Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid are definitely two of the most promising up and coming supermodels. The 20-year-old girls have been slaying high fashion catwalks around the globe. Just recently, the two bagged much-coveted spots in the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. Do they have former supermodel Tyra Banks to thank for their blossoming careers?
Banks certainly thinks so. She recently told Entertainment Weekly that her brainchild, "America's Next Top Model," opened the doors for aspiring models like Jenner and Hadid.
"I think it has opened up the world to accepting reality television stars as models. If you think about Kendall and Kylie [Jenner] -- people think Kylie's not a model but I think she's a model -- and Gigi [Hadid] and all of these girls from reality television," Banks said. "I think 'Top Model' knocked the doors down for that to be okay in the high fashion world."
Jenner and Hadid have been vocal about the disadvantages of being a known personality and a model. Jenner, in particular, has been reportedly bashed by other models for having it easy because of "Keeping Up With the Kardashians."
"People didn't want to take a chance on me, I think because I was sort of known," Jenner told Teen Vogue in 2014. "Some people might think that what I've done before made it easier for me to get jobs, but it was actually a disadvantage. I had to work even harder."
Meanwhile, Hadid has been very candid that being in the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show was her lifelong dream, but she was actually rejected the first time she auditioned.
"Gigi worked so hard to get the Victoria's Secret fashion show, and she didn't get it. But you know what? That's just life. She was sad," Hadid's mother Yolanda Foster told Vogue early this year. "I said, 'Hey, Gigi, that's life, baby. We're not always going to get what we want, and this is not a rejection of you, Gigi, as a human being. This is just redirection for you into something that's going to be much bigger.'"
Hadid's dream came true last Nov. 10, when she and Jenner were chosen to be two of the newest Victoria's Secret Angels. The show will be aired tonight, 10 p.m. on CBS.
Meanwhile, Banks' "America's Top Model" has just wrapped up its Cycle 22 and will no longer be renewing for a new season. Banks, a former Victoria's Secret angel herself, said that she is working on new reality shows in the future.
"I would never host somebody else's show. But I ask myself, 'What is the future of reality television?' And I already have an idea of what I think the future of that is. I think I would probably make some appearances in it, but would not be the day-to-day person - I'd be the creator. But I think I've cracked what the future of that is, so stay tuned!" she said.
