Local Kids and Teens Model Back To School Fashions

At least 100 shoppers, parents and kids gathered around the entrance of Bealls on Saturday afternoon at the Sunset Mall to get a taste of the latest back to school fashions at a show featuring local children, teens and adults. 

Fifteen mall stores displayed clothing, shoes and accessories in the fashion show, as models ranging from 4-18 and a handful of adults presented the wares on the catwalk.

Ami Mizell-Flint, Model Coordinator for the Sunset Mall’s fashion shows, explained the twofold objective of the show, as the voice of an announcer boomed in the background, calling out winners to a raffle held during the event.

“There’s a couple of objectives,” she said. “The first is to show off the clothes for the stores and to help get the back to school season going. The other thing is to help the kids, give them that confidence that they need to get on the runway. It teaches the kids the same kind of confidence that they can use with other skills in their lives.”

Each year, the Sunset Mall hosts two fashion shows in August and around Christmas, calling local teens and tweens to the stage to present the hot items available in participating stores.

Once the models are selected from the modeling call, which is orchestrated through the mall’s marketing manager on the shopping center’s website, they begin a round of classes where they learn how to walk and stand.

“I teach them about posture and taking their nervous energy and turning it into something that the audience wants to see,” Mizell-Flint said. “It’s that same adrenaline that you use for both feelings. If they’re nervous, you put that energy into your walk and your poses.”

Those skills later translate into practical settings, Mizell-Flint said, giving kids the confidence to give presentations in school or present themselves in job interviews.

Mizell-Flint is in charge of the models’ instruction, and says her background includes attendance at a modeling school in south Florida when she was a teenager, where she worked at an agency and helped teach classes. Now, she says the most rewarding part is watching her models grow.

“A lot of them have done this over and over again, and so I love watching them grow from the first time to being one of the experienced models and watching the ones that I remember being nervous now helping the ones that are nervous,” she said.

Saturday’s show went off without a hitch, well over 30 models confidently presenting styles to cheers and the flash of cell phone cameras as they strutted down the isle.

“They’re doing a great job,” Mizell-Flint said, glancing at the next line of models standing ready in an adjacent doorway. “I’m very proud of them.”