Nicole Santamaría
Shaio Domínguez
KLASS 95: The Power of Beauty
2024
Ended • 1 Season • 55 Episodes
Overview
An ambitious young woman launches a powerful modeling agency determined to change lives — but power and love are not for the faint of heart.
Seasons
- Status
- Ended
- Seasons
- 1 season
- Episodes
- 55 episodes
- First aired
- Aug 20, 2024
Cast
12 people
Reviews
6 min readThe Mirror and the Mask: How Klass 95 Turns Beauty Into a Weapon
I keep thinking about the first time we see Shaio Domínguez walk into a room. It’s not the entrance itself—though Nicole Santamaría sells it with that slow, deliberate stride—but the way the camera lingers on the faces of the men already there. They don’t just look at her; they measure her, like she’s a bolt of fabric they’re considering for a suit they haven’t even designed yet.
That single shot tells you everything you need to know about Klass 95: The Power of Beauty: this is a story about how women are turned into objects, and how one woman turns that objectification back on the world. It’s a premise that could easily slip into melodrama—think Dynasty with more cocaine and fewer shoulder pads—but Klass 95 has something sharper in its sights. This isn’t just a story about ambition; it’s about the cost of wielding power in a world that only sees you as a pretty face.
And in that tension, it finds something unexpectedly resonant.
What strikes me most about Klass 95 is how unapologetically it embraces the telenovela form while refusing to be limited by it. The genre has long been dismissed as frivolous, all heightened emotions and improbable twists, but here it’s used as a Trojan horse. The show’s creators, Juana Uribe and Sebastián Sánchez, know exactly what they’re doing: they lure you in with the promise of glamour and scandal, then force you to confront the rot beneath the surface.
The 1990s setting isn’t just window dressing. This was a time when Colombia was synonymous with Pablo Escobar, when the drug trade seeped into every corner of society, and when beauty pageants were one of the few avenues for women to escape poverty—or at least, that’s what they were sold as. Klass 95 doesn’t just acknowledge this history; it weaponizes it. Take the character of Edgar Trejos, played with smarmy menace by Juan David Galindo.
He’s not just a villain; he’s a symptom. A frontman for mobsters who sees Shaio’s modeling agency as the perfect way to launder his image, he embodies the way power in Colombia was (and often still is) a transactional game where women were the chips. The show doesn’t shy away from this ugliness, but it also doesn’t reduce its female characters to victims.
Shaio, for all her flaws, is a survivor, and the series is at its best when it explores how she uses the very tools that oppress her—beauty, charm, ruthlessness—to carve out her own space. That said, Klass 95 isn’t a perfect show. There are moments when it leans too heavily into the soap opera tropes, when the dialogue feels like it’s explaining things the camera already shows, or when the pacing stumbles under the weight of its own ambition.
(I lost count of how many times I rolled my eyes at yet another slow-motion walk down a runway, the kind of visual shorthand that feels like it belongs in a perfume ad, not a drama about systemic corruption.) But even those missteps feel like part of the show’s DNA. This is a series that wants to have it both ways: to be a glossy, bingeable melodrama and a sharp critique of the beauty industry’s complicity in larger systems of power.
Sometimes, it pulls it off. Other times, it’s like watching a tightrope walker wobble—you’re not sure if they’ll make it to the other side, but you can’t look away.
Buzz & Rumors
Public reportsInside KLASS 95: The Power of Beauty—The Colombian Series Redefining Beauty and Power
Netflix’s latest Colombian drama, KLASS 95: The Power of Beauty, is already turning heads—not just for its glossy aesthetic but for its bold exploration of ambition, crime, and the cutthroat world of modeling. Starring Nicole Santamaría as Shaio Domínguez, the series blends high fashion with high stakes, drawing inspiration from real-life events in 1990s Colombia. Here’s what we know so far about the show’s creation, its cast, latestnetflix.com contends, and the true story behind its glamorous facade.
A True Story of Beauty and Crime
KLASS 95 isn’t just another telenovela—it’s rooted in history. The series follows Shaio Domínguez, a high-society woman who launches an international modeling agency in the 1990s, aiming to empower women while navigating Colombia’s volatile landscape. But her empire attracts the attention of Edgar Trejos, a mob-linked figure who sees her agency as a way to launder his image 
.
The show’s creator, Juana Uribe, is known for blending fact and fiction, and KLASS 95 appears to follow that tradition. While the series takes creative liberties, its core plot mirrors the real-life rise of Shaio Domínguez, who founded one of Colombia’s first major modeling agencies. The tension between beauty and power—especially in an era rife with cartel influence—gives the show its edge .
The Cast: A Mix of Rising Stars and Veteran Talent
Nicole Santamaría leads the series as Shaio, a role that demands both charm and steel. She’s joined by a mix of established and emerging Colombian actors:
- David Palacio and Diego Trujillo play key figures in Shaio’s orbit, though their exact roles remain under wraps
. - Carlos Báez and Laura Cano round out the ensemble, with Cano likely portraying a pivotal figure in the agency’s inner circle .
- Valeria Galviz and Matilde Lemaitre add fresh faces to the cast, hinting at younger characters navigating the industry’s pressures .
The series’ IMDb and TMDB pages confirm the full lineup, but details about character arcs are scarce—leaving fans to speculate about who might double-cross Shaio or become her unlikely ally .
Behind the Scenes: What We Know (and What We Don’t)
Production details are thin, but a few key points stand out:
- Creator Juana Uribe is no stranger to Colombian drama. Her previous work includes Narcos and The Snitch Cartel, suggesting KLASS 95 will balance glamour with grit .
- Filming took place in Colombia, likely in Bogotá and Medellín, cities that defined the 1990s modeling scene .
- Release and reception: The series premiered on Caracol Televisión in August 2024 before hitting Netflix, where it’s positioned as a must-watch for fans of The Queen’s Gambit meets Elite .
What’s missing? Episode counts, director credits, and behind-the-scenes drama. Rumors of on-set tensions or reshoots haven’t surfaced in the available snippets, so for now, the focus remains on the story itself .
Why This Series Matters
KLASS 95 arrives at a time when Latin American stories are gaining global traction. By centering a female-driven narrative about beauty, power, and crime, the show taps into themes of ambition and survival—without shying away from the darker side of the industry.
Early buzz suggests it could follow in the footsteps of La Reina del Sur or Rubí, blending melodrama with real-world stakes. Whether it lives up to the hype remains to be seen, but one thing’s clear: Shaio Domínguez’s story is far from over.
Entertainment rumors and trivia aggregated from public reporting. Treat speculation as unverified unless a cited source confirms it.