Runway ready

Johnathan Kayne and Joshua McKinley have had their work critiqued by Heidi Klum.
On Saturday night, a Jay County High School junior will share the runway with them.
Leearah Eldridge will walk in the RaeLynn’s Boutique Fashion Show, with Kayne and McKinley as hosts, at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Indianapolis Convention Center.
She was selected from more than 500 applicants to take part in the event which serves as a showcase for prom dresses.
“We go through each entry and really read why they want to be a model for us, what they do within their communities, how active they are,” said RaeLynn’s general manager Steph Wolfred. “There’s a lot of different things that go into choosing our models, but for the most part we are looking for real, genuine girls who are active members of their communities … who are just good, wholesome Indiana girls. That’s really who we’re looking for.”
Eldridge first learned about RaeLynn’s, located in Greenwood on the south side of Indianapolis, about a year ago from her friend Menausha VanSkyock, who recommended the store as a good place to find a prom dress. So Eldridge followed RaeLynn’s on Instagram and Twitter, eventually seeing posts about the fashion show.
She decided to give it a try.
The first step was posting a photo on Instagram and emailing an application that included explaining why she wanted to be a model for the fashion show. That resulted in a call Nov. 16 saying she had been selected as one of about 100 invited to what amounted to an audition.
That came a week later, with Eldridge and all of the other girls trying on a dress at the store, doing a model walk and getting a photo taken.
Then the RaeLynn’s staff made its selections. Eldridge was one of 40 chosen for the show.
“(I was) really, really happy and really excited,” she said. “I’ve kind of always wanted to do something with modeling, but I wasn’t really comfortable and I was kind of nervous to do it. So to actually get chosen was really, really exciting.”
Though the photos and the model walk were part of the selection process, other factors are important as well.
Eldridge’s mom, Shelly, had called to get details about the fashion show, so the name was already in Wolfred’s mind.
“And then when she came in she just really represented herself in a great manner,” said Wolfred, who added that she and her staff pay attention to how the girls act in general and how they treat their parents specifically. “And she fit our dresses really well. And she just did a great job.”
Last month all 40 who were selected went for a run through of what the show would be like. It was also a chance for the girls, who come from all over the state, to make connections.
“We text literally every day,” said Eldridge, who was one of the first to send out a text to all her fellow models on the GroupMe group text messaging app. “We’ll send random stuff. We’ll send pictures of our animals and we’ll talk about them. It’s really, really fun. I didn’t think I’d get really close with anyone, but I’ve gotten close with a couple girls.”
The final step before the show comes Thursday and Friday, when models will try on three or four dresses apiece.
Then it’ll be time for Eldridge and her fellow models to walk the runway at the convention center venue, which seats about 700, with the show expected to last about two hours. It will include Kayne, a top-five contestant in season three of Klum’s “Project Runway” who has designed for Jennifer Lopez, and McKinley, the season nine runner-up, describing their dresses and explaining the thought process behind designing them.
There is also a competition aspect, as the model who has the largest group of supporters in attendance will receive a $300 gift card to RaeLynn’s. The runner-up will get $100, and the third through fifth place finishers will each receive $50.