Cork's Kellie & Lisa are model celebs

Cork is not only represented once but twice in the current series of Britain & Ireland's Next Top Model which began on Monday night on Sky Living.

Kellie Forde, a model with the Lockdown Model Agency and Lisa Madden both made it onto the shortlist for the new series which is hosted by Elle McPherson and includes two new judges,Tyson Beckford and Whitney Port.

Lisa Madden, aged 19 is currently studying dentistry at UCC but her ultimate dream would be to model so that she can travel the world and meet new people. 

Kellie Forde, aged 21, grew up on a farm in Glanmire and is the youngest of six children in her family. She is already modelling in Cork and the girls at Lockdown Models are fully supporting their girl Kellie. Kellie was scouted at 16 years of age in Cork by Lockdown Director Emer O'Sullivan and since then she has been busy working in all areas of the fashion industry, has modelled in Paris and London, has worked in fashion retail and visual merchandising and she also studied Fashion Design at Mallow College of Tailoring and Design.

While the series currently airs Kellie has been sworn to secrecy and is unable to reveal how she did in the popular show.

"You'll have to watch each episode to see how I get on, we finished filming the series a few months ago so it's exciting to watch back the unreal experiences I had," said a delighted Kellie.

Kellie and her fellow Cork model, Lisa flew out to London on Monday to attend the official launch of the series at the trendy Mahiki Nightclub in the city centre where they got to mix with famous celebrities and had a fantastic night.

"It's great that Lisa and myself are in the competition and we're lucky to have each other and we get on really well. In fact all the girls get on great, they're a great bunch of people."

"It was brilliant to get the call that I made the top 20 shortlist and when we headed over to London for the first time we had to do a catwalk show where we styled ourselves and had to impress head judge Elle McPherson. I thought they would be eliminating a few of us until they told us we were all going to Dubai! That was such a great feeling."

Kellie and Lisa got to stay in the seven star Atlantis Hotel in Dubai and went on a photo-shoot with the other two judges, Tyson Beckford and Whitney Port.

"That was shown in this week's episode and it was very nervewrecking as they eliminated one girl from the show which was very sad."

For now, Kellie is keeping schtum on her progress and says we will just have to watch the series to see how she fares.

Britain & Ireland's Next Top Model screens on Sky Living at 9pm on Monday nights.