What does Andrej Pejic have to do to make the cover of Vogue Australia?

gazelle paulo/freak chic

Andrej Pejic’s first modelling job was a cover shoot – for Oyster’s 77th edition, back in 2008, flanked by a phalanx of male and female models. And while many cover tries never make it to page one, one of Pejic’s Oyster shots did, together with two of the women. It’s fair to say, however, that very few in the Australian industry knew who he was at this time and he was by no means the sole focus of the story. Fast track to August 2011 and Pejic has appeared on no less than eight international magazine covers in the space of six months: Zeit Magazin (February), Photo (March), Dossier Journal (Spring 2011), Citizen K (Spring 2011), Carbon Copy (Spring 2011), L’Officiel Ukraine (June 2011), Follow #5 and just this week, the very high-profile New York magazine, as one of four covers of the magazine’s Fall 2011 fashion special. Here is a photo gallery of all nine covers (best viewed on the blog): 

Debuting on models.com's Top 50 Men list at #40 in December, little wonder Pejic is now ranked the world number #19. 

So why haven’t Australian magazines been clamouring to get him on a cover back home? What an amazing coup it would be for Vogue Australia, for example, to be the first mainstream womens' fashion magazine in the world to do so, if only editor Kirstie Clements had the balls. 

Given that even Miranda Kerr didn’t make it to the cover of Vogue Australia until January this year – until after she had appeared on the covers of both Spanish and Italian Vogue, had married Orlando Bloom and was pregnant – frockwriter thinks there’s little chance of that happening.

Speaking of pregnancies, one of the more amusing anecdotes recounted in the  accompanying Pejic feature in this month's New York magazine was how Pejic attempted a little supermodel satire when arriving at Sao Paulo airport in June this year, for Sao Paolo Fashion Week.

Inspired by the miraculous maternity bounce-backs of supermods such as Kerr, who somehow manage to head back to work mere weeks after giving birth, Pejic had hoped to demonstrate he could do it in a day: arriving in Sao Paulo with a styrofoam baby bump, which he planned to jettison for the following day’s runway duties.

Pejic’s plan was foiled by Brazilian customs which asked him to remove the object, assuming he might be smuggling contraband. 

Once given the all clear, Pejic was reunited with his faux baby bump – and paraded it landside in this photo and video (above/below):

Robyn Lawley strikes again - in Vogue Australia's first ever plus size fashion shoot

max doyle for vogue australia september 2011

On the occasion of her groundbreaking recent cover of Vogue Italia, alongside two other plus-sized models, we mentioned that Australia’s Robyn Lawley had another high fashion coup up her sleeve, just shot in Australia with Max Doyle. Frockwriter can reveal that that shoot is in fact a 10-page designer fashion editorial called 'Belle Curve' in the September edition of Vogue Australia, which is out on August 3rd. Subscriber copies landed today (thanks to our tipster who emailed the shots in). The editorial is accompanied by a double-page interview with Lawley. According to Kirstie Clements' editor's letter, this is the first time in Vogue Australia's 52-year history that the magazine has shot a plus-sized model for a fashion editorial. Hot on the heels of Lawley’s Vogue Italia cover and her Elle France cover in April, 2011 is turning out to be a banner year for Lawley, Bonner and the plus size-specialist modelling industry. 

Clements continues in her editor's letter:

“This is the first time Vogue Australia has shot a larger model and of course now that we have done it, I ask myself why we didn’t do it sooner. But that’s because Robyn is especially gorgeous. I went to the shoot to meet her and was transfixed by her beauty and poise. She is a truly super duper model. When a plus size model first turns up to the studio, she may be an anomaly to a team normally used to working with size 6’s, but once photographer Max Doyle started shooting Robyn, we quickly readjusted our preconceived notions of beauty. She doesn’t actually look plus size to me at all now. I said to a colleague on set later that day, “And men like curves don’t they?” He looked at me like I was an idiot. “Yes Kirsty, we certainly do” was his laconic reply. It’s an interesting conversation – the world of high fashion and fuller-figured women. One that needs to be continued”.

