'Victoria's Secret' model Alannah Walton will forever be grateful for being "discovered" by a modelling agency on Instagram.
Alannah Walton
The 18-year-old Australian beauty was recruited by IMG in 2014 via their Instagram model scouting initiative 'We Love Your Genes', and from that moment her fashion career has gone from strength-to-strength with the highlight, so far, seeing her selected to walk in the Victoria's Secret Show in New York City in 2018 which saw her strutting her stuff in the lingerie extravaganza with the likes of Adriana Lima, Stella Maxwell, Gigi Hadid and Candice Swanpoel.
Speaking to Vogue Australia, she said: "As a model, I was discovered on Instagram by IMG actually. So their scouting team reached out to me, and I was about 15 at the time. They sent me a message and said that if it was something that I was interested in, they'd love to talk to me. Maybe two months later, I went in and met IMG in Sydney and it all sort of happened and I signed a contract on that day.
"I think Victoria's Secret really selects the majority of the girls that they want to see, and then they go forward to the agencies and say they want to see X, Y and Z."
Ahead of the Victoria's Secret Show, Alannah trained in the gym daily to keep her physique in the best possible shape, and also made sure to keep her diet as "clean as it's ever been", even ditching her favourite condiments to aide her eating plan.
She added: "I was boxing every single day. I had a boxing trainer. So I'd make sure that I'd go every single day. And then I would generally add in Pilates in the afternoon as well. But I think the biggest thing for me was, I just - I never had a day off. And I had never done that before in my life. So I was going every single day without a doubt, and then my diet was as clean as it has ever been.
"No sauces, no salts, I just kept it very simple and I tried my best to continue afterwards, but I definitely had a little bit of food fun afterwards! My body actually sort of didn't like eating bad food afterwards, because it was so used to having such healthy food, that it didn't really let me!"
Alannah also confessed that she "zoned out" just before she was about to walk the runway because it was such a surreal experience.
She said: "We have about six or seven hours for hair and makeup and prep so that can be quite long but my hair and makeup was finished within two hours. So I had a lot of time to sit around and reflect on what I was about to do. But once we actually got dressed, I honestly don't remember it from then on. It felt like it was done within 30 seconds! I think it was just from the nerves. I sort of zoned out and had no idea what was going on."