'America's Next Top Model': Amsterdam-ed if you do...

In structure, this cycle of "America's Next Top Model" is nearly identical to each of those that have preceded it, yet, against all odds, this has been one of the stronger seasons in recent history. I pondered what made this so during the remaining models' trip to Amsterdam:

Elina. She's so irritating, which makes her so necessary to the season. Unlike the Top Models in previous history who ran on ignorant, refer-to-yourself-in-the-third-person delusion (Jade Cole or Dominique Reighard, anyone?), Elina Ivanova is not confident as a model but utterly confident in her own smarts and sophistication, even if she's not really that intelligent. In lieu of the red-light district challenge, she sassily voiced her pro-prostitution stance, but when Samantha tried to argue the other side, Elina simply shut down. I totally called, too, that she would be even more irritating once she reached European soil.

'America's Next Top Model': We have a winner! Again.

So the best model, or one of them anyway, won "America's Next Top Model." I said in my last post that the dearly departed Marjorie Conrad reminded me of Elise Sewell from Cycle 1. McKey Sullivan, this season's winner, reminds me of Johanna House from Cycle 2. She might not be as bubbly and chipper as the runner-up, Samantha Potter (or Cycle 2's Mercedes Scelba-Shorte), but give me a break. How could you let someone with that face and who can carry off a severe shork dark haircut like that not win it all?

But really, whoop de doo, right? That's all the excitement I can muster for a show as overplayed as "ANTM." Let's compare it to one of the other great American stalwarts in entertainment-based reality television, "American Idol," which itself has of late received criticism that it's overexposed and irrelevant. "ANTM" premiered in 2003, a year after "Idol," and so far has crammed in 11 "cycles," whereas "Idol" has given us a mere seven (with the eighth starting in 2009). At two seasons (or cycles) a year versus "Idol's" or "Project Runway's" one or one and a half, it's just becoming too much. Does anybody really care about this show anymore? ("Care" being a perjorative term in this case, meaning not just good enough to watch while eating a microwave dinner in the dark but intrigued enough to want to go home and to see what happened).

'America's Next Top Model': Chatting with McKey Sullivan

After becoming "America's Next Top Model's" 11th winner, Brittany "McKey" Sullivan chatted with journalists on a conference call about the competition and life after it. Here were a few highlights from the discussion:

On what it was like transitioning from an athletic tomboy to a model:
I still sometimes have this habit of putting my butt on the edge of the chair and sitting with my legs wide open. That's not very attractive! I also used to try to spit like the guys too, but that didn't really work out — I didn't have the same skills. I had a wonderful advisor at Elite Chicago who taught me everything there is about presenting yourself and finding your own style and doing your makeup and how to shake people's hands. That was priceless to me. I learned that you don't have to dress like a guy to be yourself — you can find a style within the fashion industry that looks like you and feels like you.

What was going through her mind during the final judging:
This is embarrassing, but I always have to pee when I'm nervous, so I'm just sitting there with my designer gown with my legs crossed thinking, "Please don't pee in this designer gown!" As judging went on I got more and more comfortable and stopped shaking so much.

America's Next Top Shorty

Ladies, you know that lie you tell yourself when you look at fashion models? "The one thing keeping me from being a model is my height"? Well, now there's no excuse. Removing itself further than ever from the actual world of fashion, for its 13th cycle, "America's Next Top Model" has now put a height MAXIMUM on its contestants: a whopping 5 feet, 7 inches.

“There have been top supermodels in the past that weren’t as tall as the industry demands, like fashion icon Kate Moss,” said Tyra Banks in a press release announcing the casting call. “So we are changing up ‘Top Model’ for cycle 13 and making it a year for the shorter model!”

What's going to be the gimmick for the next casting call? Models with no faces?

—Claire Zulkey

(Photo: Analeigh, Cycle 11. Credit: The CW)

Hot Models In Lingeries Frolic For Charity

Hot Models In Lingeries Frolic For Charity

Super models wear little more than what decency allows over at the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens Saturday evening with proceeds benefiting the poorest inhabitants of the Third World. It's called "Lingerie Miami", black tie event, a catwalk show of Europe's finest couture lingerie labels. Guests will enjoy a couture lingerie runway show featuring such classy brands as Agent Provocateur, Carine Gilson, and Fifi Chachnil. Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria Parker will host the event. "Lingerie Miami" is the fundraising arm of 7Bar Foundation. Its founder, Renata M. Black, explained, "What it does is provide small loans to impoverished women to help them come out of poverty. So we teach them a skill and then we give them a loan and through this, they themselves come out of poverty. So you never give anything for free." Lingerie empire Agent Provocateur founder and designer Joe Corre spoke to CBS4 News while at the Bal Harbour Shops about his collection, which began in London and SOHO. He said, "We now have, I think, forty-something stores in about 20 different countries. I guess we're probably the most fashionable lingerie brand; but also especially, it's because they actually have to fit and do what they're supposed to do: pull you in and push you out in all the right places." If it's sexy, Agent Provocateur has it: from shoes to bras, panties and all that fits one's fancy. All of the fabrics are made in France with only the finest silks and leaver lace. Agent Provocateur's fine lingerie is out to empower women in many ways, and also defining sensuality.