According to Lawley's Australian agent, Chelsea Bonner, the director of plus size-specialist agency Bella Model Management, the Vogue Australia editorial is an even sweeter victory than the Vogue Italia cover. 

“The amazing thing about the Vogue Australia shoot is that they actually dressed her - went out and found these beautiful designer garments to wear” Bonner told frockwriter. “Which just proves the point that there is clothing available for plus size models to wear in high fashion, it just takes a little bit of extra effort to find them. Vogue Australia went to that effort and the results are incredible”.

Of the rollercoaster media ride that ensued in the wake of the Italian cover, Bonner adds, “It went viral worldwide, has been commented on in I don’t know how many hundreds of magazines, blog sites and newspapers. And it reflects, I think, definitely the shift in consumers. Women want to see more realistic-sized models in magazines. They’re screaming for it. The response that we had from Italian Vogue was absolutely out of control. But my personal opinion is that Australian Vogue has blown Italian Vogue out of the water because of the fact that it is a true fashion editorial - rather than having curvy girls in lingerie, like they normally do. It’s not just having a token plus size model. It’s a true fashion editorial”.  

photographer: max doyle
fashion editor: meg gray
fashion assistant: megha kapoor
makeup: justine purdue
hair: renya xydis

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

Onya Anja

solve sundsbo for muse magazine fall 2010/touch puppet

Where didn’t frockwriter's interview with world number 3 Anja Rubik go last week? From New York Magazine’s The Cut to The Huffington Post to Vogue UK, Grazia UK and Elle US...not counting a score of other blogs, we lost track in the end (and thanks to Next Management's Stephen Lee for the hookup). Not surprisingly, everyone seized on Rubik’s revelation that she turned down Terry Richardson’s 2010 Pirelli calendar because she was uncomfortable with his aesthetic – which in her own words, borders on “vulgar”. It was a great kickoff to the New Year for this blog, as it rapidly approaches the one million visitor mark. On Monday 3rd January, we were extremely honoured to be featured on the website of hot New York-based Nepalese designer Prabal Gurung, as part of his blogger series (which has previously profiled The Cut’s Amy Odell, Fashion Toast’s Rumi Neely, Nylon’s Faran Krentcil, Fashionista’s Lauren Sherman and Papermag’s Alyssa Vingan). Then on Friday, frockwriter was blog of the week on new UK online magazine Motilo. Many thanks for thinking of us. Rubik, FYI, capped off a week's work in the outback with Vogue Australia with a big bucks shoot for a Polish jewellery brand up at Sydney's Palm Beach over the weekend our sources report. 

Alison Veness-McGourty out at Grazia

life.com

The latest in a (very) long line of recent ACP executive departures, Alison Veness-McGourty apparently cleared out her editor-in-chief’s desk at Grazia Australia before Christmas. But it took a Facebook status update from Damien Woolnough, the online editor of Grazia rival Vogue Australia on January 4, to alert the industry that something was up. Noted Woolnough: “Wow. Only Jan 4 and already big changes in the industry...... Nothing here guys.... Chair shifting on another ship with one man overboard”. Today, the official confirmation from ACP managing director Phil Scott – via Vogue licensee News Ltd - that Veness-McGourty has indeed resigned. Scott, with whom frockwriter hears Veness-McGourty did not see eye to eye, dismissed rumours that former Australian Women’s Weekly editor Robyn Foyster, now an associate publisher at ACP, would be replacing her. Scott also denied that Veness-McGourty was pushed because of Grazia’s poor performance. But given that sales slumped more than 10percent to 55,026 in the most recent audit, perhaps it’s not that surprising - one of six ACP titles to see a 10percent+ sales dive year on year (also OK!, TV Week, Zoo Weekly, NW and Picture). The founding editor of Grazia's Australian edition, which launched on the cusp of the GFC in July 2008, Veness-McGourty previously spent eight years as editor of ACP stablemate Harpers Bazaar Australia. During her tenure, the latter at one point outsold Vogue. 

