Miranda Kerr is in town, as you know, spruiking David Jones. Below is a quick video chat backstage after last Wednesday’s runway show starring Kerr, in which she concedes that she found the prospect of doing the DJs' show in a swimsuit just seven months after giving birth “a little nerve-wracking” and confirms that she will be back on Victoria’s Secret runway later in the year. When asked what is the best thing about motherhood, Kerr notes “Everything, I just love it. There’s no word that could describe the joy and loveliness that it is to be a mother”. Undergoing a 27 hour labour without drugs may have given the supermod pause for some reflection however. She told frockwriter, “I was kind of a bit crazy not to but you know, I’d made my mind up and I’ll probably just see how I go next time”. As for Flynn, arguably the most overexposed baby on the planet right now, Kerr reveals that it’s a tough job trying not to give paps their money shots whenever she’s been out and about with Flynn in recent months. “You try your best to avoid it but it’s inevitable. And he was really into it. I tried to like, protect him but he comes around [flicks her head around, mimicking Flynn] because he likes the light”.
Miranda Kerr has done rather a lot since she headed offshore to try her luck on the international fashion stage in 2005, like so many other eager Aussie hopefuls before her. The following year, after scoring a Maybelline contract, she landed what would evolve into a highly lucrative deal with US intimate apparel giant Victoria’s Secret. Kerr returned to the Australian market in 2008 in a big way as the new face of Australian department store David Jones, an astute marketing investment that is presumably costing DJs much less today than it is currently worth in media coverage. In the eighteen months since Kerr last walked DJs' biannual runway showcase, she has emerged as a truly global star – not just one of the world’s highest-paid models, but a household name whose every move is charted by the paps. Sure, the marriage to Hollywood heartthrob Orlando Bloom hasn’t hurt her profile, ditto the birth of their beautiful baby boy Flynn in January. So refreshing, then, to see Kerr backstage at DJ’s Spring/Summer 2011/2012 showcase on Wednesday night, hamming it up as just another one of the girls.
Frockwriter was backstage for the show’s duration and watched Kerr's antics with her old runway mates like Tiah Eckhardt, Stephanie Carta and Annika Kaban, as well as the crop of new girls who are rapidly rising up in Kerr and co's wakes (backstage portfolio of 73 shots, below - best viewed on the blog). Names such as Samantha Harris, Amanda Ware, Emily Wake – whose identical, non-model twin sister Elyse was standing backstage throughout the show, prompting more than one double take – and of course Rose Smith.
At last season’s DJs show in February, Smith had yet to work internationally. In the interim, she has been cast in no less than three Chanel shows (ready-to-wear, cruise and haute couture).
It might be the toughest Australian retail climate in half a century – with David Jones itself issuing a shock profit downgrade last month – but the runway and backstage vibe was upbeat. Setting the mood: some psychedelic, boho de luxe offerings from Sydney-based caftan queen Camilla Franks and Jets' sensational, colour-blocked swimwear. Shots of a pneumatic Kerr in Jets’ foxy collared maillot with plunging neckline were beamed across the world.
Also in the lineup: a few of DJs’ 60 fresh brand additions, including Lover, Carl Kapp and Ksubi’s new Kustom range of customised luxury denim pieces that are festooned with studs and graffiti - arguably the smartest business decision that the bad boys of Australian jeanswear have made in quite some time. The world’s economies are going to hell in a handbasket, but with luxury sales booming – and über efficient fast fashion powerhouses such as Zara giving consumers runway trends at killer prices - cash-cautious consumers, it seems, are more than happy to open their wallets for merchandise that they consider special.
