At Daylight Studios in North Chelsea on Monday afternoon, 11 of the 44 entrants of this year’s Ford Supermodel of the World Contest were waiting their turns to have their test photos taken. They’d settled around a ring of squishy brown couches, hip bones and clavicles poking every which way.

A considerable number of the girls were chatting animatedly about their conspiracy theories on Viktor Yushchenko’s dioxin poisoning. A pair of Nordic-looking lasses were killing time playing spirited campfire songs on miniukuleles. Then a shaggy-haired redhead started playing card tricks with a deck she’d pulled out of her gold Balenciaga bag. Who knew that supermodels-of-the-world-to-be were such a lively bunch?

Oh, if only. In reality, the squishy couches were indeed there, as was the clutch of beauties representing countries ranging from Kazakhstan to Chile, but the scene was not so boisterous. There’s something more than a little depressing about a dozen teenage girls who can sit so close together and pretend they’re alone.

The girls had all arranged themselves on the couches in a manner that ensured making eye contact with one another was out of the question. One kept her eyes closed, while another stared intensely into the window of her iPod. One lay across the top of a couch, her face cocked up at the ceiling. Another was hanging over the couch, her sneakers kicked over the top of the seat, her head balancing on the floor. One especially dainty specimen, who had the luck to be as wide as a flower stalk, sat in a standard upright position, using an article on “booty” in a back issue of Cosmopolitan as her shield from human interaction.

Across the room stood a table of food – that is, bottled water, mache salad, asparagus, and sandwiches. The Cosmo reader helped herself to a chocolate covered strawberry, on a plate the size of a child’s hand. The girl from Slovakia, referring to her metabolism, reported, “I have a fast stomach.”

Every year three winners emerge from the Ford Modeling Agency’s Supermodel of the World Contest with snazzy contracts with the agency. Everybody else goes back where she came from. The contest has been running for 25 years, but last year was the first time it was held in New York.

Once, modeling competitions were a marketing vehicle for agencies or sponsors, but they’re starting to be relevant for the entrants’ careers. The top winner for 2004, who walked away with a $250,000 contract, was Nataliya Gotsky of Ukraine. She has gone on to be a star, walking in Gucci, Costume National, and John Galliano shows last season.

The 44 girls and their eight chaperones all stay at the Hudson Hotel. Aspiring supermodels of the year share rooms with one another – paired up, whenever possible, according to language compatibility. According to the contest’s press kit, the girls are between 14 and 21, though no one I spoke with could name a contestant who has yet graduated from her teens.

It could be argued that it takes only an hour or two to line the girls up in a row and decide who is the fairest of them all, but Ford has decided it takes a week. The girls are put through their paces, ferried from dinners to meetings at Teen Vogue to castings to fittings to walking lessons. The competition culminates today, with a fashion show at the former Tunnel nightclub, temporarily rechristened the “Ford Tunnel.” An image-conscious Ford staff member said: “We’re trying not to call it a ‘nightclub.'”

The judging committee includes Eileen and Katie Ford, Vogue’s Kate Armenta, and Nina Garcia from Elle. They will decide who gets the $250,000 contract. Those in the know said that last year’s winner was pretty obvious from the get-go, but this year’s is a more suspenseful competition, with several strong candidates. That might account for all the silence. Or maybe it’s always like that.

Later that afternoon, another group of 11 finalists was brought to the Grey advertising agency, where they had a “casting appointment,” though it wasn’t clear what, if anything, was being cast.

Before meeting the casting director, the girls sat on benches outside the building, looking tired and nervous. When it was time to go upstairs, the group’s sweet chaperone, Jessica, instructed her charges to put on lip gloss. She had to say it a few times before everybody understood. A few girls shared, but most seemed to have their own personal gloss on hand.

The meeting was with Grey’s associate director of casting, Lisa Duckworth. A focused woman with waist length golden curls, Ms. Duckworth gave a cheerful introductory speech to the girls. “We represent Cover Girl and Pantene,” she said. “You guys have heard of those!” To judge by the girls’ expressions, only a few had.

Undeterred, Ms. Duckworth took one girl at a time into an adjoining room, to take a Polaroid and a videotape of the contestant swishing her hair over her shoulder and looking at the camera straight-on. Ms. Duckworth was professional yet indulgent, calling everyone “sweetie” or “honey,” and not once failing to tell a candidate she was “so” pretty. “You have a great cosmetic face,” Ms. Duckworth said to the knockout from Spain. “I’m always looking for eyelashes.” A television crew from the NBC network was tucked in the back of the room, filming footage for an upcoming Saturday night supermodel special.

The TV crew packed up when Ms. Duckworth had gone through the bulk of the girls, and she briefly considered calling it quits. There was a sadness evident in the waiting room. It seemed to stem from the few girls who’d been overlooked. The Polish girl, who’d been so excited back when she was applying her lip gloss, had curled in her seat like a kitten that’s under the weather. The Hungarian girl had started to nap. Sensing it was the right thing to do, Ms. Duckworth put the last ones through their sessions. When it was time to shuffle out, everyone seemed satisfied.