Everything changed in a moment

FRANKLIN
One day, a little more than two years ago, a simple walk down the streets of a foreign city helped connect a Franklin native with what he believes to be his raison d’être. It was almost like something out of a cliché for La’Vel Stacy, as a group of people approached him and asked him if he wanted to be a model.

“Ever since I was a kid, I have always wanted to be a model and actor,” Stacy said. “I honestly don’t even know where it came from, but it has always been with me.”

So of course he said yes. After exchanging information, he did hear back from the magazine group, but by the time he did so the U.S. Navy had transferred him from Japan back to Virginia Beach.

By then, the passion was back to pursuing the whole modeling thing that he’d always wanted to do.

“I went to the beach with my friends, and we were just fooling around taking pictures, but one of them took a picture of me that I really liked,” he said. “I sent it to a friend of mine who is in school for fashion design, and she liked it and sent it along to some of the people she knew to see what came of it.”

The friend, Whitney Means, eventually did hear back from someone, and that someone was Ron Cooke, whose company, Rogue Production, works with celebrities, athletes, musicians and actors for magazines, commercials and events. He’s also one of the organizers for the Virginia Fashion Show, and after Stacy met with Cooke, he’d have his first break in the industry at that event.

“After my first meeting with Ron, I felt like, man, I am finally doing what I was created to do,” he said. “I felt like I was finally making waves in my life.”

And now, Stacy wants to take it a step further. He’s entered DCW50 Television’s “Top Model” contest, and while winning the local contest wouldn’t guarantee him a spot in the national TV show, “American’s Next Top Model,” it will get him some recognition in the industry.

Should Stacy win, he’d get to be in a commercial that will air nationally during the season premiere of the show, and it’d also get him noticed by the on-air judges. The program was renewed for a 22nd cycle to air later this year.

Stacy is contestant No. 302, and you can vote online at http://dcw50.com/2015/01/05/vote-here-for-your-antm-favorite/. To see the gallery that includes his photo, visit http://dcw50.com/2015/01/05/antm-casting-call-photo-galleries-of-all-contestants/.

“You can vote as many times as you want, and share it,” Stacy said. “I’m just so excited.

“I love modeling. I just feel so free. During photo shoots or on the runway, it is just so liberating to know that my passion is being fulfilled every time I do something.”

After doing well at Virginia Fashion Week, the 2006 Franklin High School graduate got a chance to model during New York Fashion Week, and has since done it three more times.

“Crazy,” Stacy said about the atmosphere backstage during NY Fashion Week. “There are just hundreds of models, and then you have the designers and all of the clothes. You have makeup artists, hair stylists, and everybody else doing different jobs, but they are all working toward the same purpose in a small space. It’s like ants in an anthill.”

But then once you get on the runway, something magical happens.

“It is completely nerve-racking up until the moment that you step out onto the runway,” Stacy said. “Once you step out, it’s like everything disappears and all you see is the light. Even if someone else is on the runway, it’s your runway. You feel like you are the only one. In that moment, you just have to be yourself and whatever it is you are wearing. You display it, and you just be whoever you are in that moment.”

Since then, he was able to be on a fashion show that appeared on HBO and has even been able to appear as an actor on television and do some commercials.

“I see life as art,” he said. “What better way to display my passion than by being a model, and being able to portray the art that I see everyday?

“Being in the Navy has been a great experience, but I always knew that this is what I’ve always wanted out of my life. Ever since Virginia Fashion Week, it has been like non-stop. And it has been absolutely amazing.”