.

Former America’s Next Top Model contestant Leah Darrow is being featured in the Sept./Oct. issue of Faith and Family Magazine:

Excerpts from the article:

After being eliminated from the show in 2005, she received contract offers from top modeling companies such as Ford and Elite Modeling, but the conditions of the contracts were troublesome. She decided not to sign a contract, and instead went independent. Soon she had many offers.

Yet something else was going on in her soul. She was feeling a weight of sorrow. There were relationships and other elements of her life that were not right. There was a value being given to her body that seemed to make her soul worthless and irrelevant.

On her conversion experience:

And his help came in an unforgettable way. “One day I found myself in the midst of a high-powered photoshoot,” she says, “where the outfit I was modeling was anything but modest.
“I had to sit there and think about the responsibility I had, as a model, to myself, my family, the world, and most importantly to God.”

As the photographer snapped picture after picture, her mind was racing. “What if this is my last moment on earth?” she thought. “What if my life ends right here and now? This is what I would be holding in my hands as I faced God.”

On her style icons:

I have three fashion inspirations,”

1. The Blessed Mother. “She is the purest definition of a woman of grace and dignity.”

2. Audrey Hepburn. “She always kept an image of modesty with her clothing, never less than respectable.”

3. Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis. “Jackie’s style has never gone out of style.”

What she’s doing now:

Pure Fashion is an international faith-based program affiliated with Regnum Christi and the Legionaries of Christ designed for girls ages 14 to 18. It helps young women discover their deepest beauty: that of being images of God’s love. It affirms their innate value and authentic femininity.

This year, Leah helped to put together the first St. Louis Pure Fashion team.