In Vogue: Emilia Skuza and Melissa Johannsen

nicole bentley for vogue australia via viviens' facebook

Two under-the-radar models, both repped by the same Adelaide mother agent (Finesse Models), but two separate Sydney agencies (Viviens and Chadwick), wind up shooting a 16-page editorial together in Vogue Australia. What are the odds? Voilà a taste of the “Twin Peaks” story from Vogue’s July edition, out tomorrow. Shot by Nicole Bentley in New Zealand, it stars Emilia Skuza (left, above) and Melissa “MJ” Johannsen, who appear to be channelling not so much David Lynch as Alfred Hitchcock, with cateye makeup and windswept '60s flips. Neither model had previously been featured anywhere in the magazine and although Johannsen was one of the stars of the Rosemount Australian Fashion Week runways earlier this month in Sydney, Skuza has never worked at the event – and was in fact booked sight unseen by Vogue according to Chadwick. But regular readers of this blog may recall both names. We first encountered MJ in November at the Adelaide Fashion Festival when the Alice Springs resident had been modelling for a matter of weeks. And Adelaide-bred Skuza popped up on our radar in January, after emerging at the Paris haute couture shows. Both girls went on to walk in a number of top Fall/Winter 2011/2012 shows in New York, London and Paris in February and March. 

Finesse Models’ Brigette Mitchell is, naturally, one very proud mother agent.  

She told frockwriter, “I’m thinking per capita re models, not bad that Adelaide and Finesse in particular should get two girls in the same issue, in the same story. I just think it’s hilarious. It shows that good girls are coming from Adelaide”.

all images: nicole bentley for vogue australia, via viviens management facebook

Andrej Pejic: Shooting Jean Paul Gaultier's Spring/Summer 2011 campaign with Karolina Kurkova, rattling rednecks from Sydney to Serbia

karolina kurkova's facebook

Overnight Czech supermodel Karolina Kurkova published a shot of herself and a Jean Paul Gaultier Spring/Summer 2011 campaign co-star on Facebook and the cat is out of the bag and all over the net. Australia’s Andrej Pejic is also in the campaign. That’s the second big international SS11 campaign booked by Pejic to which frockwriter referred in our post on Tuesday. It is unclear at this stage if the JPG campaign features any other models beyond Kurkova and Pejic. But both do look to be wearing similar pleated trench coats – which were prominently featured in Gaultier’s SS11 womenswear show in Paris in October. The garment does not, however, appear anywhere in Gaultier’s mens SS11 collection, which was shown in Paris in June and which, as you may recall, Pejic in fact walked. What conclusion can we draw from this? That, unless Kurkova posted a staged teaser shot, Pejic may well be modelling womenswear in this campaign. Stop the press. 

Since he first popped up on the international fashion radar at the Paris mens' shows in June, much ink - not to mention photoshoot styling - has been dedicated to Pejic's distinctive androgynous look.

In Jan Breen Burns' recent story in The Age, 'Beautiful Boys', Matthew Anderson at Chadwick, Pejic's mother agency, suggested that the agency's new star could be at the vanguard of a whole new "femiman" trend.
 

On Wednesday, News Limited’s newspapers went ballistic on the Pejic story. The same story ran in multiple interstate editions – and even as the main shot on the front page of News Limited's online news portal news.com.au, together the headline, “Hang on - Dude looks like a lady.... Melbourne teenager is the most beautiful boy in the world”.
 

The story prompted almost 100 comments, largely hostile towards Pejic – describing him as "flat out just too weird”, “ridiculous and laughable”, “hideous”, “disgusting” and “queer”. That's what was actually published. You can only imagine what wasn't cleared.
 

A very similar reaction, in other words, to that prompted by a recent Serbian television story on Pejic, after a Serbian news crew followed Pejic around his grandmother’s rural village over the northern hemisphere summer and the reporter canvassed opinion from some of the village locals.

The News Limited backlash prompted quite some buzz on Twitter and at least two blog posts which lamented Australia’s intolerance towards anyone who is “different”– and discussed the reemergence of androgyny in fashion.

