New Bedford High Grad Makes It Big as a Model, Releases First Song

When Alana Monteiro was a senior at New Bedford High School, she had goals. During that final year, she was continually sending out headshots to local agencies. Her dream was to become a model. She got bites almost immediately and ended up signing a contract with a modeling agency in Boston – but Monteiro had bigger plans.

She was doing a lot of work for the Boston agency, but wanted to set her sights on the biggest city in America, yet New York was not as easy a nut to crack. "Every agency kept turning me down, so I decided to go to college and continue to submit while attending school," she said.

So Monteiro went to Bridgewater State University – for one day.

"The next day I got a call from Wilhelmina Modeling Agency," she said. "They wanted me to come in for a meeting. The next thing I knew I was telling my parents I was leaving college and moving to New York."

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Now, not only has Monteiro's face graced ads for Nike, Puma, and Reebok, but she has modeled for beauty brands like Cover Girl, L'Oreal Paris, Clinique and Sephora. She is also one of the featured models you'll see when you log onto her modeling agency's website.

Monteiro has been seen in Footlocker ads in Times Square and TJ Maxx ads across America, including the one right here in Dartmouth. "My mom will actually go into stores and literally ask for the posters of me from their walls," she said.

Monteiro's mom did something similar at the AMC Theater in the Dartmouth Mall, asking for a copy of the Second Act movie poster hanging in the lobby. Monteiro played the part of a model in the Jennifer Lopez movie.

Now, Monteiro is looking to break into the music industry, getting noticed by a music producer after sharing a few seconds of herself singing on social media.

Monteiro said she spent four days recording the video for the song and hopes it will be released within the next month or two.

She said she frequently makes the trip back to New Bedford to spend time with family and friends. When she's here, she always tries to get to No Problemo. "They just don't have anything like it in New York," she said.