AART On St. Andrew and Ali McD Modelling Agency team up

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While Dunedin was going about its usual day-to-day experience there was a quiet alliance taking place behind closed doors by two of Dunedin's business successes and this new partnership would help them to strengthen their position.

There were quiet whispers on the street that, Darryl (owner of AART On St. Andrew) was looking to join forces with one of Australasia's top Modelling agencies and he's been very secretive about it... until now, so we were keen to catch up with him to find out for ourselves what the situation was.

The first meeting got off to a shaky start. I turned up without my recorder and I didn't have a pen on me either so we had to reschedule for 2pm that day, not good.

I come back ignoring the recent ‘fail' and dive straight in with my first question:

‘Tell me, how did this all come about?'

October last year Darryl received a call from Ali with a surprising offer, to see if he'd be interested in becoming business partners with her.

Ali's reason for choosing Darryl specifically has a lot to do with how AART on St Andrew has grown and built its brand over the years, so for her it was a no-brainer to let Darryl take the reins of the marketing and business side so she could focus on scouting for new talent and developing her models.

The timing was also perfect for Darryl, he was thinking whether or not he should open another salon, When this opportunity came along Darryl could see the obvious benefits especially since the two products would complement each other.

Darryl said that Aliana's greatest strength is developing talent and scouting, so for her, focusing as much of her time into her strengths makes sense so Ali will continue down that path along with her makeup and workshops where Ali teaches aspiring models how to develop their self-image, confidence and technical modelling skills.

For those of you who are unaware of how big of a talent Ali McD is, here's the scoop:

Aliana is the only artist sponsored by Revlon in Australasia which gives her access to big contacts here and abroad which is obviously great for her models.

Ali has two models overseas, Stella (currently in Japan) who was specifically requested by Tom Richardson who is one of the world's top photographers and Tristan who is currently in the U.S.

Darryl mentioned that having two overseas Talent's is an amazing achievement because it's incredibly hard to make it in the industry.

"Our goal is to have more models working overseas."

Ali McD AART Agency is going to place a huge effort on getting more of their models overseas and are creating a development group where they groom new models for contracts overseas or to work with other agencies, they're going to have girls out on the street handing out information about this so if you're an aspiring model keep an eye out!

You must be excited for iD Fashion Week?

'Of course', Darryl mentioned that this year, for the first time, iD Fashion had an ‘open casting' for the which meant that the door was open for other modelling agencies to put their talent forward, Darryl said that there were seven models from Queenstown, two from Auckland, two from an independent agency and forty (40) from Ali McD which was fantastic for the Ali McD AART Agency.

Have you got any exciting plans coming up?

"We do. We've got some big things coming up but I can't tell you till after iD Fashion week." Darryl says.

We'll have to wait until then I guess.

Darryl McNamara is owner of AART on St. Andrew and Partner Of Ali McD Model Agency has recently created Ali McD AART Agency which uses the strengths of both worlds to deliver their clients an even better beauty experience. You can reach Darryl for modelling opportunities, make-up or to book in for a style on 03 477 2411

See the AART website here www.aart.co.nz

Ali McD website: alimcd.co.nz