Tuesday's David Jones show felt the same, but different, to previous years' events. There was no Mark McInnes, Colette Garnsey, Miranda Kerr or even sass & bide. With the exception of relatively recent fashion ambassador addition Kerr, all had been front-and-centre at the show for almost a decade, laying the foundations for the "house of brands" into which the department store subsequently evolved. Taking their places and for a variety of different reasons - which ranged from scandaland resignations, pregnancy and defection, all in the space of eight months - was a new management team (albeit one promoted from within) and a swag of new labels, the absolute standout of which on the night just had to be Josh Goot and his colourblocked bodycon dresses and tulip skirts and tops with wildly expressionistic graphics. Not forgetting some highly polished Australian modelling talent, that included girls who have walked for some of the world's biggest fashion brands: Nicole Trunfio, Alexandra Agoston, Myf Shepherd, Stephanie Carta, Tiah Eckhardt and Christina Carey. And some newcomers who may soon follow them. Think Rosemary Smith (above, in Josh Goot), who is off to the European shows with at least one big name in her appointment book. Click (here) for frockwriter's Posterous pic gallery of backstage shots taken before and during the show.
As per David Jones' famous advertising slogan, there used to be no other department store in Australia for sass & bide. But after days of rumours, it is now confirmed that David Jones' arch rival Myer will become the brand's exclusive Australian department store partner moving forward, having just acquired a 65percent stake for A$42.25million plus a performance bonus based on fiscal 2011 sales results. David Jones, which has winter 2011 sass & bide stock on its hands and features the brand in its winter 2011 "brand book" catalogue (above), has responded with its own Australian Stock Exchange announcement this morning that it is ending its 10 year association with sass & bide following David Jones' decision not to acquire a stake. Oh and it wasn't doing very well anyway, added DJs (at least at DJs - Myer reports that sass & bide overall delivered 50percent year on year sales growth for the past two years). Noted ceo Paul Zahra, “We did the calculations and could not justify the price paid for the business, particularly given the lack of growth in our sass & bide business with sales and gross profit in FY10 at approximately FY05 levels". This is fascinating, given that David Jones gave sass & bide its prestigious finale spot in the Autumn/Winter 2010 show one year ago. What the Myer decision ultimately means for the sass & bide brand remains to be seen. Not surprisingly perhaps, the brand has been yanked altogether from tomorrow's lineup, David Jones has confirmed to frockwriter.
But that's not to say that there won't be some familiar faces on the runway.
It might not be quite the same as having Miranda Kerr, Abbey Lee Kershaw and Catherine McNeil in the show, as occurred in the last two seasons, but David Jones nevertheless has a pretty impressive cast list for tomorrow’s Autumn/Winter 2011 showcase, which kicks off at 6.30pm at the Elizabeth Street, Sydney, flagship.
Led by Nicole Trunfio, the cast includes several Australians with international runway experience, notably Alexandra Agoston, Myf Shepherd, Christina Carey, Tiah Eckhardt, Stephanie Carta and thirtysomething Queenslander Heath Townsend, a former face of Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Ralph Lauren.
Others of note include Samantha Harris, Pania Rose and Chic newcomer Rosemary Smith, who will be heading to the Milan and Paris legs of the northern Fall/Winter 2011/2012 show season in a fortnight.
Here is the complete cast list:
CHIC MANAGEMENT Nicole Trunfio Alexandra Agoston Myf Shepherd Christina Carey Samantha Harris Pania Rose Charlotte Lohmann Anna Sjoberg Vanessa Breuer Emma Taylor Emma Power Louise van der Vorst Rosemary Smith Sarah Stephens Cisco Tschurtschenthaler de Helmhein Jasmine Yarbrough Annika Kaban Brigitte Malcolm Valerija Erokhina Amy Finlayson Lina Mihailova Clare Venema Heath Townsend
PRISCILLA'S Eliza Humble Greta Chesterman Simone Kerr Stephanie Carta Rachel Grasso Laura Gorun Bella Barber Cat Edwards Kerry Doyle Bruce Raubenheimer Blair Norfolk Lewis Grant
VIVIENS Avril Alexander Tiah Eckhardt Nicole Sherriss Karima Alexander Ruby Brown Nick Ingall BJ Jarrett Philippa
How nervous are Australian retailers about the imminent arrival of Zara early next year? Wetting their pants, some might surmise, given the news that Australian mid market fashion chain Portmans has just signed homegrown modelling superstar Abbey Lee Kershaw as its autumn/winter 2011 campaign face. As revealed by frockwriter yesterday, Kershaw was recently involved in a cycling accident, injuries from which may have precluded her involvement with Chanel's big Pre Fall 2011 runway presentation in Paris on Tuesday. Kershaw is, after all, one of Chanel's advertising faces this season. Nevertheless, she has just arrived downunder and according to our sources, will shoot the Portmans campaign in Sydney next week with Nicole Bentley. The campaign is due to roll out from January 31st through until May and we hear Kershaw will bank at least six figures for the job, minimum A$120,000. This is a large sum for a single season Australian campaign.
