Catwalk calls on Kiwi

Kaine de Boer missed out on being New Zealand's Next Top Model by a nose. Photo / Supplied

He went from pouring pints to walking down international runways but was told his nose had to go.

Kaine De Boer, 20, was sipping coffee in inner-city Auckland last year when an American modelling agent holidaying in New Zealand asked him if he had ever modelled. De Boer, who is of Dutch descent, thought the man - who had been staring at him before handing over a business card - was a "dirty old bugger".

But De Boer discovered he worked for Ford Models, one of the biggest agencies in the world with superstar clients such as Courteney Cox, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton and our Rachel Hunter.

Tens of thousands of wannabe models approach the agency each year in hopes of making it big. So, never in his wildest dreams did the down-to-earth Dargaville man think he'd be discovered.

Happy studying and pulling pints at the rural Northland township's Central Hotel, Kaine found himself spending months in the Big Apple.

"It came out of the blue. I'd never thought I'd get to go to America or anything.

"I did a couple of runways. One was for Gucci."

Although the modelling went well, Kaine had to tell designers to take a walk when his nose became an issue for some of them.

"I kind of got blacklisted because I had to get my nose done. [Ford] said to me designers won't work with me because of my nose. It's a bit too big for the modelling world.

"It's not that big. I've done work before, and they've put stuff on it so it looks slimmer. But you see in the papers now that Heidi Klum is too fat to walk on runway."

Luckily, homesickness saw De Boer return to New Zealand before the feedback forced him to quit the business for good.

Now focusing on law and commerce studies, he hasn't ruled out a career in modelling but wants to go back when he has more experience.