Sasha Knezevic popped the question to Anja Rubik after a vampire musical

the rocks, december 31st 2010/stephen lee

Anja Rubik and fiancé Sasha Knezevic were among out-of-towners who rang in 2011 in Sydney. Confirming an earlier report by frockwriter that the world number 3 ranked model was en route downunder to shoot for Vogue Australia, the duo arrived on the morning of the 31st and spent the day sightseeing with Stephen Lee, who heads up Rubik’s New York agency Next Model Management, including lunch at iconic Watson’s Bay seafood restaurant Doyles. And at midnight? Joining an estimated 1.5million who assembled to watch the city’s NYE fireworks from the harbour foreshore, Polish native Rubik and Serbian Knezevic, a former pro basketballer-turned-model (who also jointly edits Viennese fashion magazine 25 with Rubik), braved the hustle and bustle of The Rocks (where the above shot was taken). But as Rubik explains in this interview I recorded on New Year’s Day, the model duo loved it. Rubik, whose career highlights include multiple campaigns for Fendi and Chloé and 10 Vogue covers, dishes on her engagement deets, the Vogue Australia shoot and Karl Lagerfeld’s 2011 Pirelli calendar, with one fascinating revelation. She turned down the opportunity to shoot the world’s best-known calendar in 2009 for one reason - because Terry Richardson was shooting it.

gap fragrance campaign via the anja rubik and sasha knezevic facebook fan page

Frockwriter: When did you arrive?
Anja Rubik: We arrived yesterday morning. We did so much yesterday and today. We met up with Stephen. We walked around The Rocks. We enjoyed the whole day. Then we had a quick disco nap and we went out about town for NYE. It was pretty incredible. We were just walking around The Rocks. At midnight we were actually on the street. We always go to parties and we wanted to do something different. And the energy of the street was so incredible. We watched the fireworks - you can smell it almost. And you can really feel the energy of the other people. It was something completely different. I think in Sydney you have to do that. I was really amazed. It was so well organised.

FW: You and Sasha just became engaged didn’t you? Congratulations.
AR: Yes, yes, we just got engaged a few days ago, just before Christmas. Noone really knows about it yet.

FW: They know about it on [one of the world's largest fashion web forums] The Fashion Spot.
AR: They know about it on TFS? You’re kidding me?

FW: They know everything.  

AR: OMG, that’s really scary.  

FW: How did he propose?
AR: We were spending Christmas in Vienna this year because Sasha grew up in Vienna and his family is there and my family was coming over. And just two days before he came over, we went to Dance of the Vampires, the one that Roman Polanski directed [NB: I originally thought she meant Polanski’s 1967 film, aka The Fearless Vampire Killers – on which the musical is based]. It’s an opera. I wanted to see it for such a long time and Sasha organised the tickets, so it was really nice for Christmas. And then we went out and we walked around, it was really foggy the whole night and then he finally proposed, which was funny... It was pretty incredible. In the middle of the street. In the middle of the night. And then we went and had dinner in this restaurant that was on the rooftop of a building. And it was really, really nice. Apparently he was carrying the ring around for a while. And that day we fought all the day long. We were preparing the whole house for Christmas and there were all these things to be done and I had to cook and I had to do this and that and the Christmas decorations… I couldn’t find the ones I liked. So it was totally dramatic the whole day. I thought, ‘I’m going to kill him’. I was like, ‘I think this was my last Christmas ever’ [with him]. And he said ‘I picked this day on purpose, because although we have our fights, we’ve been together and ra ra ra ...’ And he’s right.

FW: Have you made any plans yet re dates etc?
AR: We are kind of hoping to do it in May or June. That’s what we’re aiming for. 

FW: So you are here shooting for Vogue Australia?
AR: Yes I’m shooting for Vogue on the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th. They’re taking me to a place in the middle of the desert. We’re going to do a shoot there, which I’m really excited about because I get to see a bit of Australia. The good thing is I actually have a lot of friends here. Of course, there are a lot of models, girls that I know that are here, there’s [photographer] Emma Summerton, Kannon [Rajah – show producer] . So actually I’m really far away from home but there’s a lot of people that I know who are in Sydney. It’s crazy, because I came to a completely different part of the world, so many hours of travelling and I know so many people, it’s really funny.

