Action Jackson

johan sandberg via models.com

So the Spring/Summer 2012 shows kick off in New York overnight. As anticipated, a contingent of antipodian models is in situ, preparing to sink its teeth into the season. Some are international runway vets, others newbies, eager for a blockbuster first season. After turning down one blue chip European brand for two recent shoots and planning to wait until January to head offshore, Penrith’s own Krystal Glynn has had a change of heart and is in New York now. Stand by to see just where she pops up over the next four weeks. Ditto 17 year-old Brisbanite Nicole Pollard. Both Glynn and Pollard have been nominated by influential New York casting director Michelle Lee as two of Lee's top 12 new girls to watch for the season. Joining this burgeoning Aussie/Kiwi model posse is Jade Jackson from Melbourne. Modelling for one year, the 20 year old former nursing student, who is repped by Viviens in Australia and One Management in New York, was so under the radar in February this year, she managed to walk in 10 Fall/Winter 2011/2012 shows, including Richard Nicoll, Jaeger and Haider Ackermann, unbeknownst to most Australian modelwatchers (including frockwriter).

Jackson then caught the eye of H&M and Terry Richardson, who cast her in the fast fashion chain’s Fall/Winter 2011/2012 campaign. Jackson co-stars opposite no less than Freja Beha Erichsen and Anja Rubik, who are ranked the world numbers two and three respectively by models.com – which reckons Jackson is going into the SS12 season with “most wanted status”. 

The H&M campaign is currently up on billboards in New York. Here's a video:

In Vogue (and not much else): Andrej Pejic

vogue italia/z fashion blog via TFS

After his Vogue Paris debut in August, frockwriter hinted that upwardly mobile Australian model Andrej Pejic was due to appear in an equally prestigious international title. Well that title is Vogue Italia, for which Pejic (right, above) was shot by legendary lensman Steven Meisel alongside a stellar female cast - Freja Beha Erichsen, Iselin Steiro, Iris Strubegger and Alla Kostromichova - in addition to two other male models with long hair and feminine features, Michael Tintiuc and Tomek Szczukiecki. Called Venus in Furs, the provocative editorial, which was styled by Karl Templer, depicts 19 year-old Pejic and co rolling around on a bed in a kind of androgynous Bacchanalian orgy wearing fur, leather boots and gauntlets - and not much else. A shot of Erichsen and Steiro made the cover (below). Go to the Z Fashion Blog to see the complete set. Tomorrow's launch of November Vogue Italia comes three days after the arrival of the December issue of Vogue Turkey, which also features a Pejic editorial. For the latter, Pejic was shot by Matthew Brookes alongside lookalike Czech model Jana Knauerová, who is styled as a boyish girl to Pejic’s girlish boy, in a story called, you guessed it, Androjen. 

Compatriot Catherine McNeil made the cover of Vogue Paris in early 2007, a matter of months after venturing overseas. Miranda Kerr and Abbey Lee Kershaw, of course, both now at the top of the industry, have been no strangers to the Vogue masthead this year. 

But frockwriter can't think of any other time that a new Australian model has been so heavily showcased in multiple international editions of the world's best-known fashion magazine brand in such a short space of time. Can you?

  

all images: steven meisel for vogue italia, scanned by z fashion blog