Girls on film at the L'Oréal Melbourne Fashion Festival 2011

screen cap 'catwalk' via 123nonstop.com

Arguably more fashion-specific documentaries have been lensed in the past four years, than in the last two decades combined, with offerings including Lagerfeld Confidential (2007), Marc Jacobs & Louis Vuitton (2007), Valentino: The Last Emperor (2008), The September Issue (2009) and Picture Me (2009). That's not counting the recent proliferation of fashion shorts and videos, whose distribution has obviously been facilitated by the net. For anyone who is interested in seeing some older examples of the frockumentary genre, in addition to some less high-profile recent examples and who happens to be in Melbourne next week, this year's L'Oréal Melbourne Fashion Festival, which officially kicks off tomorrow - and which frockwriter will be attending as a guest of the organisers and Tourism Victoria - has an abundance of offerings.

As part of its ongoing fashion on film series, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image [ACMI] is running a festival dedicated to the model doco called Fashion Models on Film.
 

screen cap 'model' via ACMI

Featured are Sarah Ziff and Ole Schell's controversial Picture Me: A Model's Diary (2009); Robert Leacock's Catwalk: Milan, Paris and New York (1996), which tagged along after Christy Turlington during one runway season; Frederick Wiseman's Model (1980), which profiled New York's Zoli agency (since subsumed into Click) and Dressed for Summer 2011 (2010), the Spring/Summer 2011 chapter of French journalist Agnès Boulard's longrunning French television series on Paris Fashion Week.

ACMI's screenings kicked off on Thursday with Picture Me, but here is the remainder of the program:


Picture Me                           Sun 13 Mar 2011, 5.30pm
Model                                  Sun 13 Mar 2011, 7.30pm
Catwalk                               Mon 14 Mar 2011, 3.30pm
Dressed for Summer 2011  Mon 14 Mar 2011, 5.30pm
Model                                  Mon 14 Mar 2011, 7.30pm
Picture Me                           Tue 15 May 2011, 2.30pm
Model                                  Wed 16 May 2011, 2.30pm
Dressed Up                         Wed 16 May 2011, 7.30pm
Catwalk                               Thu 17 Mar 2011, 2.30pm

ACMI  

Address: Federation Square, Melbourne

Phone: +61 3 86632583

Web: http://www.acmi.net.au/fashion-models-on-film.aspx

screen cap 'catwalk' via 123nonstop.com

On Monday this week, as part of the broader LMFF cultural festival, ACMI also hosted the launch event of a new Australian initiative called NoHome.tv.
 

Conceived by Alastair McCann and Justin Watson, NoHome.tv is a fashion film portal that will go live on March 20th, showcasing submissions from, among others, Alexi Freeman, Arabella Ramsay, Beat Poet, Carly Hunter, Limedrop, Orri Henrisson, Upper Left Arm and Sweden’s Acne – with consumers encouraged and enabled via the site to remix the films.
 

On Thursday, sadly prior to the arrival of many out-of-towners for LMFF, a separate project called FASHIONFILM screened a number of short films at the Rooftop Cinema in Melbourne’s CBD, notably Mark Skaszy’s Corrine Day Diary, which documented a decade in the life of the late, great British fashion photographer.

When the going gets weird... the weird turn frow

martin margiela SS09/daily mail

Did you have any doubt that Rosemount Australian Fashion Week SS1011 risks turning into a blogocalypse? Representing a mere whisper of RAFW coverage back in 2006, when The Sydney Morning Herald's online arm smh.com.au published what frockwriter understands was the first RAFW blog (authored by yours truly - even if grassroots bloggers would most likely not consider it a blog), bloggers’ numbers have grown each year in the interim. Bryanboy generated coverage in 2008, his first OS fashion week outing. Last year, several high profile bloggers arrived, upping the indie reportage ante. Yet more blogstars are about to descend on Sydney for next week's event, from Tommy Ton to Susie Bubble, Scott Schuman and Garance Doré. Australian celebrity Lara Bingle isn't a blogger per se, but that hasn't stopped Harpers Bazaar Australia from announcing they will launch the scandal-magnet into blog orbit.

And of course a swag of local blog names are planning to attend. Some with official accreditations - others not.

Last week the buzz on Twitter about ticketing/accreditation triumphs or tragedies reached fever pitch, prompting the beginnings of a backlash, with bloggers accused by their social media peers of everything from having “a misguided sense of ticket-entitlement” to outright “lying”. One party sniffed “its not miss America”, warning all those currently high-fiving each other on Twitter, that “most will be standing”.

Oh the drama.

One group of players has thus far managed to slip under the radar.

Enter Australian INFront and its ragtag team of bloggers, some above-the-line - two of them planning to take anonymous potshots from backstage and behind-the-scenes.

The decade-old digital-specialist design website will trial a new events coverage system for RAFW. In fact the site goes live tonight - head to the home page and look for the "RAFW" button:



Team leader is Cairns retailer Lorena Mercado, who operates a boutique called We’re.

Mercado is married to digital-specialist graphic designer Damien Aistrope (who has built content management system sites for a plethora of Australia fashion names).

Now, Mercado will be attending RAFW as an accredited buyer. So will one member of her reporting team: jewellery designer and online retailer, Alicia Hannah Naomi from Melbourne (Sea of Ghosts).

According to Mercado, the duo did try to register as media delegates, but they were knocked back by IMG - and their enquiries about access to the media centre have thus far gone unanswered. (UPDATE 29/04: Surprise, surprise. The duo has just received media accreditation - two of numerous last-minute media accreditations that frockwriter has heard were cleared in the last 24 hours).

A third team member, Adelaide design student Selina Battersby has media accreditation under her own blog.

Mercado has already loaded 10 designer biographies on the INFront site, with five new bios to be added per day for the rest of this week and coverage added throughout each day of the event. A Twitter widget on the page will aggregate all the team’s #RAFW Australian INFront Tweets.

There are two other members of the reporting team and yes, they too are bloggers. They’re also models. Anonymous models.

Currently blogging under the hybrid name of "MUTT", which could be an amalgam of their names - or not - they have been quietly blogging away for the past couple of months on an “art project” called Heyweird. To add to the surreal nature of this new startup, it consists of interviews with anonymous subjects. Potentially among them, other Australian models. Frockwriter wonders, for example, if Catherine McNeil could be the subject of the latest post which discusses modelling and an upcoming marriage to another woman.

According to Mercado, both are “high profile” Australians with work experience in New York and London, which somewhat narrows down the field. If they really wanted to cover their tracks, they could be a little more discreet. Frockwriter has done more than her fair share of anonymous model blogger reportage, so we do look forward to this latest chapter.

How does Mercado plan on wrangling their backstage dispatches? Via the old school way apparently. Mercado told frockwriter:

“They’re going to be transcribing interviews on paper and handing to me....they will be interviewing designers, production assistants, stylists... anyone involved in the creative process”.

Let the games begin.

Christina Carey nabs Marc Jacobs

marc jacobs fw1011/style.com

Word just in from backstage at Marc Jacobs (via Sonny Vandevelde) is that Priscilla's Christina Carey is the only Australian model booked for the show (confirmed). The Marc Jacobs show, which is due to kick off at 12.00pm AEST (8.00pm EST), is one of the most prestigious modelling gigs at New York Fashion Week - if not the most prestigious. You can watch the show live stream on marcjacobs.com. Great get for Carey.

A chat with Miranda Kerr at David Jones

Anyone who was following me on Twitter this morning would have seen a series of Twitpics taken backstage before the David Jones show (you can find on the Twitpic link to the right). I had just over one hour to get in and out and then head to Today Tonight to start work, so unfortunately time was extremely limited and I didn't get to see the show. Managed to squeeze in another video chat with Miranda Kerr (which was supposed to stream live, however the connection failed), in which she talks bankers, business, organic skincare, nudity - and pretty much confirms the whisper that she's about to make a sophomore appearance on Balenciaga's runway come March 3. Nice to see David Jones so graciously welcome a blogger backstage today (inviting a few more to the show itself would be a great idea). DJs will also make footage of its show available to the public from tomorrow. Just register for e news at www.davidjones.com.au. And, frockwriter hears, we may see the show streamed live next season.