FW: Who is shooting you for Vogue?
AR: Max Doyle. There are two shoots. The other one is actually a good friend of mine, a Polish photographer, Marcin Tyszka, he’s a very young upcoming photographer. And we’re doing a shoot together, me and Sasha. And the other one with Max is just me. And we’re shooting a cover so I’m excited. I think there’s going to be like a little interview and then something about style. So it’s going to occupy the whole issue [laughs].

FW: So it’s the Anja Rubik issue of Australian Vogue?
AR: Yeah.

FW: How long are you staying in Australia for?
AR: I’m staying actually until the 20th, so for a little while. And it’s funny because I wanted to come to Australia since a really long time and then I was planning it and something popped up at the last minute so I couldn’t do it. So I’m really excited to be here. I want to go to the Great Barrier Reef and I want to see the red mountain [Ayers Rock]. And I scuba dive, so I want to do a lot of scuba diving.

FW: We have a lot of sharks, you know.
AR: I know, I know. But they never attack the scuba divers, they always attack the surfers. You’re safe underwater. I started diving when I was 14 so it’s quite a long time ago and I’ve been diving all around the world. This is a place I always wanted to come to so it’s exciting. But basically we want to keep the time very spontaneous, which is the best way to do it.
 
FW: So if you are staying until the 20th, are you not doing the haute couture?
AR: No I am. I’ll probably just go for Chanel, just for Karl. Chanel is on the 25th. So I should be back. I’m going to fly straight to Paris.

FW: Do you have to be careful about getting a tan with some work?
AR: Well no, I do tan very quickly, you do have to do a lot of protection. But they’re not so super strict on that unless you go completely brown. But you know, I’m going to try to do Karl because I’ve worked with Karl quite often and I love him to pieces, I think he’s a genius. I just saw him in Moscow. I was there for the Pirelli launch.

FW: So what else do you have coming up that people might not know about?
AR: I’m on an i-D cover, I don’t know if people know about that. Emma Summerton shot it. She’s genius, I love her to pieces. I mean I have a few campaigns coming out, of course Fendi. And there’s a bunch of editorials that I did. I don’t know which ones people know about. I mean I have a Russian Vogue cover coming out, a Spanish Vogue cover coming out, that should be released soon. And a bunch of stuff I shot before Christmas. 

emma summerton for vogua italia via fashion gone rogue

FW: It will be on TFS soon enough.
AR: It’s crazy, sometimes they have editorial on there… I don’t know how they get it because it’s not even out. And sometimes there are people working for the magazines, they take a picture of the wall or the layout, which is crazy.

FW: Do you read your TFS thread?
AR: I do look at it but I have to say my secret is I don’t really read it. I just look at it from time to time when there’s new pictures. Because they have everything so so quick, that sometimes I’m curious because maybe the newest campaign is out. But I try not to read it because If someone is saying something really bad then I take it very personally so I try to avoid that. I mean I don’t know if they do. I think they’re quite nice but I just look at the pictures. It’s better that way for me. I keep myself more sane.

karl lagerfeld for pirelli via anja rubik fan blog

 

FW: So for 2010, what were your personal highlights?
AR: My personal highlights....well, fashion highlights, let me see. Actually I think it was the Tom Ford show [at New York Fashion Week in September]. That was such an incredible thing. I always dreamed of doing Tom Ford but I started modelling a little bit later, so I never worked with him when he was at YSL or Gucci. And just the show itself it was so incredible and they weren’t doing like a typical show, it was very old-fashioned, the way the girl would walk out then he would describe the outfit. He would say, ‘Anja Rubik’s wearing this and that’. It was really cute and the runway was very small. People were sitting very close to the runway. And just to be among those incredible women who were there.. because he had models, he had older models, like supermodels, plus a lot of actresses and Beyoncé. So that was an incredible experience. And doing the Pirelli was also incredible, because it was always my dream to take part in this calendar. It’s like the most famous calendar in the world, it’s such a huge honour. And the best people shot for it and the best girls were in it. So that was really great. And I was actually supposed to do the Terry Richardson one but I was a little bit afraid, because I never undressed, I was never shot actually nude before. Although I love Terry and I worked with him a lot for French Vogue and other editorials, but I was a little bit afraid of his Pirelli.

