Concluding last October’s Levi’s Style Search, Levi Strauss & Co. flew two UCSB men to New York City last week after picking their pictures from among 1,000 contenders.

Third-year business economics major Alexander Mostow and second-year business economics major Joseph Marcos were chosen to be in the Levi’s spring “college edition advertising campaign. The two were selected from a group of 1,381 UCSB students, all of which auditioned on-campus last fall.

The popular clothing company, which recently opened a store in Santa Barbara, set up a tent near the Rec Cen in October to evaluate the student body in search of one local and one national model to be featured in an advertising campaign.

According to Levi’s director of presence and publicity, Amy Jasmer, the winners each won a trip to New York City and a $250 Levi’s gift certificate. They will appear in Levi’s advertising either locally or nationally, depending on their place in the contest.

“We just opened a Levi’s store in Santa Barbara,” Jasmer said. “Our jeans have been flying off the shelves, especially with the college students in the area. We thought to bring the contest to SB to find a student that wears Levi’s with their own unique personal style.”

Jasmer said the company named Mostow the Santa Barbara-area winner, and Marcos was chosen as a national winner. He participated in a photo shoot to be featured this spring in the “A Style for Every Story” ad campaign in Us Weekly magazine. The pair will appear in a Levi’s-sponsored magazine for Santa Barbara in March.

Jasmer said students from George Washington University, Brown University and the University of Tennessee were also featured in the contest. While each school had local finalists, only two universities fielded national winners – UCSB and Brown University.

Mostow said he felt the contest and the weekend of the photo shoot were “intense,” but that he was thrilled to have the opportunity.

Mostow, who had no prior modeling experience, said he went to shop at the Levi’s tent last October and was asked to be in the contest.

“I went to look for jeans and I was approached, so I figured, ‘What the hell?'” Mostow said.

Marcos, on the other hand, said he plans to pursue modeling more seriously, with the help of connections he made while on the Levi’s shoot.

“We really appreciated the great collaboration among the photographer, makeup and wardrobe team,” Marcos said of the photography shoot. “It was a great learning experience for everyone involved.”