It's not often that you see a girl go from geek to glam in less than 24-hours, but model / mechanical engineering student Stephanie Shaver regularly quick-changes from hitting the books to stomping the runway, like a female Clark Kent. She'd make the rest of us dull normals with no "/" in our job descriptions hate her, if she wasn't so darn nice. If there was a genetic lottery, this girl won (photo on right by Marc Muri).

Stephanie is one of Helmer's regular models and has walked for him 6 times. According to Stephanie, Helmer thinks of his models as muses and often has specific ones in mind for each of his designs. She let me follow her around the days before Montreal Fashion Week, to see how a model really gets ready for the shows. Coffee, it seems, is critical. As is a lot of patience. Stephanie stood still and quietly for almost an hour while her clothes were pinned and adjusted to fit.

Patience is also required in the backstage area, where models must get their hair and make-up done 3 hours before the show begins. There is A LOT of sitting around. Which makes me think I might be good at this.

When I stopped in backstage to visit Stephanie (pre-make-up), along with Janna Zittrer of Flare, she kindly offered us some of the models' carrot cake, but it was all gone. "Oh, sorry, I guess we ate it all." She said. "To be honest, I think it was mostly me."

Make-up and hair is done according to the schematic laid out by the artists at P&G Beauty, and then the models try to perfect the expression laid out  on the mock-up. I think Stephanie needs a little more mirror practice, right Tyra?

And then it's time for the catwalk. I asked Stephanie for her best tip for non-models to look more like models and she emphasized good posture. "Not only will it make you look better, but it will make you actually feel more confident. Which will also make you look better." I tried giving Stephanie a little wink as she walked by me on the catwalk, but she admitted later that all she sees is the lights (photo below by Marc Muri).

All we see is Stephanie.

Stephanie Shaver is a model with SPECS MODELS in Montreal.