FW: And with good reason.
AR: I knew he would, like, push the borders and you know, I was just afraid of how far they were going to be pushed and if I’m going to feel comfortable. The worst thing is to go somewhere to a shoot and be there and feel uncomfortable. Because first of all, it’s bad for me, it’s bad for him, it just creates a really bad atmosphere. So when Karl was shooting the Pirelli, I just thought, you know, he’s a genius and I knew the way he would shoot a woman would be in the form of art, it would be very beautiful and very tasteful. So that’s why I jumped on board immediately.

FW: So just to clarify this: you actually turned down the Pirelli calendar last year?
AR: Yes I did.

FW: That’s interesting. Have many models turned it down before do you think?
AR: I don’t know. You’d never know, because you deal with your agent, you don’t really know about other girls. I did. I just knew it would be uncomfortable for me and maybe for him, because I wouldn’t feel right in the moment.

FW: Obviously there has been a lot of controversy over Terry Richardson’s modus operandi of late.
AR: Yeah I know, but to be honest I know him, I’ve shot with him many times. And I think he’s great. I never felt uncomfortable, I never thought he pushed me into anything. I think if a girl, like, leaves her green light that she’s open to doing different things, he maybe pushes the boundaries. And if he knows how the girl is. Like I don’t get all these allegations. I mean I worked with him over, I don’t know, 15 times and I never felt awkward…..that I felt I had to do something.

FW: So why turn down a “dream” opportunity to do the Pirelli calendar just because he was shooting it?
AR: Only because I know he would push it a little bit more, in a way that would be very naked and I know that I wouldn’t go there probably. So that’s why it was stupid to accept the challenge because I thought I wouldn’t be capable. And you think...how it’s going to come out, because he has a different kind of take of that, a little bit more on the edge of, you know, I don’t want to say vulgar but on the very, very slight edge of it. There were supposed to be a lot of girls and he likes to shoot a lot of girls with girls and I just didn’t think I’d feel comfortable, that’s why.

FW: But there is so much nudity in fashion photography now, how did you manage to make it to this year’s Pirelli calendar without having ever done any nude photography?
AR: Well I did do topless, but I had never done full-on nude. You say no, I guess. It’s a very individual thing. I didn’t feel comfortable, earlier, before. To be honest, I kind of felt very comfortable with my body and my self actually quite recently, like four or five years ago, I started to feel really good. I had a huge change when I cut my hair, I started feeling more and more feminine and more comfortable with my body and everything. And now just felt like the right time to do it. Always [if] they ask you and you feel comfortable, you say yes. I mean I did do nude …[hard to hear] from the side, but I would always have strings and they would retouch them out.

FW: How long have you been modelling now?
AR: Full time, seven years now. Before that I would model at school.

FW: How do you find the pressures at the top of the business?
AR: Well, I mean, thanks to Photoshop our length of working is extended. Well I’m kind of joking but yeah of course it is, once you get older they can retouch everything out. The most important thing is just to stay on top. Of course there is pressure but you know....number 3, I like number 3. I think if I was number 1 I would be starting to stress ‘Where do I go from there?’ So number 3 actually suits me fine. I wouldn’t mind 2! One would be a little too much pressure.

FW: How about the pressure to be thin? That subject is never going to go away.
AR: No, I’m quite lucky in that I have a good metabolism, but I also eat really healthy and I exercise. I do a lot of yoga and Pilates and I run. You know, the body of a girl who’s a model, that’s her tool. You have to take care of it. It’s not even about being slim or skinny but it’s more about being fit and the quality of the body and [that] the skin is really nice. That’s super important. And now it’s a little bit changing, towards curvier girls, so that’s a really nice change. But they get so caught up in the whole weight thing. When you look at the world, people really die from being overweight, that’s a much, much bigger issue than anorexia. And to be honest, there are a few girls who are young who have difficulty dealing with their weight and what kind of diet. But I think it’s a huge responsibility of the agency to take care of the girls and to kind of lead them the right way. But any of the top girls, like on my level, where we work really a lot, we’re constantly on the plane, we’re constantly working, we’re constantly flying somewhere. And you have to show up in the morning and have a lot of energy and be ‘up’ and happy and you know, give our best. I think if a girl has an eating disorder, she just cannot do that. I think it’s physically impossible. So I think that with the girls are in the top ten at least...I know them personally and I doubt any of them have any larger eating issues. But I have to say if a girl doesn’t have the body type to be a model, if she’s not skinny naturally, that must be very, very difficult.

