Summer job fulfills dream for Windham resident By Michelle Libby

Lexis Elston is entering her senior year at Windham High School with a new job and future career plans. While reading Seventeen Magazine, she saw an ad for a contest that Guess, the jean company, was having for models.

“I entered the Guess Girl Contest online. I thought it would be fun. Out of 30,000 people I made it to the top 25,” Elston said. The public voted on the top five and although she didn’t make it into the finals, she did catch the eye of Guess CEO Paul Marciano.

“He wanted me to win the prize because I was from a small town and he wanted someone from a small town to win, someone with no modeling experience,” she said.

Guess invited Elston to come to Los Angeles for a four day test shoot to be used for ecommerce, billboards and Facebook, but once she was there, Marciano wanted to meet her, so they extended her stay for another week.

“I guess now I’m a professional model. I just got very lucky. I live in Windham, Maine,” she said. She is not yet represented by a modeling agency, though she has been approached by Ford Modeling Agency, her dream agency, but she turned it down because to her it didn’t make sense to have to fly across the country once a month for casting calls, she said.

“It was amazing. The best experience I’ve ever had. It was the top everything for me. I changed my outlook for everything. I showed me what you can do when you go for your dreams,” Elston said.

When she worked with Marciano he gave her pointers and lessons on modeling. She was also escorted into the main Guess store on Rodeo Drive and told to pick out anything she wanted. She chose 20 pairs of heels, dresses and her favorite is a pair of white skinny jeans with a white inked sunflower because those are what she wore when she met Marciano.

For now she plans to continue to work with Guess, but she also has booked jobs in Atlanta with Ashley Lauren, a pageant designer.

Elston got her start in pageants last year when she won the Miss Teen Maine 2013 title. “That’s how everything really started.”

In two weeks she is heading back to LA to Guess and then she has another fashion shoot in Atlanta. She plans to collect her work ahead of time and do it on the plane rides.

“It’s so amazing out there. It definitely impacted me a lot,” she said. “I know it’s what I want to do.”