Abbey Lee Kershaw talks to Today Tonight

Just before Christmas I mentioned that I bumped into Abbey Lee Kershaw on a shoot in Sydney. As I can now reveal, the job was Vogue Australia's March cover shoot and I was there to do an interview with La Kershaw for Today Tonight, the Australian nightly prime time current affairs program to which I recently returned as a producer (after a ten year hiatus). The issue is of course now out and less than an hour ago, our tv exclusive went to air. Here it is.

In the swim: Melise Williams

metro/platform models

Remember Melise Williams? Frockwriter spotted her back in November 2008 at the graduation show for Sydney Institute's Fashion Design Studio. Then just 15, the statuesque Olga Sherer lookalike was too young to participate in 2009's Rosemount Australian Fashion Week. However Williams is now 16, RAFW's Spring/Summer 2010/2011 showcase - the fifteen year anniversary of the event - is just three months away and it will be interesting to see how she fares. Platform Models is not a major Sydney agency, but here's a player alert: Josh Flinn has just joined the agency as a booker. Well-connected Flinn is ex-IMG FASHION Asia Pacific, a great mate of Sydney expat uber-stylist Ms Fitz (and a Banana in Pyjamas in his spare time) and could help raise the agency's profile.

Williams has just returned from a month-long stint in Auckland, where she shot a multi-girl swimwear editorial for Metro magazine (above/below), with one of the shots making the cover.

While in New Zealand, where she is repped by Nova Models, Williams appears to have done at least one other swimwear shoot. This could enhance her chances of booking RAFW shows this particular season. Not every model is, of course, cut out for swimwear.

With the cancellation of IMG's Swim Fashion Week which was due to take place later this month, IMG has announced it will amp up the swimwear focus of the SS1011 showcase.

In the interim, the Gold Coast Council is planning to stage a smaller replacement event called BusinessGC on March 2-3.

Myf and Tallulah nix fashion for art

Myf Shepherd has been booking some fantastic work of late - an edgy new editorial for Numéro (below) and this February cover for Dazed + Confused Japan, above (adjacent to Tallulah Morton's cover of French magazine Velvet). But frockwriter can reveal that, as she indeed hinted she may do back in September, Shepherd is taking a definite break from the modelling business. Although she may do some direct bookings, we will not be seeing her on any runways this year according to her mother agency Chic Management, while Shepherd remains Australia-based to focus on tertiary studies. University? Ah, no yes. Apparently there aren't enough drama queens in the fashion business for Shepherd, who is planning to study set design, as in theatre set design, at a yet-to-be-disclosed institution [UPDATE: Shepherd reports she will be doing a Bachelor of Design at Sydney's College of Fine Arts).


numéro via the fashion spot

Chic director Kathy Ward told frockwriter:

"She wants to take time out, she wants to have some time back in Australia. A lot of girls take time out. Some might start later, some might start earlier and then take a break. I don't think it's unusual. I think it's great for her".

As chronicled by this blog, it's been a rollercoaster ride for Shepherd since she hit the catwalk running at Rosemount Australian Fashion Week in May 2008. After famously being snubbed by the producers of Australia's Next Top Model, she went on to walk for the world's biggest fashion brands at the Resort 2009 and Spring/Summer 2009 seasons several months later.

After the Spring/Summer 2009 haute couture shows, she then clocked up another 62 shows in the Fall/Winter 0910 season, more than any other Australian model. Her advertising work has included Gucci, Sonia Rykiel, Levi's and DKNY Jeans, with several covers, including Vogue Australia. Here is her CV from models.com. It's not bad for a year and a half's work.

But Shepherd did not have a great Spring/Summer 2010 season, surprising many by walking in just a handful of shows at New York Fashion Week last September.

According to Kathy Ward, Shepherd will be returning to modelling in early 2011.

