'ANTM' executive Producer Ken Mok and singer-actress Rita Ora speak during the VH1 'America's Next Top Model' premiere party at Vandal on December 8, 2016 in New York City. (Photo : Getty Images/Bryan Bedder)
Cory Anne Roberts, 19, India Gants, 20, and Tatiana Price, 21, were the three finalists who battled it out in the "ANTM" Cycle 23 finale. Before Gants was declared the winner with Price as the runner-up, producer Ken Mok was asked how the three reflect what the "ANTM" brand has become.
"Tatiana has a great commercial look," Mok told Entertainment Weekly. "She's got a great personality."
For Mok, Price sparkles in front of the camera. The producer added that the model from Queens, New York is a boss in her own right because she already has the skinBUTTR business.
Mok also discussed why the show created by Tyra Banks is one of the oldest reality shows ever shown on television. He pointed out that fashion endures on the most superficial level and it is a part of people's lives consciously or unconsciously.
According to Mok, whether or not people are conscious about it, fashion is a part of their lives. He said he always goes to the scene from "The Devil Wears Prada" where new graduate Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) walks in wearing a blue sweater.
Starring Academy Award winner Meryl Streep as high fashion magazine editor-in-chief Miranda Priestly, "The Devil Wears Prada" was released in 2006. This was almost three years after "ANTM" Cycle 1 premiered on UPN.
All of the successive "ANTM" girls have taken these lessons to heart, according to Mok, and for him, it is not a coincidence that models nowadays have taken these lessons and created incredible brands for themselves. Among the examples that he cited were Kendall Jenner, Karlie Kloss, Gigi Hadid and "ANTM" cycle 23 host and judge Rita Ora, who matched a pair of denim jeans with a jacket decorated with silver gem stones during a recent fashion event in Paris, The Sun reported.
Furthermore, Mok compared the "ANTM" contestants today to the contestants on Cycle 1. He said the former are a lot more focused while the latter were pure models whose aim was to get an agency behind them to work in Milan or Paris or Asia, which they have.
Here is a video featuring Gants as the model three years before she was declared the "ANTM" Cycle 23 winner:
