Sports Illustrated Swimsuit models relate to fans at VIBES festival

The inaugural VIBES by Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Festival kicked off on a rainy Friday afternoon with the Traveling Restaurant Ultimate Competition Kitchen (T.R.U.C.K.) set up outside the George R. Brown Convention Center.

B&B Butchers owner Benjamin Berg and his staff used T.R.U.C.K. to do a barbecue demonstration with Sports Illustrated (SI) model Mia Kang in front of a crowd gathered in the street.

“I have two things on my to-do-list in Texas,” said Kang. “One is to eat some amazing barbecue because everybody loves meat. The second thing is to get a bitchin’ pair of cowboy boots.”

Berg then put Kang in charge of flipping and seasoning his prized Kobe beef, saying that she was now in charge of the most expensive meat in Houston.

With some guidance from the head chef, Kang thought she did a good job for someone with no experience with barbecue.

“What a phenomenal piece of meat!” said Kang. “I feel so spoiled being around the best meats in the entire world. Not to toot my own horn, but I think I did pretty well for my first time doing this.”

Shortly after the demonstration was done, three-time SI Swimsuit cover model Kate Upton arrived, followed by a flock of people. The crowd of people swarmed around her as she went to T.R.U.C.K. for an interview and then inside the George R. Brown Convention Center to sign autographs and take pictures with fans.

“I was really excited about coming back this year because the theme of this year’s issue was so important to me,” said Upton. “It’s about every woman being beautiful and accepted no matter their age or body type. This is personal to me because I came into this issue with the mindset of just being healthy and happy instead of trying to be a certain-sized model.”

The main event of the VIBES festival took place outdoors in the evening Feb. 17 and 18 at Post HTX. Models strutted down the red carpet, posing for pictures and doing interviews.

Although models can make posing for the camera look easy, many models face more adversity to get to that point than people may think.

“The hardest thing about modeling is being able to take criticism and rejection, which is something that happens to all models,” said model Danielle Herrington. “Being turned down for modeling jobs and having my body picked apart were really tough to hear when I was first starting out.”

On the first night of the event, the festival featured well-known national chefs who gave out samples of some of their best dishes. Former SI cover model Chrissy Teigen also had a booth where she served her own Frito pie and cheesy jalapeno bacon cornbread.

On the second night of the event, the rookie models held a group discussion open to the public where they talked about modeling for the issue and the fun times they had with the other models.

“I was very nervous going into modeling for SI,” said model Myla Dalbesio. “I was wondering if these girls are going to be nice to me and if we’re going to go to all these parties together, or if I’m going to have to sit in the corner by myself. This is the coolest crew of girls you could work with because they all support each other. We’re really just a family and it’s not competitive at all.”

The festival ended the first night on an outdoor stage with a performance from singer Miguel and the second night ended with a performance from GRAMMY award-winning disc jockey Diplo.