And she's not the only Australian model to be taking some time out.

Tallulah Morton's Australian agent Vikki Graham recently told The Sunday Telegraph's Ros Reines that Morton is taking a break to pursue Fine Arts studies.

According to frockwriter's sources however, Morton has been bandying about the term "quit".

First emerging at Australian Fashion Week in May 2005 at the age of just 13, Morton had a confident debut at New York Fashion Week in September the following year. She was however unable to gain any immediate international momentum, due, it seems, largely to the stringent child work regulations in France (the latter certainly appeared to prevent even rising Polish star Monika Jagaciak from working in Paris until her 16th birthday on January 15th this year).

Morton reemerged at the Paris shows at the age of 16 in March 2008, with a strong debut season, subsequently becoming a favourite of Jean Paul Gaultier and Hermès. Here is her MDC CV.

For the past 18 months however, Morton's off-field antics - as catalogued by Mark 'The Cobrasnake' Hunter - have overshadowed her professional work.

Yes this news will be disappointing to fans of both models. Modelling is, however, a high pressure industry - particularly at the elite level. And at the end of the day, there's more to life than work. Particularly when you've punched more time clocks than your average teenager.

Perhaps if Daul Kim had taken a break from the business, she might still be with us.

Jewel citizenship: Jenny Mercian rocks Victoria's Secret

Here is another of the (numerous) posts that I have not had a chance to put up since going back to fulltime work in October. Given that yesterday was Australia Day here, this one seemed more than appropriate: another Today Tonight story which aired in late November, immediately after the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show was taped in New York. Modelwatchers will obviously be more than familiar with the Australian girls in the VS show, from Miranda Kerr to Abbey Lee Kershaw and this year, Elyse Taylor. Frockwriter has also previously mentioned Sydney expat casting director/show producer Kannon Rajah, who has worked on the show for several years. One name with which you may not be familiar is Jenny Mercian, a Sydney jeweller who has worked on the show for the past five years.

I wrote about Jenny when she first showed up at Australian Fashion Week 2005, on the occasion of her first VS show and elsewhere. So this was a good opportunity to do the tv version (which I produced).

Hit up the player (above) to see the TT story.

Here are also some images from Jenny's more accessible new diffusion line Sahani - and the complete Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, in case you missed it when it aired on December 3.

Oyster redux

Well that was quick. Back in September frockwriter mentioned that Australia’s longest-surviving indie fashion mag Oyster was having a few problems. An exodus of staff had seen the departure of no less than the magazine’s editor in chief, editor, art director, sales director and several other staff members. This was accompanied by the news that the magazine would be going on hiatus for December/January – prompting publisher Monika Nakata to instruct this blog that a Feb/March edition would definitely be going ahead. Well here is some evidence that that may indeed be the case: an early leaked shot of one of this blog’s faves, Cassi van den Dungen. In fact her first fashion editorial according to her Sydney agency Work. It's an excerpt from a 16-page (multigirl) editorial called 'Teddy Girls' by Liz Ham and Jolyon Mason, with makeup by Sasha Nilsson and hair by Sophie Roberts - the latter apparently a fan of Guido Paulo's Coke can hair for Alexander McQueen's FW0910 show. Who pulled the issue together? A fascinating little creative collective that includes the recently-shafted Harpers Bazaaar Australia editor Jamie Huckbody.

Here's the new masthead:

Editor - Monika Nakata
Creative director - Shane Sakkeus
Editor at large – Jamie Huckbody
Associate editor - Alyx Gorman
New York editor – Indigo Clarke
Sub Editor – Seema Duggal

The magazine has apparently been totally redesigned, including the Oyster logo.

Frockwriter wishes the new Oyster team all the best and we look forward to seeing the fruits of their endeavours, which will be out in the second week of February.

The making of Louis Vuitton's Spring/Summer 2010 campaign

And unless I'm mistaken, a quick check of Tokyo Dandy's blog shows that they were among the very first to track down this YouTube of the making of Louis Vuitton's new S/S 2010 campaign starring Lara Stone. So here's this as well.

