Greetings from the entire House of Top Models team!
I am happy to have the opportunity for all your readers to know a little more about our Academy and Model Agency located in Miami… let me tell you a little more about our story:
My name is Leonela Gonzalez, Venezuelan Model & Actress. Currently residing in the Sun City, Miami. I have been living in the United States for 8 years, in which I had always kept my focus on having my own business, which I dreamed of from a very young age. And that dream was nothing more than the possibility of having my own modeling school, and being able to teach young people with the same dreams and illusions as me, to achieve great things in any modeling area. I am not a tall model like most runway models tend to be, however, despite not having the stature to reach the great European catwalks, I have had significant achievements in my career as a model and everything. What I have learned over the years is what I now share with my students on a daily basis at House of Top Models.
House of Top Models was born in Venezuela solely as an online agency, by the hand of the great Venezuelan photographer Antonio Iannello, with whom I am associated today. He continues to lead the part of the agency in Madrid – Spain, and I made my dream come true in 2019 by turning House of Top Models into an Academy for the training of comprehensive & professional models. 2019 was a year of many challenges for me and my partner from here in Miami (my husband, Segundo Gil), starting a business is not an easy task, especially when it comes to a new name and not a franchise, there were so many doubts, will it work? Are we going to have students? How long will it take for people to recognize our work? And many other questions that came to my mind when starting this adventure, but always with a positive mind and faithfully believing in God. We open located in Coral Gables, in a wide and very well distributed location, I managed to have all the rooms, just as I dreamed it, main room with the catwalk, etiquette & protocol room, makeup room and photography studio, everything planned. The months went by and we gradually had groups and more groups of girls and boys, interested in our program, designers interested in our models, producers interested in putting together shows together with us, invitations to participate in different events, we began to grow producing our own events, having international guests present in the training of our students, etc., everything started to go very well and very soon in our first year, we closed 2019 with very good energy and wanting to continue working and go for much more.
Starting in 2020 everything looked incredible, at the beginning of February we held a show in a shopping center in the south of Miami, that gave us a lot of impetus and they began to contact us much more, we had about 6 shows planned in the year, participation in Miami Fashion Week, Swim Week, among others, both in Miami and in other states, we were already beginning to grow and to echo outside of Miami. But unfortunately, at the beginning of March 2020 COVID-19 arrives in our lives, paralyzing absolutely everything. Our students began to be absent due to the uncertainty of what was happening, the situation began to become worrying, the news was increasingly alarming, until the entire country ordered the cessation of activities and the absolute quarantine, it was really devastating, I felt my Heart breaking into a thousand pieces, I felt as if what I was living was really a dream and I was waking up and I saw it vanish, I said: what one day I dreamed and took it to a reality is getting out of my hands.
It was a very heartbreaking situation, having to close the doors of the academy, not having our students week after week, seeing that the whole situation would not be a matter of one or two months and unfortunately having to remove everything from the establishment, having to close our location, see it empty and have to move everything to a warehouse, wow! Very painful, not only for being left without a source of income, but for stopping everything that I had been putting my effort, my focus and my dedication into.
But this does not end like this, I am a very positive person and a faithful believer in God, I knew that this could not remain that way, I knew that, if my team and I had already spent a whole year working hard to have a name, position ourselves, have a certain amount of students who will trust us, and waiting for this whole situation to improve and continue with their training, well, we did not let a month go by, being at home without looking for a solution, and as at the beginning of July we began to go out to find some new space that was available to start over.
And that is how I got the place where we are located today. House of Top Models re-opens its doors in August 2020 to start its courses again for children, teens and adults. This has definitely been a rebirth, I cannot explain in words what it was like for me to spend these almost 5 months closed, and without knowing if we would reopen or not. It has been a blessing from God to have this second chance, now close to the DORAL area, a super commercial location that has worked incredibly for us since our re-opening date.
In our new location, we have a main room for the catwalk classes, with a perfect stage for the students to feel like they’re doing a “Runway Show” each class, makeup room, etiquette & protocol room and a small & practical photo studio.
In our academy, our mission is to form integral models; and being integral is nothing more than having a balanced personality, with a good development of all the aspects of it; that is, the intellectual, the emotional, the spiritual and the social matters, among others. In other words, to train our students, boys or girls, in such a way that they can develop themselves in any environment.
Our program includes classes in: Catwalk, etiquette & protocol, diction & oratory, image & style, makeup, photo pose, trends, also creativity craft and presentation for the little ones. We admit male and female students aged 5 and over. We are happy to have resumed our activities all our students from the different groups.
As an agency, our task is connecting our models to the industry, secure auditions and payed works. (Ad Campaigns, Fashion Shows, Event Magazines, T.V Commercials, Magazines, Print Ads, and much more)
We recently resumed activities with our agency, through our web portal www.houseoftopmodels.com with the creation of online profiles of each of our talents, in order to introduce them to different clients, castings and opportunities in the industry. We are active in Miami, FL – United States and Madrid – Spain.
Part of our new projects as an agency is “Style Clinic Series”, a project that was born after witnessing how the Miami fashion industry is suffering due to the pandemic, a group of 3 stylist decided to put together photoshoots to help Miami fashion designers, make-up artists, models and photographers by creating content for their social media and portfolio. We collaborate with them with our talents, male & female models. This time we have our talented model Marie Claire Omaña on a @Style_Clinic_Series photoshoot to be feaure with your magazines.
We are grateful with every single people who have opened the doors for our academy and agency to achieve a great position in the modeling industry. Thank you very much Publicom Latina Publish Group for the opportunity to feature us in your wonderful magazines.
Our Social Media & contacts:
Instagram: @HouseOfTopModels
Facebook: House Of Top Models
Twitter: @HouseOfTopModel YouTube:
House Of Top Models