Eugenie Bondurant Rocks Balenciaga During Paris Fashion Week

ST. PETERSBURG, FL — Movie star and model Eugenie Bondurant of St. Petersburg dazzled the Paris runway earlier in October during Fashion Week.

Bondurant started modeling in her 20s and felt relief and excitement at the most recent show because it included a diverse group of models. Not the 1990s U.S. version when the catwalk only opened to tall, super skinny mostly white women. She greatly appreciates how unusually less stressed it felt coming off a stressful week of long hours and hard work with design teams.

"It was unbelievably planned and executed to the T," Bondurant told Patch. "Every single thing, and so smooth, so comfortable. A very chill atmosphere with this designer, Demna Gvasalia. He's very relaxed, which one would never think that they would go together, but they do, and especially in that world of high fashion."

Gvasalia, 40, is a Georgian fashion designer and currently serves as the creative director of Balenciaga. The Guardian newspaper has referred to him as the world's hottest designer.

The actress — who is known for her performances in "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay" (2015) as Tigris; "The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It" (2021); and "Fear of Rain" (2021) — almost passed up this modeling opportunity when she thought it was a scam.

"The contact came from a woman by the name of Franziska Bachofen-Echt. She sent me a message on Instagram and said something like, 'We're interested in putting you up for the show — Balenciago show for their spring, summer 2022 collection.' I thought it was a scam."

Although she leaned more toward the message being a scam, a part of her told her to see if it were legit.

"I thought I'll just give her obstacles," Bondurant said with a laugh. "And if she's able to push through those obstacles, then maybe it will make her seem legit. So I said, 'Well, you're going to have to reach out to my publicist and agent.' Without giving her their information, she said, 'Well, would you mind sending the entire information over?'"

Within 24 hours, her publicist and agent let her know this was a legit opportunity. The scouts saw Bondurant in "The Conjuring" and wanted her in the show. She still had to audition by sending them selfies. When she sent them, they booked her. When the models showed up for the fitting at for the fashion house of Balenciaga, the dresses were already there to be fitted to the models.

"You usually have a woman's show and a man's show. But not this guy (Gvasalia). He is very creative," Bondurant said.

Gvasalia expanded his creativity to a special episode of "The Simpsons" with a Balenciaga fashion theme created for the 2021 show. The 10-minute episode aired in "19th-century Parisian theater where the great and storied house of Cristóbal Balenciaga skipped the traditional catwalk and screened" the episode, according to The New York Times.