Here’s Kim Dawson’s 20th Model Search Winner

Twenty years ago, Kim Dawson launched an annual model search and thus the career of a 15-year-old sprite from Irving. That inaugural winner, Erin Wasson, has since appeared in hundreds of fashion editorials and ads, including a long run as a Maybelline spokesperson. And who could forget that role in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter?

Freeman with Wasson at Thursday’s Kim Dawson event. Image courtesy of Kim Dawson.

Last Thursday night, the Kim Dawson agency celebrated both Wasson’s career and 20 years of discovering fresh faces. After playing short films starring each of this year’s finalists (see one of these below), they announced the winner of a one-year contract: a bright-eyed 18-year-old from Dallas named Elizabeth Freeman who looks like she could just as easily star in Neutrogena commercials as she could walk a couture runway.

Congrats to Elizabeth— and to the other finalists, because there really are no losers when you’re all that beautiful.

A bit of bragging on a couple of colleagues here: Two-minute films starring each of the Kim Dawson Model Search finalists are produced for the event. The first here was directed by Swoon, the Studio’s Larry Oliver and shot by D Magazine’s staff photographer Elizabeth Lavin with editing assistance from another D staffer, Nick Leibold. The model search finalist, Jordan Pierce, not only does a proficient job of being ridiculously good-looking, he also lends his buttery voice. You hear that, American Idol?

[d-embed]"Day Dream" starring 2017 Kim Dawson Model Search finalist Jordan Pierce from Kim Dawson Agency on Vimeo.