Judges fondly called her Miss Consistent. She performed all her tasks with elan and won everyone’s heart with her beauty, grace and poise. Mumbai’s Urvi Shetty won the season 4 of MTV’s India’s Next Top Model and proved that she has got all that takes it to be a top model. Along with the show, Urvi won a year-long contract with Viacom 18 and Exceed Entertainment, plus a portfolio shoot with ace photographer Dabooo Ratnani, who was one of the judges on the show.
Nisha Yadav and Rushali Yadav were chosen as the first and second runners-up, respectively. The show began with 13 girls battling it out. With the theme ‘More Than Just a Face’, this season saw the girls balancing power and beauty. As a first, it had a power-packed finale at the Dream Cruises in Singapore.
Urvi was pursuing fashion designing before starting out as a model. A lot of people around her told her that she looked like a model and should pursue modelling. “I have been into modelling for the past two and a half years,” she says.
When asked how INTM 4 changed her life as model, she says, “I really love modelling. However, in day-to-day life you go for a shoot, pose and come back, but there was neither growth nor variety. But on INTM 4, we had challenges and surprises every day and we looked forward to performing the task. Each day, when we woke up, we knew aaj kuch naya hone wala hai (There is something new coming up). It was a great experience and a learning curve for me.”
INTM 4 was judged by Malaika Arora, Milind Soman and Dabboo Ratnani while Anushka Dandekar and Neeraj Gaba mentored the contestants. Apart from performing all the tasks well and winning most of them, Urvi, like all other contestants, underwent a makeover where her long hair was chopped off to a bob cut, which she now flaunts with elegance.
When asked what did she learn from the judges and mentors on the show, she says all of them were supportive and encouraging. “Dabboo Ratnani told me he loved my expressions and my body language, but, often, my confidence level would go low. Even Anusha Dandekar kept telling me that I am good at what I do but I need to look more confident because if I made a mistake during a task, it would be visible on my face. Milind sir said that I’m photogenic and do well in photoshoots, but I needed to work a lot on my ramp walk. I learnt something from each of them which I am applying to make myself better as a model,” she adds.
And it is not just the mentors and judges. Urvi feels that the other contestants on the show too taught her a lot about modelling. She says, “Rushali taught me how to walk the ramp and Nisha taught me how to put up a fight in every situation and perform well. We all thought Nisha didn’t deserve to be in the top five but she kept doing well and proved herself. She didn’t give up, no matter how difficult the situation was.”
So what’s next? Urvi says that she is open to embracing all kinds of projects. “Whether it is a photoshoot or ramp walk or TVC, I am looking forward to doing well at all of these. I wish to do more and more ramp walks for various fashion shows and designers. I know I am good at posing for the camera, but I need to work a lot on my walk so that I can own the ramp. I am also keen on taking up acting and try my luck in films. However, I don’t know how to act, so probably I will join an acting academy,” she says.
As a person, Urvi has followed the mantra of believing in self. No matter how grim or tough the circumstances are, she knows she has to keep going on and not take setbacks too seriously. “I have to maintain a good balance in life to go ahead and that’s an important quality that you need to be a model,” she adds.
Talking about what makes a model a supermodel, she says, “People think models are expressionless and all they know is to walk the ramp and pose in front of the camera; they lack the ability to express themselves. However, a real supermodel is someone who can do everything and express herself well, whether it is acting, doing a photoshoot or ruling the ramp, they do it with utmost conviction.”