Pejic, meanwhile, is laughing all the way to the bank. 

mert + marcus for vogue paris via TFS

Frockwriter previously noted how unusual Pejic's career trajectory has been for an emerging Australian model: since June he has shot editorials for three international editions of Vogue, including two of the most prestigious fashion titles in the world (Vogue Paris and Vogue Italia). 

Also out-of-the-ordinary: the fact that he keeps getting buddied up with the world’s most high-profile female models.
 

Kurkova is one of the biggest names in the modelling business. 

Ranked by Forbes in 2008 as the sixth highest model earning model, earning an estimated US$5million in the preceding 12 months, she slipped off Forbes’ more recent lists after her contract with Victoria’s Secret expired. Kurkova was back in the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show this year, nevertheless, and she continues to be one of modelling’s biggest earners. Hence her models.com rankings in the “Money Girls” (#7) and “Top Sexiest Models” (#19) lists. 

In the September issue of Vogue Paris, Pejic was photographed alongside 14 year-old Daphne Groeneveld (also Malgosia Bela and Lea T). Groeneveld, who currently features on the magazine's December cover, was one of the biggest new modelling names to emerge in 2010. 

vogue italia/z fashion blog via TFS

In the November issue of Vogue Italia, Pejic was cast by high profile photographer Steven Meisel to appear alongside models.com’s world number two Freja Beha Erichsen, together with Iselin Steiro and Iris Strubegger (equal #9). 

In Pejic's mystery second SS11 ad campaign - for an equally big brand whose name we can't yet reveal - he was shot alongside lookalike Latvian supermodel Ginta Lapina, yet another of the industry’s hottest new faces, who has advertising campaigns for Yves Saint Laurent and Miu Miu under her belt.

James Varley shoots Trimapee

trimapee AW11 lookbook shoot/jamie wdziekonski 

Frockwriter predicted it wouldn’t be long until new Chadwick glamour boy James Varley added to his newbie model portfolio. How does a full page feature in Melbourne’s Age newspaper sound? That’s what Varley scored on Friday, in Jan Breen Burn’s great piece entitled Beautiful Boys. Most of the story was about Australia’s latest supermodel-on-the-cusp – androgynous Melburnite Andrej Pejic – but Varley was quoted in the story and prominently featured photographically, epitomising what Chadwick Melbourne director Matthew Anderson coined as the new “femiman” look. Well Varley is about to further add to his book. This morning, in Melbourne, he is shooting the Autumn/Winter 2011 lookbook for Trimapee, the four year-old label from Mario-Luca Carlucci and Peter Strateas. Lensed by Christian Blanchard, the lookbook also features new girl Kate Clements from Giant. Here is a sneak peek at the preps – and some of Trimapee’s new season leather. Follow Trimapee’s new marketing dude, blogger Jamie Wdziekonski, on Twitter for real-time updates throughout the shoot.

James Varley: Chadwick's latest glamour boy

mariah jelena kordzadz, fashion journal via chadwick

Andrej Pejic is in Tokyo, having just wrapped Japan Fashion Week and waiting to find out whether he flies to Paris or New York for a couple of very interesting job options. Meanwhile, he just scored a mention in W's November issue, in the "She's a (fabulous) he" story about fashion's androgynous moment. The story was penned by Hintmag founder Lee Carter, who describes Pejic as "a slender Kate Moss look-alike". But while Pejic's Australian mother agency, Chadwick, waits to see just how prominently the Melburnite features in the November edition of another equally prominent international fashion title, which is days away from release, the agency has just signed another new male model with a similarly androgynous look: 21 year-old James Varley. Modelling for just a few months, this science student's slim CV so far boasts a lookbook for Melbourne label In Mind's Eye, editorial in Fashion Journal 100, Melbourne Street Fashion and indie Melbourne magazine Spook and a few test shots. Frockwriter has little doubt it will soon be expanding. 

photo credits (top to bottom)
1. mariah jelena kordadze/fashion journal via chadwick
2. shauna phoon
3. mariah jelena kordzadze
4. mariah jelena kordzadze
5. mel edwards