Our model of the night at the Bureau's LA Fashion Week opening, read through the standard Ford Models co-founder Eileen Ford used to spot stars.
BREAKING: Ava’s designer revealed. The model who owned Friday’s opening at the Bureau’s LA Fashion Week walked for Krown Kink (@krownkink), the label of designer Casey Lee Parker (@caseyleeparker1). The house bills itself as a “Luxury Fashion House designed by Casey Lee Parker.” The look: a black lace bra top, red satin wide-leg trousers and a black waistband, under the KK crown on the LED wall.
The woman who built Ford Models said she could never explain the thing she was looking for. On Friday night at The Lot, our pick for model of the night had it.
By Anthony Perlas · Nightlife Report · Oct. 17, 2026
WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Eileen Ford co-founded Ford Models in the late 1940s and ran it for almost half a century. The New York Times wrote that she “influenced standards of beauty for more than four decades.” She scouted the way a photographer works: one face, one frame at a time. Sometimes she would follow a stranger for a few blocks, “appraising her (and, after drawing close enough, usually walking away).”
At the Bureau’s LA Fashion Week opening on Friday, from the center of a packed media pit, we found one model we couldn’t look away from: Ava, walking for Krown Kink.
The call
Nightlife Report named Ava model of the night in our Day 1 model-first ranking. That is our editorial view from the pit. It is not an official Bureau result, and the Bureau announced no winners.
The camera lens was ruthless, and so was Eileen.
The Guardian, 2014
The Ford test: the X factor
Ford never claimed to have a formula. “I always said it was an X factor,” she told The Times of London in 2012. “They just had it.”
She did describe what it looked like. “There’s a cockiness to them,” she told Life magazine in 1970, as Encyclopedia.com records. “It’s a way they have of moving, and it’s a way of talking to you.” That was our standard Friday: who made a crowded, camera-heavy room look up.
The look: Krown Kink
Krown Kink (@krownkink) is the label of designer Casey Lee Parker (@caseyleeparker1). It was on the Bureau’s published bill for the 6 p.m. show, “The Opening,” on Friday, Oct. 16. Ava’s look paired a black lace bra top with red satin wide-leg trousers finished in a black waistband. The red read cleanly against the dark runway, and the KK crown logo filled the LED wall behind the walk.
The room she had to hold
The 6 p.m. show, billed “The Opening,” started at about 6:30 by our photographer’s watch; the Bureau hasn’t confirmed the time. The pit had no room to move. The lights stayed on the walk. The music mixed urban and cultural sounds, including segments set to African designers’ music. The tone was elegant and fairly conservative, and the set felt like a Hollywood studio production. Ava held that room.
Built for the lens
Ford judged for the camera. “The camera lens was ruthless, and so was Eileen,” The Guardian wrote in her obituary. Ford Models’ trade was photographs, and our job in the pit was the same: find the frames that read.
The business half of the standard
“Models are a business, and they have to treat themselves as a business,” Ford told the Toronto Star in 1988, as the Associated Press reported. The Fords helped turn modeling into a steady job. Her husband, Jerry, introduced a five-day workweek and a voucher system so models were paid in advance, at a time when they “often had to wait a year or more to be paid,” per the Times.
What we leave out
Ford also had strict rules about height, weight and figure, and they drew criticism for decades. On “The Dick Cavett Show” in 1971 she said, “slender people bury the dead.” We don’t apply those rules to anyone. This call is about presence, carriage and the camera. It isn’t about bodies.
The bill
The Bureau’s published schedule lists seven designers for the 6 p.m. show: Susan Kim, Dimez, Deborah Beaumont Designs, Krown Kink, X-X Co., Sewreffic and Saint Fortuna. Our best-designer pick was Deborah Beaumont Designs. Ava walked for Krown Kink, designed by Casey Lee Parker. Emily Sophie Christine walked for Sewreffic. The rest of the running order is still being confirmed. If you walked, send us your name and we’ll credit you.
We’re back Saturday for the 2:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. shows.
Photography: Anthony Perlas / Nightlife Report. Event: The Bureau Fashion Week Los Angeles. Ranking is Nightlife Report’s editorial opinion, not an official result.
