Jim Sánchez, Flaco Guapo Media, Glass Slipper Productions founder
SAN ANGELO – When Miss Ashley Villa named her business, Blooming Modèles Academy, the first part of the name Blooming she referenced to the butterfly. In Chinese culture, a butterfly symbolizes beauty, it is also a metaphor for transformation, hope, and life.
“Our girls from the Academy have been through the transformation stages, growing and maturing. [After they go through the Academy], they are prepared for the modeling industry,” said Miss Villa.
The second part, Modèle is the French word which means model, example, design. The business name perfectly describes CEO Villa’s models who are examples, designed like that beautiful butterfly, growing and maturing into a model through a professional, transformative process.
That process involves Villa’s nine professional instructors who teach the young girls, ages six to 21-plus years-old on how to model in runway, posing, speech, acting, commercial, editorial, high fashion, etc. Enrollment is held to nine girls per class so as to focus on each individual two-hour classes held once a week.
Villa, the new “kid on the block” started three years ago with two, 13-year-old girls.
Q: You were very young, in your early 20s when you started. Did the industry take you seriously?
“Honestly at the beginning they did not. They were a lot of companies who were far more experienced being in the industry longer,” said Villa.
Some in the modeling industry didn’t think she would make it. Now those same individuals want to work with her because of how she has worked hard to become a professional in the business. Since 2021, Ashley’s BMA has grown to currently 45 models with a full-time professional staff.
Photo courtesy of Blooming Modèles Agency
Q: What do you want to get across to prospective girls interested in becoming models with your business that sets you apart from other established ones? “We created BMA to build their self-confidence. Those models look like me with regard to features, ethnicity, physique, etc.”
Villa makes sure her staff builds the girls self-esteem, and confidence to the point of knowing they are first beautiful on the inside. Two other intrinsic traits Villa also emphasized for her models were humility, and respect.
While the CEO deals primarily with the business side as in contracts, and Expos, Villas credits her instructors from whom the models pick up those mentioned traits and others.
CEO Villa in an interview given last March 2023 stated. “We treat each individual model and their families as part of our family.”
Ashley the professional treats her clients and staff like family because of the great relationship nurtured by her own familial upbringing.
Villa’s parents are Edgar and Jazzman, and her three siblings in chronological ages are Edgar, Michelle, and Jessica. Ashley’s success both professional and personal is due to positive role model traits she got a little bit from each of her family members. Villa’s dad, Edgar’s intrinsic characteristic was in the area of discipline. Ashley inherited her mom’s trait, humility, from brother, Edgar it was his competitive “push each other” attitude. Michelle’s influence was to have fun not take everything so serious disposition. And little sister, Jessica’s impact on Ashely was taking the initiative, being sports-minded, and also being a fast learner. Ashley also acknowledged two influential sets of grandparents: Jóse and Michaela Villa, Guadalupe and Fernando.
All those intrinsic traits were complimented by other things she does to develop her own personal growth.
Q: What do you like to do to have fun to relieve stress? “I am an outdoors person so I like going to the park, enjoy reading self-help books, having time for myself.”
At the core of Ashley’s belief is her faith in God first. Second, being a decent human being on a daily basis, and the third one was “How can I make a positive impact on a model to do something like that at such a young age?”
Ashley’s positive paradigm (model or framework) impact both professionally, and personally in the life of her young protégés, and staff is a standard of excellence that has left an indelible mark for all of them to follow in her footsteps at such a young age.
Photo courtesy of Blooming Modèles Agency
For more information text BMA at 214-299-0330. The Academy is also on TikTok, and Instagram.
https://www.tiktok.com/search?q=Blooming%20Modeles%20Academy&t=1714013188576
https://www.instagram.com/bloomingmodelesacademy/?hl=en
To follow Villa, go her Facebook or Instagram page.
https://www.facebook.com/ashley.la.modelo/
https://www.instagram.com/_ashley_._/?hl=en