Tiah Eckhardt counts her lovers

Frockwriter mentioned that Tiah Eckhardt was awaiting the birth of a baby with partner Patrick Delaney. Well Oz director Alex Goddard just flicked us over this little video he shot for CLUBFEET’s new 'Count Your Lovers' single starring Eckhardt - and apparently just three weeks after the birth of her adorable baby girl Finley Victoria, who arrived in October. Sources say Eckhardt is also to be a face of Berlei, so it looks as if she’s not giving up on modelling at all.

Make me a Zimmermann model

Frockwriter mentioned that newly repatriated sex bomb Lisa Seiffert would be shooting the SS10 campaign for stellar Australian swim label Zimmermann this week. But hot diggity dog, if US Make Me A Supermodel model mentor, imminent NIDA student and newbie jeweller Nicole Trunfio isn't in the campaign as well. As it happens, Trunfio, like Seiffert, recently defected from Sydney’s Viviens agency to Chic Management. This behind-the-scenes shot from the shoot popped up in frockwriter’s inbox today. Photographer was Simon Lekias, with New York import art director Louisa Gent, stylist Tamila Purvis, Sophie Roberts on hair and Linda Jefferies on makeup. Anyone in and around Sydney’s Hamptons northern beaches over summer, meanwhile, should definitely pop in to Zimmermann's popup store at Whale Beach. Supremely cool idea for a summer store.



 

McQueen's shoes weren't meant for walking - Abbey Lee Kershaw

daniel jackson for dazed+confused via chic

Had a chat to Abbey Lee Kershaw Monday afternoon while she was working in Sydney. The details of the shoot are yet to be revealed, but I can share one of the more amusing model gossip gems to surface. When talking about how models navigate the runway in increasingly ludicrous designer shoes, we touched on the so-called 'armadillo' shoes from Alexander McQueen's S/S 2010 show (below). Wonder why we didn't see Kershaw, Sasha Pivovarova or Natasha Poly in the show? According to Kershaw, that's because after taking one look at the shoes, the supermod trio convened for a powow and decided to nix it.


alexander mcqueen SS10/style.com

With killer heels already causing one catwalk catastrophe for Kershaw at Rodarte in New York last September, followed by another near miss with similarly extreme shoes in February this year - the latter prompting her to skip the rest of the FW0910 season in order to nurse a knee injury - little wonder she was loathe to take the risk.

And all that's not counting, of course, the too-tight corset at McQueen's SS09 show one year earlier in Paris, in which Kershaw fainted.

Guess who's back in town?

the fashion spot


Frockwriter last looked at Lisa Seiffert in October 2008, on the occasion of her topless cover of Danish art magazine S. We noted at the time that since Seiffert departed these shores, she has specialised in the sultry sex bomb niche. That’s a niche, of course, that’s not without its rewards, notably if you can land a Victoria’s Secret campaign. But Seiffert’s most prominent gigs to date have merely seen her hanging off the arms of various male pop stars in video clips. From Robbie Williams' 2001 hit The Road to Mandalay and Eternity to Jay-Z & Pharrel´s 2004 Change Clothes. And not forgetting Sean Combs’ racy ménage à trois clip for his 2006 Unforgivable men’s fragrance – reportedly banned by US broadcasting authorities for tv, with the print ads also reportedly banned by some US department stores. A Sisley campaign with Terry Richardson and the 2003 Pirelli calendar, alongside Sienna Miller, were also in the mix.

A far cry, as we noted, from the demure Vogue Australia September 1998 cover with fellow Queenslander Alyssa Sutherland.

Well now Seiffert and Sutherland have something else in common. Seiffert has just joined Chic Management in Sydney – having apparently ditched Viviens.

Seiffert has not worked in Australia for four years, but tomorrow shoots an editorial with Madison magazine and next week, a swimwear campaign with hot Australian swim brand Zimmermann.

According to Chic, Seiffert has also just shot a global campaign for Guess swimwear and lingerie in LA.

It will be interesting to see what happens from here.

