Whitney Thompson first full-figured winner of ‘America’s Next Top Model’

“America’s Next Top Model” came down to two blondes – although both started the season as brunettes. (Wonder if either would have made it this far if they stayed dark.) No denying they look better with lighter locks. The gold softened Whitney Thompson’s chip-on-my-shoulder harshness and the platinum brought out Anya Kop’s ethereal fairy ditz.

One girl was the first plus-size model to make it to the finals. The other the most high fashion model the show had ever had.

The winner: curvy Whitney, who – as a blonde – looks like Marilyn Monroe, but with more confidence and wit. She’s going to need both if she’s going to redefine what it means to be a model.

Creator/producer/judge Tyra Banks is 5 feet 10 inches and reportedly weighed 130 pounds at the height of her supermodel fame – and even that was considered curvy. Now she’s over 160 pounds and has embraced her own weight gain, making no bones about wanting to add full-figured models to the show. So was Whitney a result of that personal agenda or did the crew really think she was the best of the bunch?

In terms of pure looks, no one looks like a classic model more than Anya. I don’t know why they thought she “fell apart” on the Versace runway. She looked stunning. Whitney looked like a diva. Or, as Paulina Porizkova said, she looked like a ham.

Speaking of Paulina, she has kind of a b*&ch streak, doesn’t she. Saying Anya’s picture made her look stupid and mimicking third place Fatima Siad’s Cover Girl commercial. There’s a way to be constructive without being cruel and she occasionally brushes the line.

Sending striking Fatima away was quite the shock – considering she combined Anya’s haute looks and Whitney’s intelligence - but the show clearly wanted to make a point with something different in cycle 10.

This was the season of Rome and as an Italian-American woman with a few (misplaced) curves of my own, I’m proud of having a realistic figure win this competition. It does put into question the accepted definition of “model” but that seems to fit with the world mood. France is even trying to make it a crime to glamorize the ultra thin with a bill suggesting fines up to $71,000 and three years in jail.

But it’s still true that most high fashion – what the modeling industry is at least partially about – is designed to look better on straight-up-and-down types. Is that going to change?

If so, it probably won’t be led by “Top Model.” Unless an even bigger change is in the wind. The last nine cycles haven’t exactly churned out Christy Turlington or Gisele Bundchen.

Outside of “Top Model” hour, how much have you seen or heard about Adrianne Curry, Yoanna House, Eva Pigford, Naima Mora, Nicole Linkletter, Jaslene Gonzalez and Saleisha Stowers? Beautiful girls, all, but how much does the show really do for them?

Danielle Evans and CariDee English, the cycle six and seven winners, respectively, are the only winners to have their Cover Girl contracts renewed.

Maybe Whitney will be the one to break through to the next level of modeling fame. She’s certainly good at beating the odds and everyone loves an underdog.