Beautiful People 2010: Natalie Joos

Having modeled and earned a journalism degree in her native Belgium, easy-on- the-eyes casting director Natalie Joos knows a thing or two about editing her way through headshots. Joos moved to New York in 1997 and spent six years working for photographer Craig McDean, helping him launch the careers of Belgian beauties An Oost and Anouck Lepere. Now the head of her own eponymous casting agency, she uses her native Flemish (similar to Dutch) to chat up the Dutch girls who are all the rage these days. Joos writes, in English, for fashion magazines on the side, but admits that her journalism skills don't really help much with casting. "I write good emails," she says.

But her real talent, of course, is picking the right face -- for ad campaigns for clients like Hugo Boss and Rocawear, for shows in New York, London and Paris and for editorials in titles ranging from Purple to German Vogue. "I like a cute, pretty girl with presence and a personality -- not the ugly ducklings," Joos says. Two of her sharpest (and not at all ugly) recent picks are rising stars Jacquelyn Jablonski and Lisanne de Jong, whom she cast in last spring's Yigal Azrouël show.

"There's nothing hard about being a casting director," Joos insists, apart from developing the thick skin required to get through show season. The pentalingual, five-foot-seven blonde's alternative-career fantasies speak volumes about her versatility: performer ("Sing and dance for a living? Yes, please!") or designer (Joos considered training to become one in Antwerp) or neurologist. "I am obsessed with the working of the brain," Joos says. Whatever model joke you're about to make, she's probably already heard it.
DARRELL HARTMAN

Natalie wears a top by Miu Miu shorts by Cynthia Rowley, tights by Wolford, shoes by Edmundo Castillo for Tommy Hilfiger, and bracelet Swarovski Atelier for Matthew Williamson

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