Kirsty faces bright future

Press, 15 June 1983, Page 1

Kirsty faces bright future

Wide eyes, full lips, and a pert nose are the ideal facial features for a top photographic model. They are also the looks of a Christchurch Polytechnic interior design student, Kirsty Lay. Miss Lay, who is 20, from an Irwell farm, has just been offered a one-year modelling contract with New York’s Ford Model Agency. She will join an elite group of models who appear in the pages of such magazines as “Vogue” and “Cosmopolitan.” Ford has 97 models on its books. It also has a reputation for choosing some of the finest faces in the fashion business.

Miss Lay was one of six girls picked by Ford from 24 finalists in the international “Face of the Eighties” contest. Just being chosen as the contest’s New Zealand representative was a big surprise. Pieter’s Model Agency, in Christchurch, sent Kirsty Lay’s photographs to Auckland where she was selected on her photogenic ability ahead of 25 other girls. Ten days later a jetlagged Miss Lay was being pinned into top fashion garments for appearances in New York- and Florida.

“I felt as though I was a fish out of water,” said the girl who had done no previous catwalk modelling and only a minimum of studio photographic work. ,

Fifteen hectic days in the United States ended on Thursday when Miss Lay returned to her family. Her two sisters and a younger brother were pleased but unimpressed bv her success. She is confident modelling will not change her unaffected image, She would like to make the most of the money-making and travel . opportunities the job offers before returning to New Zealand and an undecided future.

In about two weeks Kirsty Lay will once again pack her suitcases. Her destination is uncertain. To be eligible for a work permit in the United States her face must first appear on 10 overseas magazine covers. Ford will arrange work for her in Europe but she hopes to stop off in New York on the way. She would like to establish a home base in Manhattan where the agency owns apartment buildings for the use of its models. Miss Lay, a blue-eyed blonde, knows she faces an intensive schedule of schooling for the camera. Already Ford has blunt cut her long hair into a swish shoulder bob and prepared a portfolio of her in images ranging from the natural sporty look to high-fashion elegance. . Inexperience was not seen as a disadvantage by the agency, said Miss Lay. “It will allow them to mould me to what they want.”