Although perhaps also indicative of the recent recovery in the Australian advertising industry – with expenditure up 11percent, against the wider backdrop of a global ad industry recovery – the timing of this particular campaign does seem more than coincidental.
Now the world's largest clothing retailer, Zara revolutionised the fashion business with its speed-to-market innovations which put trends in the hands of consumers in record time. Anecdotally at least, this journalist has heard more than one designer and retailer express concern about its potential impact on their local businesses.
Founded by the Bloom family in 1946 and acquired by Just Jeans Holdings in 2002, Portmans today has over 190 stores around Australia. The company's previous campaign faces and ambassadors have included Elyse Taylor, Miranda Kerr and Jessica Hart. But none were in Kershaw's league at the time of their contracts. Kerr's contract, for instance, expired in 2007.
Currently ranked as the world’s number five overall model by industry authority models.com, Kershaw's big bucks luxury brand campaigns include Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld, Fendi, Ralph Lauren and Gucci (x 5). However her portfolio also embraces numerous sportswear, diffusion and even high street brand campaigns, from D&G to See by Chloé, CK Jeans, CK Calvin Klein, H&M, Gap and South Korean chain Lewitt.
But clearly, she won't be available to lend a hand for DJs' Autumn/Winter 2011 launch in February. First up, she's likely to be on high rotation on the Fall/Winter 2011/2012 runways at that time. And now of course, she is going to be the face of a rival Australian retailer for winter.
In July, following the news that Miranda Kerr would be skipping David Jones’ Spring/Summer 2010/2011 runway showcase to enjoy her honeymoon with Orlando Bloom – amidst a deafening chorus of speculation she was three months pregnant – frockwriter predicted that Nicole Trunfio would replace Kerr as the face of the department store’s upcoming Autumn/Winter 2011 runway showcase and that Kerr would resume her official duties for the Spring/Summer launch in July 2011. So it’s official. Today’s Sunday Telegraph reports that Trunfio will “replace [Kerr] as the star of the David Jones Winter 2011 season”. Trunfio, who is also currently profiled in a video interview on the website of Vogue Italia, was flown by DJs to Sydney this week to shoot the winter catalogue.
The Sun Herald also scored an interview with Kerr, who told the paper that she will feature in several images in the Autumn/Winter catalogue, but is “looking forward to coming back to support and work with DJs for the summer season and continuing in my role as fashion ambassador''. The Sun Herald speculates that “one or more” of the models who filled in for Kerr in July in Sydney - Trunfio, Abbey Lee Kershaw, Alexandra Agoston and Catherine McNeil – will be gracing the retailer's runway in February.
As we now know, Trunfio will definitely be there. Agoston and McNeil may be two other contenders. We doubt very much, however, that Kershaw would avail herself for this show, given that its timing will coincide with the peak of the northern hemisphere Fall/Winter 2010/2011 runway season, during which Kershaw is always in huge demand.
Evidently, one paper scored the interview with Kerr and the other, the interview with Trunfio. And it looks like The Sunday Telegraph may have felt it got the short end of the stick.
In what reads as an extraordinarily bitchy comment, the paper notes that Trunfio “is taller, thinner and younger than pregnant Kerr”. Elsewhere in today's edition, The Sunday Telegraph also reports that yet another nude image of pregnant Kerr will be published in the January 2010 issue of Vogue Australia,whose cover she graces, noting:
“Here's a radical idea, Miranda - how about posing with your kit on for your next shoot?”