Cassi van den Dungen - two steps closer to her model dream

camerons via TO2W


OK so where were we on the Tahnee Atkinson/Cassi van den Dungen/Australia's Next Top Model roundabout? Atkinson has just shot the Curvy jeans campaign for Bettina Liano. After losing the Cycle 5 ANTM crown to Atkinson and flipping the bird to the show by turning down contracts with Priscillas and Elite New York, van den Dungen, meanwhile, signed with her childhood modelling agency, Tanya Powell, in Melbourne, then also with Work Agency in Sydney, before shooting lookbooks for Portmans and getting bullied by ANTM’s Charlotte Dawson and Alex Perry. Coupla interesting updates. Apart from currently being plastered all over Portmans front windows, van den Dungen has finally ditched Tanya Powell for Camerons, a boutique - but nevertheless far more serious-looking - Melbourne agency. Most interesting of all: she has just been featured on The Ones To Watch, models.com’s emerging talent satellite site.

In a profile on December 1, TO2W noted:

“Cassi is sensational – her features, her height and her personality all combine to make one super model who is creating interest all over the world. With building a strong book her priority right now, expect to see Cassi on the global fashion scene by mid-2010”.

Fascinating contrast to the prediction by ANTM model mentor Charlotte Dawson, who told her Facebook friends back in July:

“I think Cassi's only going to end up being the poster girl for Sunbury Centrelink”.

Meanwhile, although Tahnee Atkinson reports that she was recently told in New York that she would need to lose weight in order to work in that market (with Atkinson telling Today Tonight last week, "But I'm prepared to do that to go to New York"), van den Dungen told News Ltd that one of the reasons she rejected the Priscillas/Elite contracts was out of concern that she would need to lose weight to work internationally. Which NL duly whipped up into the headline:

"Australia's Next Top Model's Cassi van den Dungen rejected New York deal over weight issues"


Without having set foot beyond Sydney however, she is looking rather thin in this new set of test shots.

First look at Tahnee Atkinson in Bettina Liano's new Curvy jean on TT

Two weeks ago frockwriter revealed that Bettina Liano was about to launch a more amply-cut jean - notably up to a size 16 - and that she had booked Australia's Next Top Model Cycle 5 winner Tahnee Atkinson to promote it. Pierre Toussaint shot the new campaign on Monday and Today Tonight was there. The story went to air last night. I produced/wrote, Sally Obermeder is the reporter, Ray Munro edited.

The Sunday Telegraph: The disturbing trend of model deaths

daul kim, backstage @ alexander mcqueen SS08

On November 20th I - along with many others - blogged about the very sad news of the death of South Korean model Daul Kim. The news was all the more alarming by virtue of the fact that Kim's was not an isolated death in the modelling industry - or indeed suicide. As regular readers of this blog would be aware, I have been tracking some of these stories over the past twelve months. Sydney's Sunday Telegraph newspaper asked me to develop the post into a small feature (which they titled "Dying for success"). Many thanks to models.com's Wayne Sterling, Sophie Ward and Vikki Graham for availing themselves for interviews at short notice. Here's the story (which ran last weekend):

THE fashion industry has been rocked by the death of top South Korean model Daul Kim, the latest in what has emerged as a disturbing trend of model suicides over the past 18 months.

The 20 year old was found hanged in her Paris apartment on November 19th, the third model suicide since June 28 2008, when Kazakh model Ruslana Korshunova, also 20, died after falling nine floors from her apartment building in New York.

On October 11 2008, 26 year-old Canadian Hayley Kohle fell seven floors to her death from an apartment building in Milan.

Although Kohle was one of many virtual unknowns struggling to make names for themselves in a fiercely competitive business, both Korshunova and notably, Kim, had achieved far greater success, securing magazine covers and lucrative advertising contracts.

And yet both Korshunova and Kim also left a trail of social networking site posts behind them talking about heartbreak, loneliness and depression, with Kim already once having to defend her mental state on her two year-old blog I Like To Fork Myself.