solve sundsbo for vogue russia via magxone

FW: There have been a lot of model suicides. Did you know Daul Kim well?
AR: I knew her but we weren’t very close. I only talked to her a couple of times. There was Ruslana as well and there have been quite a few male models.

FW: Does it worry you?
AR: Does it worry me? I think it’s a very individual thing. Most of the girls are models who started working very, very young. And every person deals with pressure in different ways. There are a lot of photographers out there that don’t want to work with girls under 18, like for example Inez and Vinood. And I think that’s a really good approach because when you are really young, you can really get mucked up in your head and it can really get to you at times. The way to deal with it and also regarding weight… a girl at 18, she thinks completely differently, she’s more mature than a 17 year old or a 15 year old. So I think if modelling would lean towards using a little bit older girls, like 18 and above, that would be better. But I think it’s such an individual thing, I think you shouldn’t generalise because every person is different. And [there are] different jobs. Being a ballerina for example is so intense.

FW: How old were you when you started modelling?
AR: Well I was actually really young [laughs]. Well fulltime I started when I was actually older, when I was 19. But when I was at school I would model .

FW: It must hard though, when someone is presented with an opportunity at a certain age, whether it’s wise to pass it up.
AR: Of course it’s hard. But if there would be no demand or anything like that... It’s a once in a lifetime kind of chance. It’s not like you can come back to it. You either have your moment or you don’t. And it depends on the model as to whether that moment extends to a career. If she’s smart enough to use it.

FW: So getting back to the engagement, you went to see a vampire film?
AR: No not a film, it’s an opera written by Roman Polanski. They play it all around Europe in different languages. It was actually playing in Poland and I really wanted to see it but I was working and this and that happened, so I saw it in German. It was very emotional and the music kind of tells the story, you don’t need to understand it word by word. I love the whole vampire thing I have to say. The whole idea that there’s the good guy and the bad guy and the girl goes for the bad guy. It’s so obvious, he’s a really good-looking vampire.

FW: And the ring?
AR: Yes I have a ring. It’s a beautiful Cartier ring, I think it’s gold. Solitaire.

Myf Shepherd goes back to work

The February 2011 edition of Vogue Australia doesn’t just offer up Catherine McNeil’s fifth cover of the magazine. It also represents the return of Myf Shepherd to modelling after a year hiatus to study set design in Sydney. McNeil’s Chic Management stablemate rocketed to international modelling stardom after her debut at Rosemount Australian Fashion Week in May 2008, walking the runways of some of the world's biggest fashion names and booking campaigns including Gucci and Miu Miu, only to put her burgeoning career on ice this time last year. Chic Management reports that the Vogue shoot was Shepherd’s first job back at work. She appears in six images in the massive 30-page New Season Hit List story that was shot by Nicole Bentley and also stars Codie Young, Alice Burdeu, Samantha Harris, Ruby Jean Wilson and Annaleise Smith. Chic reports that Shepherd has also shot a campaign for Myer [possibly the autumn/winter 2011 campaign] in addition to two other local campaigns. “Myf’s back modelling” Chic Management director Kathy Ward told frockwriter. “She’s continuing on with her studies but she’s very excited to be based in Sydney now and modelling for top end magazines and securing some major Australian campaigns as well. She may go back for the [Haute Couture SS11 or FW1112] shows, although there are no plans at this stage. But things happen very quickly, there’s a slight chance she may”.

