#antm1

Robin Manning, Ebony Haith, and Kesse Wallace

01. Elyse Sewell

I didn’t really talk about it yet, but Elyse eventually is my favourite antm contestant ever. It wasn’t really based on her attitude, as it was questionnable at times, but that girl really had something special, that kept me captivated by her whenever she appeared on my screen.

Maybe I let myself influenced by the fact that the show gave her so much screentime, my boyfriend just made me notice in my second rewatch that it basically was « Elyse’s show » in the first few episodes. I almost think that she practically had the original antm winner edit (not meaning they initially intended to give her the win, but still). She was the medical school student soon-to-be-doctor whose supposed intelligence didn’t fit the mold of the model stereotypes, and she always made sure to remind us how their various tasks could be stupid and didn’t required her brain. I think it was quite unnecessary and pretentious for her to always repeat that. And aside from that, she was a bit of a backstabber to be honest, as she had no business bashing people behind their back.

And then you have her massive rant about everybody surrounding her in this competition. I’m not saying that this is something I agreed with, but I kind of understand where it comes from. At that moment, the girls along with Miss Jay spent the day judging her because of her doctor aspiration, eventually implying that it meant she didn’t really wanted to be here, or at least not as much as the others did. This was kind of bullshit because Elyse wouldn’t have give this competition a shot otherwise. And you can tell by her post show work that she did care about modelling. In the end, I think Elyse’s arrogant overall attitude really came from the fact that she felt like nobody took her seriously at the beginning.

But she quickly proved them wrong, by becoming the real threat of the cycle. And it started with the photo that I consider to be the best photo in antm history ; her magnificent snake beauty shot. After that she took gorgeous photos after gorgeous photos, her portfolio was near flawless from that point on.  Her only average photo was more due to the bad photography of that week rather than her performance. I still don’t consider her portfolio as one of the strongest to come from the show, because the beautiful photoshoots were seriously lacking in it, but Elyse still didn’t disapoint.

In regards of her walk, I think it was pretty solid, one of the best from the group. And she surprisingly delivered a very strong commercial (despite admitting she took it like a complete joke, which tells a lot about her abilities), which made her a very complete model. She also has a somewhat captivating presence, the second she stepped into the audition room in the first episode I was totally drawn into her, I just couldn’t ignore her. The fact that I found Elyse so fascinating in person certainly plays a part in my admiration for her, she just was such a natural model (this is precisely where Adrianne faltered in comparison for example).

Elyse was the first of the three finalists to be eliminated. I was sad to see her go, and even though the reasonning of the judges made sense, I initially thought that she was robbed of competing in the finale at that point. But now I think I have an idea as to why she wasn’t selected as part of the final two. The fact is, the final runway was for the Baby Phat fashion collection designed by Kimora Lee Simons. And she made it clear through all the judging session, that she didn’t like Elyse because she was « too thin and too pale », without adding any extra comments. So I think she just didn’t want her collection to be represented by a woman whose body wasn’t appealing to her, and even if that’s not the only reasonning for Elyse’s elimination, I think it played a strong part in it and sealed her fate.

06. Kyla

06. Ebony

08. Adrianne

03. Giselle Samson

Giselle, or the ultimate robbed contestant of cycle 1. She was one of the two added contestants by Tyra, along with Tessa, but unlike her felow contestants, she made a name for herself into thos competition.

Giselle wasn’t the most appreciated person by the other girls of the cast. In fact, she was considered to be quite immature at times (as Elyse so cleverly stated, she was still going through puberty. Poor Giselle). It was pretty evident by the fact she was lacking self confidence and was constantly fishing for compliments by telling to everyone how awful she was, just to hear them say the opposite. And then when she appeared for the first time in the bottom 2 with Ebony, it seemed like she was about to have a meltdown, or collapse in the middle of the judging panel, I honestly felt quite bad for her at that precise moment. To me it just showed how insecure about herself Giselle where, and it’s a shame since she was a beautiful woman with loads of modelling talent.

That’s why I think Giselle was eventually roobed of going further in the competition. At the time she was eliminated she was one of the most complete and consistent girl remaining. She had the full package. First of all, her being a dancer helped her a lot on runway, and she was among the best walkers of the group as you can tell by her runway challenge win. In the commercial shed id quite well, despite being to sexy, but I definitely saw in her the ability of accomplishing great things in that area. And then you have her portfolio, which is the main reason why she placed so high. Giselle had the ability of taking amazing pictures, and had she continued to compete a few weeks on, she probably would have edge Adrianne out for the title of second best portfolio. Her snake beauty shot was a photo of the cycle, and then you have the Reebok ad which is such an iconic shot, which led the fandom to think she was robbed when she was eliminated for it.

04. Adrianne Curry

Ranking the top 4 to 2 contestants was incredibly hard to me, I kept changing my mind perpetually until I finally took a decision. First of all I want to make clear that I think Adrianne is a very deserving winner, and that I’m glad she won. I probably would have rank her within the top 2 a few months ago, but I quickly realized that she was lacking in many aspects of the competition.

But let’s start with the positives ; Adrianne’s portfolio on the show was brilliant, and only second to Elyse in my opinion. Like robin she improved majorly throughout the cycle, and eventually culminated in her very last photo, the Merit diamonds campaign which is a legendary photo not only from this cycle, but from the whole show. And her two beauty shots were excellent picture to complete her whole performance. I always loved how she remained true to herself and to her tomboy personnality while selling the concept, it makes her a very competent model with her own brand.

But there are several factors that are letting her down. First of them, Adrianne’s walk wasn’t good to me. She was stomping on the catwalk and didn’t move her body fluidly, it was particularly noticable in the final runway where you can tell she was quite heavy on her feet. So even if that’s competition is way more about photos than about runway walk, to me it’s still an important factor to consider when you have to deliberate between the top 4. But what was more explicited on the show, was Adrianne’s appearance and the way she presented herself. She made major progress in this area throughout her journey on antm, but in the end she still was outshone by some other contestants. Not that I didn’t find her gorgeous, she definitely was, or that I didn’t like her style. But I find her to have a somewhat lazy energy about the way she present herself. It was supposedly due to her Chicago accent, but she hasn’t an inviting speech, it’s seriously lacked energy and her whenever she talked her voice was somewhat monotone. In the end, she looks kinda sleepy and tired in person, and that affected her a lot in the commercial and challenges like the go-sees.