Model search, the result of rich history

This evening a new Jamaica Fashion Model, Petite Jamaica Fashion Model and Male Face of Jamaica and Full Figured Fashion Model will be chosen - all part of Pulse's Caribbean Model Search for 2010. R&B recording star, Shontelle, will be live in concert and Miss Jamaica Universe, Yendi Phillipps, fresh from her history-making success at Miss Universe in Las Vegas, will make a special appearance on tonight's show at the Wyndham Kingston Hotel. However, the culmination of the event tonight is only the latest instalment in a tradition spanning 30 years.

The Jamaica Fashion Model Pageant was first held in 1983, when the winner, the lithe Denise Sloley, and the beautiful and acrobatic Jheanell Azan, best remembered as the star of Jimmy Cliff's Reggae Nights video and Red Stripe calendars, ruled the roost.

Both, led by Pulse director, Hilary Phillips, went to Paris for Pret a Porter and Model Agency 'go sees' that year, becoming the Caribbean's first-ever delegation to a fashion capital, aimed at model placement and development.

By 1985, the event really started heating up. Althea Laing, the winner, was chosen by Essence to be the cover of the April, 1986 issue - again a first for the Caribbean.

Laing moved to New York and would subsequently do a second Essence cover, among other assignments.

Her success inspired many, and by 1987, Kimberley Mais, the winner, would go on to open up several new pathways for Caribbean talent.

Years later Jaunel McKenzie, another Jamaican model from Pulse, would also become number one in another market at another time.

Kimberley Mais' success in all the major markets inspired the Pulse Model Search.

The first official search was won by Angela Neil, a favourite of many, who would work successfully in all the major markets.

After that, the floodgates were opened and Jamaican stars from Pulse lit up the firmament, a process that has not abated.