Sunday, December 24, 2006

RESULT: Miss Virginia USA wants to work in entertainment

Whatever happened to: Virginia Tech student Amber Copley who represented Virginia in the Miss USA pageant in Baltimore last April.

Amber Copley.

Gene Dalton | The Roanoke Times

Amber Copley.

Then: Copley took a semester off college to seek to end a three-decade drought for Virginia in the Miss USA contest.

Now: The 21-year-old Abingdon native did not make the pageant's top 15, but she did make connections at the event which have served her well pursuing a career in modeling. Copley said she was on the verge of signing with the Wilhelmina modeling agency's Richmond franchise.

"I'm really excited about it," she said. "It's one step closer to what I want to do."

Copley expects to graduate with a communications degree in 2008. She might go into public relations but said working in the entertainment business excites her the most.

The November death of Brazilian model Ana Carolina Reston from anorexia has renewed talk in the fashion industry about the effects of holding up ultra-thin models as a standard of beauty. Copley referred to that incident in saying she hopes to challenge an unrealistic, if not dangerous, aesthetic.

She wears a size 6 and wants to be a counter example "for the little girls with magazines sitting at home looking at women with bones sticking out of them."

Copley said she will focus on commercial modeling and is not tall enough for the runway.

"I'm 5-foot-6 1/2," she said. "Leave the half on there. It's important in this industry."

More at the Source



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