Last month, much was made of Miranda Kerr's mysterious pullout of the David Jones Spring/Summer 2010/2011 runway showcase in Sydney. Kerr, who is under contract as the new face of the upmarket Australian department store chain, released a statement at the time saying she had just eloped with her fiancee Orlando Bloom and the couple wanted to spend some quality time together. Abbey Lee Kershaw, Catherine McNeil, Nicole Trunfio and Alexandra Agoston filled in as high profile replacements. A deafening chorus of gossip pegged her as being three months pregnant at the time - later confirmed by Kerr. Well, while a pregnant model may have been far too awkward for DJs, this just in: Kerr, now five months pregnant, is about to walk in the Balenciaga show in Paris. According to WWD's Twitter, husband Orlando Bloom is front row waiting to see Kerr on the runway. Interesting times indeed. You have to wonder exactly what David Jones thinks about this. And hilariously, the collection - including the outfit worn by Kerr - features a giant abstract houndstooth check. David Jones uses a black and white houndstooth check for its corporate identity.
We’ve seen The Pip and The Pob, make way for The Kob – aka The Chanel Bob. That’s the short, choppy bob currently being sported by Australian supermod Abbey Lee Kershaw. LifeStyled editor Paula Joye christened it The Kob in her David Jones show wrap, noting that beyond the Mark McInnes sexual harassment scandal, Kershaw’s do was the talk of the front row at the August 3 show in Sydney, which starred Kershaw, Catherine McNeil and Nicole Trunfio as replacements for pregnant Miranda Kerr. “It’s a modern, long bob and I think a lot of the people in the front row have already booked in for an Abbey chop” Joye told frockwriter. “I think this the beginning of the return of the fringe. Kim Kardashian has just cut one. Lea Michele was sporting an extra long one at the Emmys. Leighton Meester, she’s had one cut as well. That long bob and that serious fringe that’s cut from quite far back". So have people in fact been booking in for Kershaw’s look? Update 10/09: Chameleon Kershaw now a platinum blonde. “Her [Kershaw’s] 60s style fringe is a big request and so is the long bob, which is a great care-free look for summer’ Sharona Short from the Gold Coast salon Oscar Oscar told The Gold Coast Bulletin on Tuesday.
And it seems Sydney’s most high profile hair salons are also feeling the Abbey Lee love.
Harold Samu, salon manager at the Renya Xydis City salon reports that at least 15 women have asked for Kershaw’s bob in recent months. Notes Samu, “They ask for a choppier bob. My senior stylist Ryan Mitchell has named it The Chanel Bob, as made famous by Abbey Lee”.
According to Joh Bailey, “It’s having a huge impact. I think she’s single-handedly reinvented the bob and the blunt fringe, particularly the blunt fringe. It’s definitely being consumer-driven and they’re definitely mentioning her name. I think it looks fabulous. We’re doing a lot of that look in the salon at the moment”.
Well might Ryan Mitchell call it The Chanel Bob because Kershaw’s mother agency, Chic Management, tells frockwriter that it was in fact Chanel’s hair stylist who cut Kershaw’s hair - for the brand’s recent Fall/Winter 2010/2011 campaign (below).
Perhaps Chanel felt Kershaw’s previously long locks were a little too boho (not to mention Gucci) for its haute couture image?
“She looked more Seventies disco queen than high fashion model” notes another high profile Sydney hair stylist, George Giavis. Giavis reports that although he hasn’t vetted any calls for Kershaw’s new bob per se, a number of clients have come in to his salon with magazine tear sheets of Kershaw asking for her distinctive “sun-kissed” hair colour which, according to Giavis, “looks like she’s spent a week in the Bahamas”.
