of the Red Star agency, they look like if they came from different races.
Moscow has never seen EML national finals like these. “I had always dreamed to produce fashion show in crazy MTV-style. Organizing the finals, we had consciously chosen to go the way of contrasts; MTV style means uniting contrast things and looking for unusual shapes. So we had chosen very different musicians to accompany the Russian finals, so that the final show can be called “the show on the edge”, the show of contrasts, starting from the hosts and ending with the combination of pretty girls and alternative music.” – Boris Zosimov says.
Igor Chapurin and Andrey Sharov’s collections were shown.

In addition to the grand prix, there were two special prizes, one from MTV and another from Veet. Julia Miskevich became Miss Veet, and MTV had chosen the most talkative girl – Milana Bogolepova – to host some of their Stylissimo shows and to try and be a journalist. Irma Ignatova, the Stilissimo show’s producer, thinks Milana has all the chances to become a TV star.
The jury couldn’t help choosing four girls instead of three. The winners of Russian finals are Marta Vorobieva, Anna Sergeeva, Olga Ernikova and Irina Shadrina.

Stanislav Smirnov
'Style' Editor-in-chief