Tobago model walks Milan fashion runway
Written by Newsday on March 7, 2025
Annaya Baird, winner of Coco Velvet International Top Model 2024 contest made her international runway debut at Milan Autumn/Winter 2025 Fashion Week on March 1.
The statuesque graduate of Bishop East High School walked for Florence-based fashion label Ermanno Scervino, making her Tobago’s first fashion model to walk at Paris or Milan Fashion Week, a media release said.
Baird was scouted by Coco Velvet’s creative director Christopher Nathan at the Shaw Park Complex in 2022 while she was attending a THA appreciation event with her mother. She was enrolled in the agency’s Tobago Youth Creative Arts Workshop at the Scarborough Library Facility from October 2023 to February 2024 where she learned the fundamentals of the fashion and modelling industries, the release said.
The youth workshop was sponsored by Office of the Prime Minister Sport and Culture Fund and the Tobago House of Assembly.
Following the workshop training Baird was selected to compete at Tobago Top Model Competition and Top Model Trinidad and Tobago 2024 contest at the Shaw Park Complex on March 3, which is where she won an International Management contract with ELSA – Exclusive Look & Scouting Alliance USA.
ELSA’s director John Bilboa signed Baird to Supreme Model Management New York and Why Not Management Milano whose bookers arranged castings for Milan Autumn/Winter 2025 Fashion Week, the release said.
Baird is currently in Milan working at Why Not Agency but she is permanently based in New York City. She will return to TT on September 6 to join the selection panel of judges for Top Model Caribbean Competition 2025 at the National Academy of Performing Arts (NAPA), Port of Spain.
Coco Velvet’s said its fashion workshops have trained over 1,000 youths for careers in the fashion and creative industries. On June 1, 100 secondary school students will begin training at the 2025 TT Youth Fashion and Creative Arts Workshop at Nalis, Port of Spain. The Top Model contests have spawned 14 international fashion models from TT including Dominique Armorer-Mason, Paul-Robert Pryce, Michelene Auguste, Latifah Morris, Soowan Bramble, Crystal Noreiga, Naomi Chin Wing, Sarah Jane Jones and Annaya Baird.
Interested high school students can follow Coco Velvet International on Instagram and Facebook @cocovelvetinternational to get info on this year’s creative arts workshop and the Top Model Caribbean Competition.
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