Frockwriter was preoccupied with a fulltime gig during the Fall/Winter 2010/2011 season, so we missed quite a bit of news. Including two new rising Australian modelling stars, Adelaide’s Emily Wake and Melbourne’s Ajak Deng. We did include one mention of Deng in our preliminary SS10 Australian model wrap just after New York Fashion Week, her first international show season, in which she did just a handful of New York shows (and we originally got her surname wrong*). However it was during the Fall/Winter 2010/2011 shows in February and March when Deng really grabbed the industry’s attention, walking in over 20 shows. These included blue chip names such as Lanvin, Givenchy, Jean Paul Gaultier and Chloe – the first black girl to walk the latter’s runway in nine seasons in fact, prompting New York Magazine to ask in June, “Could Ajak Deng be the next Alek Wek?”. Like Wek, Deng is a Sudanese refugee. But while Wek’s family fled the war-torn African nation for the UK, Deng’s family settled in Melbourne in 2004 – among an estimated 23,000 Sudanese refugees who arrived in Australia from 2002-2007. Sixty-two percent are aged 24 and younger and 45percent of the settlers are believed to be female. Like Wek’s story – which Wek recounted in her autobiography in 2007 – Deng’s story is remarkable. The second of eight children, Deng lost her mother to malaria at the age of 12 while living in a Kenyan refugee camp and took charge of her infant sister. Three years ago her father moved back to Sudan and her stepmother left to join him. Since she was 16, Deng has been financially responsible for her seven siblings.
david jones SS1011
Interestingly, Deng is the second Australian model with a refugee background to break through on the international fashion stage this year.
However Deng is by no means the only Sudanese model working in this market.
Over the past eight years a number of Sudanese refugees have emerged on Australian runways at Australian Fashion Week, the biannual David Jones and Myer shows, L’Oréal Melbourne Fashion Festival and Melbourne Spring Fashion Week. * Confusingly, their first names tend to begin with the letter “A” and there was even another Ajak Deng modelling at one point, prompting Deng’s mother agency FRM Model Management to initially change her name to “Angelique”.
The Sudanese Australian fashion contingent includes Ajak Nyariel; Atong Tulba; Akuol Ding; cousins Akeer Chut-Deng, Atong Maluck and Abang Athow and now also Deng’s 18 year-old sister Zahara, who began modelling two months ago, also repped by FRM.
Deng was signed to IMG Models in New York last year and now features on its prestigious main Womens board, as opposed to the "Development" board.
But Deng hasn’t been quite so diplomatic when describing her modelling experiences in the Australian market.
Although very grateful for the opportunities that life in Australia has afforded her family - "In Sudan, all this would have been impossible. It is just amazing" she told The Herald Sun – Deng recently told Vogue Italia that she believes she has experienced discrimination on modelling jobs in Australia.
In a Vogue Italia video interview with former model Bethann Hardison, the founder of Bethan Management, co-founder of the Black Girls Coalition and an advocate for women of colour in the modelling business, Deng reported that she has been told by some Australian fashion players:
“Sorry you’ve come such a long way, but we don’t use black girls”.
Considering that she has been working for two years essentially part-time while she finished school, Deng’s Australian body of work nevertheless embraces three David Jones shows, the L’Oréal Melbourne Fashion Festival, Melbourne Spring Fashion Week, New Zealand Fashion Week, advertising campaigns for Mimco, Davenport, Bardot and Leluu and editorials in New Zealand’s Pulp and Black magazines and the Australia titles Vice and Cream.
No editorial, however, in any mainstream fashion publication and no Rosemount Australian Fashion Week. Why no RAFW? According to FRM, last year’s event clashed with her school timetable and although Deng was booked to work at RAFW this year, the Topshop job in London came through at the last minute and took priority.
The Spring/Summer 2011 season commences next Thursday in New York. Alongside numerous other Australian models, Deng is there attending castings. Frockwriter looks forward to seeing her build on her success.
I caught up with Deng at the David Jones Spring/Summer 2010/2011 show in Sydney on August 3rd. She had just arrived that morning on a flight from the US, where she had been shooting the Banana Republic campaign. It was a fairly noisy background and the sound in places in patchy.
I read that you have been responsible for your seven brothers and sisters for the past three years. How could you possibly look after them at the age of 16 when you were still in school? Ajak Deng: Well when I was in highschool, I was getting payments from Centrelink and I was being paid as a parent for my little sister and my little brother. Now .... she’s eight years old, I was told ‘Oh well we’re not going to pay you as a parent, but we’ll pay you as a worker’. As a carer. How old are your brothers and sisters? They’re 18, 16, 15, 12, 10 and eight years old. The oldest is 21. But he’s not really doing anything. Under me there are six. But you’re responsible for everyone? Yeah.
