BARBADIAN SEDIA JACKMAN is vying for the title of the Caribbean’s Next Top Model.
Since all the contestants signed non-disclosure agreements, she cannot reveal any details about the filming of the show.
The Caribbean’s Next Top Model (CNTM), the Caribbean’s own versionof CBS’ internationally renowned America’s Next Top Model (ANTM) format, is set to begin airing across more than 25 Caribbean countries on February 18, and will be hosted by Miss Universe 1998 Wendy Fitzwilliam.
CNTM will feature 23 Caribbean beauties – Xiea from Antigua and Barbuda; Sedia from Barbados; Jenelle and Kendra from Bahamas; Treveen from Cayman Islands; Stephany from Curacao; Treicy from the Dominican Republic; Ashley from Guadeloupe; Lisa and Trudy-Lee from Jamaica; and Semoy, Ornella, Anna-Rosa, Davia, Julianna, Athaliah, Candace, Susan, Sheriza, Rachel, Kim-Marie and Tinnitia from Trinidad and Tobago.
They will all be competing for the title of the Caribbean’s Next Top Model and will be judged by Fitzwilliam as well as international photographer Pedro Virgil and runway coach and creative director of Trinidad and Tobago’s Fashion Week Richard Young, along with guest judges.
Sedia, a former Barbados Community College student, grew up in My Lord’s Hill, St Michael. The daughter of Alpha and Todne Jackman, she got her modelling start when, at 15 years old, her cousin encouraged her to take part in a fashion show at her alma mater, Queen’s College.
Despite her shyness, she was an instant hit with the audience.
“When I heard the crowd response, I knew I had to stick [with] it.”
Her success at the show led to photo shoots with many local photographers and appearances in publications such as Island Life Magazine and Nu Woman Magazine. She has also appeared in Barbados Fashion Week, Islands Of The World Fashion
Showcase in The Bahamas, and in the Barbados Under The Water Festival. Sedia also won the Banks Girl competition in 2010. No doubt the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree as her parents both had stints in modelling and her mother Todne was the Banks Girl in 1989.
In 2011, the 5-foot-11½-inch beauty with an associate degree in office administration management competed in the Miss Barbados World pageant where she finished first runner-up. Whereas not capturing the crown would have been a disappointment to others, Sedia saw the good in the experience.
“I try to see the positive in every competition, and I definitely learnt a lot,” she says.
CNTM, which was shot in Trinidad and Tobago, will run for 11 episodes and air on various stations, WSEE TV in Puerto Rico, One Caribbean Television and CaribVision, in Caribbean territories during primetime on Mondays.
Fitzwilliam noted the post-production company out of Los Angeles does marketing and editing of blockbuster movies like Avatar and Skyfall and television series like Glee.
“We’ve done a good job of putting the show together but what I think is most attractive about it is that it is a celebration of who we are in high definition – our quirks, the beauty that is the Caribbean, but done in a First World manner. It is the way in which I would like to see us presented more,” she added.
The show was originally to begin airing February last year but Fitzwilliam reported that they had “several challenges with the production”, both in principal photography and post=production.
Currently, America’s Next Top Model is under licence in over 100 markets around the world and has 20 international versions in production.ANTM returns for its 20th season – called a “cycle” – this summer.
Usually two cycles are filmed per year, but the CW network is cutting it down to just one as it comes to the end of its shelf life.