On October 11, just one month before she died, Kim even used the terms “cut ur wrists”, “jump out a window” and “cry for help” in a blog post called “Say hi to decided”.

“The industry is definitely in shock over the news of Daul Kim's suicide” said Wayne Sterling, a prominent New York casting director and the editorial director of the website models.com, whose closely-followed world rankings of models are considered the industry’s unofficial benchmark. “People are asking...How could we have missed the signals? There have been a lot of tears and some guilt about all of our superficial assumptions”.

But the suicides are part of a wider pattern of recent model deaths that have many asking about the hidden risks and dangers of an industry that remains largely self-regulated.

Not counting the eating disorder-related deaths of three South American models in 2006, which reignited the Size 0 debate and prompted a raft of industry initiatives, on July 7 last year Canadian Diana O’Brien was murdered while on assignment in China.

Then on October 11, coincidentally the same night that Hayley Kohle died, 20 year-old male American modeling star Randy Johnston died from a heroin overdose in Connecticut.

“We all have to accept that yes there is a serious problem” said Sterling.

“Common decency now would demand that designers, editors, photographers and agents should address signs of depression and fatigue and stress in young models as clear problems that could amplify with tragic implications” he added. “We're dealing with human beings here, not inanimate mannequins”.

Speculation is currently focused on the mental health of Australian modeling star Catherine McNeil, who was photographed last week in Sydney with a series of mysterious cuts on her arms.

McNeil’s mother contradicted the official statement from Australian agency Chic Management, that the cuts were the result of a skateboard fall, by stating her daughter fell down stairs and has also been “depressed”, with McNeil’s grandmother adding that Catherine is “burned out” by the industry.

Chic Management declined comment for this story on either McNeil or Daul Kim. Chic’s New York affiliate Next Models was Kim’s American agency.

"This was the tipping point - enough is enough now" said Australian model and author Sophie Ward of Kim's death.

Ward has experienced the modeling rollercoaster both first-hand and through the eyes of her sister Gemma Ward who, by early 2007, had risen to the world number 1 position, before disappearing from the business altogether following a segue into acting and the January 2008 death of close friend Heath Ledger.

“Without a strong sense of identity, I think it's very easy to lose oneself in the demands of a million people, and forget who you even were to start with” said Ward. “Yes I went through dark stages of existential doubt but I wouldn't call it depression, it didn't last as long”.

“Of course my family were vital, but you can't survive in a hotel room with just a telephone, or a blog. You need many voices, many hands, all around you, to get your mind off those pressures, and enjoy life".

Sydney’s Scene Models director Vikki Graham conceded that although she believes agents are not therapists, the size and pressures of the business and the speed of communications have helped depersonalize the industry.

“Models don’t come into the agency like they used to before, now every model’s got a BlackBerry - but a BlackBerry doesn’t tell you whether they’re feeling down in the dumps” said Graham, who also believes agents should be both aware if there are personal issues affecting a model’s work and prepared to cancel jobs.

“They’re not machines” she added. “There are times when they can’t do a job. The model has to take priority over the booking”.

KAREN's black and white Christmas

After the eye-popping February cover featuring Olivia O’Driscoll with blue lips, here is a sneak peek of the December cover of Australasian fashion magazine KAREN: a surrealist composite by London-based Australian photographer David Standish. The image features no less than three images of Russian (tks JT) model Alice Fadeeva, whose unique look could be yet another composite - of Monika Jagaciak and Iekeliene Stange. Not surprisingly, Standish cites Surrealism and American photographer Man Ray as major influences in this TO2W iv.

Bettina Liano launches the Curvy jean - taps Tahnee Atkinson to front it

priscillas

Bettina Liano, Australia’s original jean queen, is the latest Oz designer to pay hip service to the larger sizes issue. Frockwriter can reveal that Liano will launch a new jean line called Curvy next month. Aimed at the more curvaceous woman, it consists at the moment of two jeans: a new style called Curvy and a "curvy" adaptation of Liano’s classic True Bootleg style. Curvy is a straight leg, mid-rise jean in a vintage wash. Both styles are cut to allow more room around the bottom and thighs and will be available in sizes 8-16. According to a Bettina Liano spokeswoman, Liano's jeans usually go up to a size 12 (even though Liano’s website indicates they may reach 14). To kick off the launch, Pierre Toussaint will shoot new campaign images in Sydney on November 30, with Australia’s Next Top Model Cycle 5 winner Tahnee Atkinson.