So how do you do that with your modelling income? If I have anything then I have to spend it on them and the house but at the moment I don’t have anything because I’m kind of running around the world.
It’s a lot of responsibility for a 19 year-old. Have you met any other models in similar situations? No, all of them are pretty much responsible for their own money. When they get paid, they go shopping, they buy that and that. I’m like, I can’t do that. Instead of wasting all my money on shopping, I’ve got got to make sure that I...my family. I might keep a tiny little bit to spoil myself.
In the Vogue Italia interview with Bethann Hardison, you mentioned problems you had working as a model in Australia. I said, ‘I don’t want to think about it as a hard industry, I just want to go out there and do my thing’. A lot of people think ‘Oh I’m a black model, this is going to be impossible’. For me, I don’t want to think like it is impossible. There’s nothing impossible, as long as you put yourself out there. You told Hardison that Australian fashion industry figure/s had told you, “Sorry they sent you all the way here, we don’t work with black models”. Which shows are you talking about? Do you remember any names?I only did one show last year, during Melbourne Fashion Week. I only got to do one show last year. Do you think Australians are racist? You have otherwise obviously been welcomed into Australia as a refugee. We’ve been welcomed but at the same time, once you try to do something good it’s just.. nobody is really accepting you. They’re just like... Oh yeah, like ‘Good luck’. But they don’t welcome you. Like for example when you’re doing a show, [and people are] taking pictures, they don’t really bother to take a picture of a black model. Like a closeup makeup [portrait]. They don’t do that. Whereas in New York, they do that, they don’t mind. They take a photo of any girl with her makeup on. Whereas here no, the girls they know, they take a picture of those girls and they just leave you out. They don’t really care. They walk past you and nobody really cares. I don’t really mind about that as long as I’m doing the show.
You have been having some tremendous success overseas. Amusingly, a lot of people can’t seem to help commenting on the length of your legs. Everybody says that. They’re like, ‘Damn, those legs are long!’
Do many people make comparisons to Alek Wek? Trust me, over 200 people in Europe or in Paris would think I’m always Alek Wek. I walk down the street and [it’s like] ‘Oh my God, are you Alek Wek?’ I’m like, ‘I’m not her but thank you very much’. She’s a supermodel, it’s great to be compared to her. But I don’t really mind. Has Alek Wek been an inspiration for you? Yeah, very much so.
How did you start modelling? Were you scouted? No, I actually joined modelling school. Tanya Powell. I did Tanya Powell for like two weeks and after that I got my little photos together, so I went to FRM. And I asked them, I want to be a model. And they wanted to charge me.... I didn’t have much money after modelling school. So I joined this [other] guy as my personal manager... After New Zealand Fashion Week, Melbourne and various jobs that I did that were paying well.... he kind of just ripped me off and changed his address and phone... Totally just abandoned me. So he hasn’t paid me my money, took my portfolio, changed his address, is nowhere to be found.
How much money does he owe you? Around $8000. He did this to three models. Who looks after your brothers and sisters when you’re not there? My step mum [according to FRM she travels backwards and forwards from the Sudan]. I hope she’s not going to leave again because if she leaves, I can’t go back to work. Well congratulations. You are doing incredibly well – at the same time facing challenges that few, if any, other models have to face. It’s crazy. When I travel and I go around the world, I’m like, ‘What am I doing here and where do I go from here?’ It’s totally different from Melbourne. But I’ve been to like four or five countries already so far, so I’m like ‘Wow, that was good - in less than eight months’.
