A young girl is dividing her time between Ontario’s cottage country and the glamorous streets of Paris and Milan, thanks to a career opportunity that has put her on the pages of Vogue magazine.
Madeline Berrevoets calls Gravenhurst, Ontario her home. When her father brought Berrevoets to a modeling agency one year ago, the world’s most glamorous cities opened their fashion catwalks to the 16-year-old. After leaving the glitz of fashion week recently, she easily slid back into the routines of school and hanging out with friends. “It’s really just like a job. I don’t think of it as anything special,” Berrevoets said. She could be thought of as an accidental fashion model. A pair of yellow rain boots makes the most important fashion statement for Berrevoets when she’s walking her school’s hallway. Friends say it shows Berrevoets is unchanged by her high-fashion life. They are proud of their jet-setting schoolmate. “She’s really grounded,” best friend Lauren Tingey said. “When she comes home … she doesn’t treat us any differently.” Berrevoets’ parents are proud of their daughter’s sudden cache in the fashion world and claim her success is not due to their heightened fashion sense. “Fashion isn’t really our thing…We don’t even have a mall in this town,” mother Esther Childs said. The entire family is treating Berrevoets’ new-found fashion career as a lucky opportunity.
“She has been given this gift of a great face … so she’s just taking this opportunity to put some money away for school,” Childs said. Far from being dazzled by the bright lights and paparazzi of the fashion world, Berrevoets has a wait-and-see attitude about her future in modeling.
“I’m just going to model now and see where that goes and go to school and figure out what I’m going to do.”Just avoid the fashion party scene and you’ll be ok! Good luck Madeline…