This is interesting for several reasons.

Firstly, the ongoing controversy over the dearth of designer clothing in larger sizes.

Not that 16 is by any means tapping into the plus size market. But as Melbourne blogger Hayley Hughes and I recently discovered when we took two hidden cameras into Chapel Street to shoot a story for Australian current affairs television program Today Tonight on how the fashion industry discriminates against larger sizes, it was extremely difficult finding anything on Chapel Street over a size 12. For someone who writes about the industry, this even surprised me. Brisbane blogger Nicholas Perkins also took part.

Click here to see the Today Tonight story.

Secondly, as we know, this year’s ANTM placed quite some focus on the body image issue and it seemed almost a fait accompli when curvy Atkinson won the competition – even though runnerup Cassie Van Den Dungen appeared to be the better-equipped of the two for an international high fashion career.

Meanwhile, Atkinson recently visited New York and some appear genuinely shocked that Atkinson was not welcomed with open arms by the New York market.

Atkinson will join the upwardly-mobile Jess Hart as a current season Bettina Liano poster girl.



PS. In the TT story, the figure of $10.5billion refers of course to the estimated fashion component of Australian clothing retail sales [source: IBISWorld]. And yes, Gossip is indeed an American, and not a British, band. As I have blogged previously. The word British inadvertently slipped into the script and I did not realise until it was too late. My apologies.

Why is Daul Kim the fifth model to die in 18 months?

Condolences are due to the family and friends of Korean model Daul Kim, who has died in Paris (on the 19th) at the age of 20. Details have yet to be clarified, but New York magazine’s The Cut is reporting suicide (since confirmed by South Korean consular officials). This is yet another very, very serious wakeup call for the modeling industry. It is the fifth model death of which this journalist is aware since June 28 last year - three of them allegedly suicides.

On June 28 2008, Kazahk Ruslana Korshunova fell to her death from a New York apartment building. Although ruled a suicide, a petition was launched to attempt to have the case reopened.

On July 7, Canadian Diana O’Brien was murdered while on assignment in China.

Then on October 11 – yes, on the same night – American Randy Johnston died from a heroin overdose in New York, while Canadian Hayley Kohle fell to her death from a Milanese apartment building. Although Kohle’s death was ruled a suicide, her family also raised questions.

Kim will be remembered not just for her brief modeling career. (I met and photographed her backstage, above, at the Alexander McQueen show in Paris in October 2007).

Kim was also a sensitive and creative soul, who was quite outspoken and raised eyebrows on her two year-old blog, I Like To Fork Myself. There was the time she called out Japanese fashion brand Undercover for being racist. And another occasion when she gave Barneys the finger (literally, in a photo) for its poor customer service.

Some of Kim’s musings were however quite dark and on several occasions she found herself having to defend her mental state on the blog.

In April 2007, shortly after she launched the blog, Kim wrote:

“and thanks to stupid tv show from korea ppl think i like to
torture myself and thanks to that im getting lots and lots of
suicide emails on a daily basis
but im definately not depressed, and i dont want to killmyself”

In October 2008, after hamming it up with some mates in some photos, and censoring some of them after complaints from her mother, she wrote:

"thank you but
i dont care

and i was not high or drunk
i dont even smoke cigarettes.
i go to bed early and i dont party. i rave at home.

but my mother emailed and told me that she is upset and
worries about my mental state so its censored.

i listen to my mother.

i am okay im just having fun with my french gay boys...."

In this very bleak post "Say hi to decided", dated 11th October, Kim's fate looks to have been sealed.

It's a pity that her family and agents did not realise how depressed and lonely she was until it was too late.

RIP Daul Kim.