Playmate: Hope Dworaczyk

The sky's the limit for stunning Miss April

Remember back in high school there was that one girl who stood out for all the right reasons? She was smart, dressed a cut above the rest and was stun­ningly beautiful. She was funny and confident. She wore high heels. She had it all. At Hope High School in tiny Port Lavaca, Texas in the late 1990s, that girl was Hope Dworaczyk. That the school's name matched her own was a coincidence, though it really did seem as if it had been named for this one student. Hope's grandma was the principal, to boot. People looked at the statuesque teenager and said, "Hey, she could be a model."

You always wonder what becomes of the It girl. Does she end up with her own episode of Intervention? Does she fill her trunk with junk and become a leg breaker for the Mob? You never know. For Hope, happily, things went just as planned.

She won a Texas beauty pageant. She aced her accelerated-studies program and graduated early, at the age of 16, then got an agent and started modeling professionally. She had the balls—let's rephrase that, the poise—to blossom into a successful uberbeauty. Today the 24-year-old is a fashion model and a host of the Cana­dian television series Inside Fashion. She's also Miss April 2009.

Of course, Hope is a jet-setter. She walks the catwalk at Fashion Week in New York and Fashion Week Swim in Miami Beach, among other gigs, and travels constantly for her TV job. "We're at random boutiques, differ­ent fashion weeks and certain flag­ship stores," she says. "Whenever a designer launches new things, we're there. We have studios in Las Vegas, New York, Toronto and all over Can­ada." She got the job after meeting the producers backstage at a show where she was doing runway work. They asked if she had any hosting experience. "Well, no," she said, "but I'm pretty sure I can do it." Hope did a test shoot and signed on. That was two years ago. Now she's on the road so often, she doesn't call anywhere home. "I love my job so much that it's not like a job to me," she says.

What is work, though, is keeping track of her formidable wardrobe, which is scattered over several cities but stashed primarily in big wardrobe racks in New York and Los Angeles. "It's embarrassing, but I have more than 250 pairs of shoes," Hope says. "Stilettos are my thing. I promise you I do not own a pair of flip-flops."

When it comes to guys, Hope says she likes someone with style and soul. "I appreciate a man who's pol­ished," she says. "You can be casual and do your own thing, be who you want to be. But at night let's step it up a notch. I'm also really attracted to smart people. If you tell me you went to a certain school or something like that, suddenly you have my attention. Funny guys are so fun to hang with too; I'll let you wear flip-flops if you make me laugh. I also like mama's boys because if they're good to their mother, they'll be good to me."

Hope says she keeps around a nice group of spontaneous, fun-loving people who ground her. "I think I'm pretty down-to-earth," she says. "I am a Southern girl who just happens to be bicoastal and work internationally. I hope to balance an entertainment and fashion career with the perfect guy. I am such a romantic and believe in true love, but I think I can have my career as well. I really want to move into hosting something based in America, so that's in the works right now. We'll see."

Miss April pauses and smiles. "I want it all."

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