Vogue Fêted the Open Casting Class of 2023 With a Paris Fashion Week Cocktail

On the first day of Paris Fashion Week, Vogue celebrated the newly announced Open Casting Class of 2023 with a chic cocktail at Loulou Restaurant Paris. The evening's festivities served as a warm welcome from the global fashion community to winners Rayan El-Mahmoud, Abrar Mohamed, Mengyao Wang, Cynthia Machava, Colette Kanza, Rania Benchegra, Dulmi, and Mars. You may even recognize them from this seasons runway—Benchegra recently walked in Versace’s SS24 show, while Mars debuted at Vogue World: London.

It was the latest event of the Open Casting program, which Vogue launched last spring to discover a new generation of models reflective of the model world in which we live. Having first started in China in 2021, Open Casting has now taken to the global stage—Vogue's call was met with over 67,000 submissions in under a month's time from femme-identifying individuals 18 and older from all over the world. The modern approach to finding fresh talent via social media paid homage to the unique ways in which many supermodels have been discovered and scouted—for example, Naomi Campbell window-shopping in Covent Garden, Kate Moss at JFK airport, and Pat McGrath booking a then-unknown Paloma Elsesser after coming across her Instagram profile.

The selection committee narrowed down the tens of thousands of submissions to the 8 fresh faces of the Open Casting Class of 2023. The arduous but enviable task of going through every photo and video was undertaken by our judging committee, which included Vogue editors from around the world; industry professionals, including Instagram’s director of fashion partnerships, Eva Chen; Elsesser; and Piergiorgio del Moro and Samuel Ellis Scheinman, the founders of DM Casting.

At this week’s outdoor soiree in collaboration with Pandora, many familiar faces could be spotted on the lawn of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs. Partygoers included Margaret Zhang, Paloma Elsesser, Baz Luhrmann, Harry Lambert, Harris Reed, Derek Blasberg, Victor Glemaud, Ludovic de Saint Sernin, Devyn Garcia, Evan Mock, and more.

"Being here [in Paris] with Vogue is a dream," Ghanaian Model, Rayan El-Mahmoud told Vogue, grinning with immense gratitude. “I hope this is only the beginning of many more occasions like this for us.”