The One-Woman Show Behind Hello Gorgeous Models

Like many ambitious 14-year-old girls living in the Midwest, Shannon Loar-Coté set her sights on sunny Los Angeles, not only because of the city’s allure, but also because she just really wanted to leave Kansas City, Missouri. Her first trip to the Southern California metropolis was with her grandmother to visit her uncle, a PR agent. She remembered the women working in her uncle’s office suggesting that she model. “It kind of set this little seed in my head,” said Loar-Coté. “’Oh, I could [model] and live in Los Angeles.’” 

When she turned 18, she returned to L.A. in 1989 and visited the prominent modeling agency Los Angeles Models. She remembers the woman there told her, tongue-in-cheek, that she needed to break up with her boyfriend and move to L.A. At the time, Loar-Coté was planning to pursue art school in Chicago with her then-boyfriend, but it didn’t take much convincing to alter those plans. Two weeks later, she moved to Los Angeles and signed with Mary Webb Davis Modeling Agency.

I met Loar-Coté — the owner and founder of the Santa Barbara modeling agency Hello Gorgeous Models (HGM) — at her downtown office. She wore a dark blue blazer that enhanced her raven hair and infectious smile. The space is quaint and decorated with fashion books and various vintage cameras. A framed photograph of her grandmother Geraldine sits on a shelf nearby. Loar-Coté faced the picture and smiled. She said that her grandmother owned an employment agency, and when Loar-Coté was 4, her “job” was answering the phones at the agency.

Two weeks after moving to L.A., Loar-Coté’s career took her to Japan, where she did a photoshoot with the cosmetics company Lancôme – an impressive gig for a rookie model. Shortly after Lancôme, she broke her patella and moved back to Los Angeles after spending just two months in Japan. She attended acting school and appeared in student films and even the television show Days of Our Lives. Loar-Coté said that acting gave her something modeling, surprisingly — or unsurprisingly — did not: confidence. “It really helped me have confidence and realize that, you know, there’s no one who’s just like me, and I shouldn’t try to compare myself to other people,” she said.

She still modeled in L.A. and did a few jobs here and there. Although she said that she “never really took off.” Loar-Coté, who is 5’6″, was considered relatively short at the time. “I wasn’t “skinny-skinny,” she added. “It just wore away at my confidence.” But she clarified that she was thin, just not considered skinny under the rigid standards of the ’90s. People told her to lose weight, though she still modeled for various beauty campaigns, but wasn’t focused on fame. Maybe she could have gone big, but she “just didn’t have the confidence,” she said. “And I didn’t have someone like me who could help boost that confidence.”

At 26, Loar-Coté moved to Santa Barbara and quickly called the beach town her forever home. Before she started Hello Gorgeous Models in 2013 and after her modeling career halted, Loar-Coté studied makeup and opened her own makeup business, Blush and Lashes. Loar-Coté has won several awards for her hair and makeup.

Back in her office, she picked up a card from her desk and showed me an image of one of the models she chose for her Blush and Lashes ads. “She is a classic beauty,” said Loar-Coté of the blonde woman. For her ads, she deliberately chose models that she thought were “beautiful” and “normal shapes and sizes.”

Over time, helping models land gigs and her makeup business went hand in hand. Her casting abilities began to shine through. Models started looking to her for work, and she connected them to photographers. 

Kelly Dowdle, one of the first models she signed, remembers encouraging Loar-Coté to start her agency. “You should be my agent,” Dowdle said to Loar-Coté. Dowdle is also a singer who goes by Kelly Monrow. She speaks highly of Loar-Coté and describes her as a “quiet warrior.” “She’s been motivated and strong but very quietly,” Dowdle said.

While you may have heard of the boutique agency at some point, Loar-Coté wants to remind you that Hello Gorgeous Models is very much alive and well. She encourages local businesses to book her models for photoshoots. “I think it’s good to support our community,” she said. She has a roster of women, men, and teens/kids, most of whom are locals. She books her models for companies from Chumash Casino to Kate Farms and Deckers, among others.

One of the first models she signed, Janelle Christa, described working with Loar-Coté as “super easy.” “She will work really, really hard to make anything happen for anybody,” said Christa, who remembers when Loar-Coté booked her a gig where she appeared on a billboard welcoming people to Buellton. Christa’s two children, Jasmine and Leo, who are 17 and 7 years old, respectively, are also models with HGM. “They love it.”

What’s more, Loar-Coté herself still models. She appears on the HGM website as a model and often works with Chumash Casino and Hilton Hotel. She also hasn’t thrown out the makeup brush; she regularly does makeup for many of the shoots that her models book. Did I mention she’s a one-woman show?

While always seeking fresh faces, Loar-Coté signs new models selectively, roughly every six months. She does not hold open calls but encourages people to contact her directly. When signing a new model, she must be confident that she can get them work. So, she won’t sign someone if they closely resemble somebody else already on the HGM roster. As much as beauty is important when signing a model, a good personality is the defining factor for Loar-Coté. “There’s so many beautiful people, but I think what’s inside is important too,” she said.

See hellogorgeousmodels.com.