Every face below walked into a Meridia casting as an unknown, most of them with phone photos and no experience. Here is the city they started in, and where the work took them.
S-2024 Lena M. · Meridia 2024
Lena applied online with three photos taken by her sister against their kitchen wall. Shortlisted for the Warsaw stop, she won the women's board at the Paris final. Within six months of her development year she signed with a Paris mother agency; she now works between Paris and Milan in editorial and campaign.
First application: 3 phone photos · 0 € spent
S-2023 Jonas K. · Meridia 2023
A carpentry apprentice who came to the Prague stop because his friends dared him. The jury saw the walk first. The rest followed. Jonas opened his first show one season after the final and has since walked in Milan and Paris men's weeks.
From casting day to first runway: 9 months
S-2023 Ana R. · Meridia 2023
Ana did not win, and it did not matter. A scout on the final's jury placed her directly with a Milan agency for beauty work. Finalists are seen by every professional in the room; the final is a casting in itself.
Placed from the final without winning
S-2022 David T. · Meridia 2022
The 2022 men's winner used his development year to build a commercial book — lookbooks, then campaigns. He works today as a full-time commercial model based in Vienna, proof that the destination is a career, not only the catwalk.
Full-time model since 2023
Not every finalist becomes a model, and no agency can promise you fame; anyone who does is selling something. What a serious agency offers is access: development, working photos, and introductions to the people who book. That is what these four received, and what the 2026 winners will receive.