The Face‘s Afiya blogs: Dancing through eliminations

Afiya hopes to use a special talent to get ahead in the competition — but does her plan work?

As this week’s episode begins, Nigel tells us we have officially hit the halfway point in the competition. Making it halfway through is exciting because I am that much closer to being the face of Frédéric Fekkai. However, it also means that I have to step up so much more as a model. Each challenge may be a learning process, but there is little room for error. Last week I cost my team the campaign for incorrectly pronouncing the designer’s name. I hope I don’t make a mistake this week.

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During this week’s campaign we were told we would be creating dance routines for a social media video for leather handbags with German designer Liebeskind. I instantly know I have to overcompensate to show Naomi that I deserve to be here and that my fight to win has not changed.

The show brought in the talented Karen Elson to give us tips for this shoot. It was truly a pleasure to work with and be given constructive criticism by the beautiful Ms. Elson. Her opinion was helpful because she was able to highlight areas in Team Naomi that needed to be fixed. Only one winner of this campaign will shoot the lookbook for Liebeskind in Berlin and I want it to be me. The opportunity to travel to Berlin would be amazing. It definitely changes a model’s experience completely when given the opportunity to travel abroad.

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Now that Team Naomi is down to two girls, I took the initiative in leading the choreography on my team. I have danced since I was a little girl. This challenge was definitely something I felt comfortable doing. Although I am an experienced dancer, I did struggle with being conscious of my facial expressions. Naomi reminded me that I may be dancing, but I am also modeling.

When Karen Elson came to check out our progress, she liked Team Naomi’s dance routine and saw potential in us to win the campaign. However, despite how confident I was in myself, my teammate Felicia did not have rhythm, thus making me nervous about Team Naomi taking home a win.

When it came time for the shoot, I was very proud of how I did. I even think Felicia pulled through to the best of her ability. And all in all I thought the video was very nice; however, “good is not always good enough.” Team Anne won the challenge with Sharon being the ultimate winner, getting to go to Berlin to shoot the lookbook.

Team Naomi did not win the campaign, thus causing Felicia to be put up for elimination. Naomi felt she was just not able to pull through enough. She was placed in elimination against Allison from Team Lydia and thankfully she was able to return while Allison was eliminated. Team Naomi has now lost two weeks in a row so I know it is time for a comeback.

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