Hangover discovery leads Otto to Elite Model Look victory

Sixteen-year-old Otto Vadskær was discovered while buying food after a night at Jelling Festival and has now won the Elite Model Look competition, DR reports.

Otto, who had just completed 10th grade at a boarding school and had never worked as a model, was tired and hungover when he went to a Rema 1000 supermarket in May. Someone there asked him: “Are you a model?”

He soon received business cards from two different model agents. “I think they saw a tired boy with a hangover, but they must have seen something. Maybe cheekbones,” Otto said.

Back home in Aalborg, his father, Morten, initially thought the story was too good to be true. He told Otto to throw the cards away because he believed they might be part of a scam. He changed his mind after the model agency called and he confirmed that the number was genuine.

Four days of intensive training

After the festival, Otto signed a contract with Elite Copenhagen and was soon sent to Rome to take part in the Elite Model Look competition, which he had not realised was so prestigious.

He underwent four days of intensive training from 6.30am until 11pm, including catwalk practice, social media posts and photography. The event ended with a final featuring 50 participants and two winners, one woman and one man.

When Otto’s name was announced as the male winner, he was unsure that he had heard correctly. “I was fairly sure they had said my name, but I waited for someone to say, ‘Come back, it wasn’t you after all,’” he said.

As the winner, Otto was offered a contract with Elite Copenhagen’s international organisation, Elite World Group. He has not signed it yet, but doing so would mark the start of his career as an international model, with castings in cities including Paris, Barcelona, London and Milan.

That would mean putting upper secondary school and further education on hold. Morten said he was concerned that his son might not get an education, but added that the opportunity was too significant for him to forbid it.

Morten has also heard stories about drugs and eating disorders in the modelling industry. He said he was reassured after the agency told him that such problems belonged to the past.

Until Otto returns to the catwalk, he will continue working at Fårup Sommerland and has assured his father that he will still eat properly at the dinner table.