On Sunday, frockwriter posted a new video shot by Ryan McGinley that stars Abbey Lee Kershaw and advertises a South Korean fashion brand called Lewitt. In the vid, which was uploaded by a South Korean YouTube member, Kershaw climbs a building, pauses while contemplating jumping and then hurls herself into the void - with slomos of various outfit changes. It seemed like a bizarre concept for promoting fashion to young women in a country that boasts the world’s highest female suicide rate. And an even more questionable choice, given that seven models - including high profile South Korean Daul Kim – have committed suicide over the past two years. Four of them by jumping. The post divided opinion. Some slammed the video. Others slammed frockwriter, dismissing it as a non story. The latter might want to take up their beef with the plethora of other outlets that have since picked the story up. Those who linked back to FW include Perez Hilton, Pedestrian, Fashion Copious, Germany's Les Mads and Dutch news site nu.nl. UPDATE 09/08: In spite of the fact that Lewitt removed Kershaw's image from its website last week, with McGinley also having the video pulled from YouTube, the video is now online on the lewitt.kr website, complete with stills. Still no response, however, from either McGinley or Lewitt.
Three days later, we have finally managed to make contact with Lewitt's Seoul-based managing director Dai Hyun Kim and await his response.
Still no word, however, from ALK’s Sydney or New York agents or McGinley himself, who won’t answer our questions but nevertheless appears to have had the video shut down on YouTube:
Even McGinley’s still of Kershaw on Lewitt’s website has been removed.
On Sunday, Lewitt's site looked like this:
Today, it looks like this:
So what is going on here? Was this not a bone fide job?
Yes it was, according to Kershaw, who was in town yesterday for the David Jones show (backstage shots below) and who appears to be adopting the Big Brother defense: the problem’s in the editing.
Here is the transcript of a very short iv I managed to grab backstage, after being invited by DJs into the VIP model room specifically to do the interview with Kershaw, which she consented to (but no video permitted).
You in fact used to do the David Jones show, didn’t you? Abbey Lee Kershaw: I was youth ambassador back in 2005. I think it may have been the last time I did it.
What was it like doing this show again? It was great. It was nice to be back home and to support a great Australian brand who appreciates you. When I come and work here, they look after us and they’re kind. I’m very happy to support a brand like that.
You’ve obviously been away for several years now, walking the world’s runways. What was it like coming back to the Australian runway? I was more nervous than I expected to be. The expectations [of] coming back and having people around you watching the show who you worked with years ago when you were just a young model. So there’s a sense of expectation to perform. Hopefully I did alright.
What’s coming up next? How long are you in Australia for? Two weeks and then I go to Hawaii for a week and then back to New York. And then the [Spring/Summer 2011] shows in September.
The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show? Yeah if I’m free, yeah.
Anything else big coming up? Not that I know if. We don’t really find stuff out until very short...
I just wanted to ask about this Korean video you’ve done, Lewitt. What is it exactly? It’s an Asian label and it was based around the story of Alice in Wonderland.
So what, she’s supposed to be falling down the rabbit hole? Ah...I don’t...I mean...however you...we were shooting all day. There were different scenes all day. So his, ah, edit of it..I haven’t even seen it to be honest. I haven’t seen it yet. I think it just came out.
Some might be concerned that it looks like you’re trying to jump off the building. Yeah of course people are concerned about things like that. People are always going to perceive..
South Korea has the highest female suicide rate in the world and there have also been a lot of model suicides, with many of them jumping. Do you not understand why it might concern people? I understand. I haven’t seen the video.
But wouldn’t you have had the right to see it before it was finished? [Starts to move away] I’m done here. I’m done. Thank you.
backstage at david jones, sydney august 3rd
As it emerges, this is not the first time that McGinley has persuaded a model to jump out of a building for a fashion shoot.
“It sure is swell that not only did McGinley continue on with this story in the wake of Ruslana Korshunova's suicide, but that Pop actually ran this. Goddamn insensitive and uncouth”.
backstage at david jones, sydney, august 3rd
Kershaw seems to have a knack for courting controversy.
Two months later, reportedly depressed by the recent death of his mother, sadly McQueen too took his own life.
***Any readers in need of support and information about suicide prevention should contact Lifeline on 13 11 14, SANE Helpline on 1800 18 SANE (7263) or youthbeyondblue.com***
