Top Model Show 2010

America's Next Top Model: Jaslene Gonzalez Spotted in Runway Show

It's no secret: America's Next Top Model is a fast-track to a fame of sorts, but for many, it's mainly the fame of being known as “that girl from America's Next Top Model.” It's debatable if it helps in the slightest with an actual modeling career, and as some former contestants recently told us here at BuddyTV, some of the modelettes actually think it's a hindrance to starting a solid high-fashion modeling career.

But if Jaslene Gonzalez wasn't going to let not getting cast for Cycle 7 stop her from coming back to win Cycle 8, one can suspect she's not going to let her America's Next Top Model fame impede her progress to actually become a working model. She is, after all, the Cha Cha Diva.

And a recent appearance shows she might just be making headway into the edgier side of fashion that gives young models and designers the kind of credibility that can help offset the reality television experience. We've got news on that sighting, and as an extra-added bonus, we also have images from her Elite Model show card.

Fashion blog Fashionista.com reports that Jaslene was spotted last week walking in the GenArt fashion show. GenArt, they report, “gives funds to emerging designers and functions as the fashion world's version of training wheels.”

GenArt events are apparently a looser, less-formal event that some of the other shows happening last week at New York's Fashion Week. The audience knows the designers are young and up-and-coming, and so the expectation is more for excitement and energy than technical perfection. This is a crowd, Fashionista says, “that actually cheers and screams, high-school play style, at the end of [the] collection.”

So, they go on to report, Jaslene got her own round of applause and appreciative shouts when she appeared. Booking this show is an ideal event for the aspiring model, who seems determined to make it in actual fashion, not just the periphery. By working with younger designers – who will probably be less concerned about her pedigree and more excited about the exposure and maybe even a little of the kitsch factor of working with an America's Next Top Model – she can continue to build her presence in real fashion as she waits for the chance to make major runway shows.

She has also walked in a show for the Armani Exchange, an affordable subsidiary of the Giorgio Armani brand that is aimed at younger buyers mainly in the American market. She will also be appearing on a major billboard for clothing brand Lot 29 and appearing in a cameo role in an independent film called Miss Average.

And as promised, the images here are from her Elite show card, her industry calling card. What do you think? Will Jaslene have what it takes to compete with the Jessica Stams, Agyness Deyns and Gemma Wards of the fashion world?