all images: nicole bentley for vogue australia february 2011 via TFS

Catherine McNeil scores her fifth Vogue Australia cover

vogue australia via TFS

It seems Vogue Australia just can't get enough of Catherine McNeil. Just five months after her last Vogue Australia cover, an edition which also included multiple McNeil editorials, here she is on the cover of the magazine's February 2011 issue. According to McNeil's mother agency Chic Management, the cover was shot by Max Doyle in Sydney "several months ago" - before McNeil cut her hair into a short bob and died it black (and was quite possibly shot in August, when she was in town for the David Jones Spring/Summer 2010/2011 runway show). This is McNeil's fifth Vogue Australia cover. Currently at home enjoying the Christmas-New Year break with her family and friends, McNeil is soon due to return to the work in the northern hemisphere.  

Rosemary Smith pieces together Jigsaw for Autumn/Winter 2011

Rosemary Smith has had a big year. After a slow burn in 2009, during which she shot for Harpers Bazaar Australia and Marie Claire Australia - and made it onto models.com's emerging models/creatives site, The Ones 2 Watch - this year she nabbed a Vogue Australia exclusive, which saw her featured in the August, October, November and December editions, swapped agencies (from Viviens to Chic Management) and will soon be featured in a new faces spread in V Magazine in the US. The latter was shot last month, while she attended castings for the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. Smith wasn't cast in the latter, however she has just bagged another local ad campaign. Adding to her recent Ksubi Eyewear and Ojay campaigns, here is a first look at Smith in the Autumn/Winter 2011 campaign for another Australian high street fashion chain, Jigsaw. It sees the Daria Werbowy lookalike reunited with photographer Nicole Bentley, who shot two of the Vogue editorials. The campaign was styled by Claudia Navone and photographed in a private mansion in Bellevue Hill. After her recent turn on the David Jones runway, where Smith caught the eye of Sydney expat casting director Kannon Rajah (who just added Versace to his client list, which already includes Fendi and the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show), let's hope we see her on the international runways in 2011. 

all images: nicole bentley for jigsaw. supplied exclusively to frockwriter by jigsaw

A supermodel New Year

vogue paris june/july 2009 via style frizz

Some parts of the world might be winding down for the holidays but of course, fashion never sleeps. Frockwriter has it on good authority that Polish supermodel Anja Rubik (above)  – who is ranked as the world No 3 by models.com – will be winging her way downunder to shoot for Vogue Australia, in time for New Year’s Eve. With 11 international Vogue covers to her credit, six of them in 2010, one could only speculate that if Rubik was going to be featured anywhere in an upcoming edition of Vogue Australia, surely it would be the cover? If that’s the case, then good to see our Vogue finally shooting more of its own material, after many years of rehashing covers from international editions. Sure, plenty of other international and local titles do this, however all the publicity and accolades regarding Vogue Australia’s original covers over the past year, from Cate Blanchett to Abbey Lee Kershaw, Catherine McNeil and Miranda Kerr, can’t have hurt push the idea along. But we understand that Rubik might not be the only supermod in town over the New Year. 

Iekeliene Stange arrived on Monday this week, to promote the Wish Autumn/Winter 2011 campaign that was just shot in New York with Sonny Vandevelde. 

McNeil is apparently already back home for Christmas. There is even a chance, we also hear, that Kershaw might either not be heading back to New York after this week’s Portmans shoot, or else may be returning. 

If Kerr does indeed plan to have her baby downunder, as per speculation, she would most likely need to be getting back soon, given that she is due in January. 

Kerr probably won’t feel much like partying on NYE but don’t count on the others not kicking their heels up. Especially the Next posse (Rubik, McNeil, Kershaw). We hear they may even be joined by a US celebrity...

Miranda Kerr, publicity machine

You’ve got to hand it to Miranda Kerr. When most pregnant models would be expecting to spend a fair amount of time out of the spotlight as they await their bundle of joy, Kerr has arguably spent more time in the spotlight than ever before over the past four months. Ever since the news first whipped around the world in July that she was skipping the Spring/Summer 2010/2011 launch of Australian department store David Jones because of her sudden wedding to Orlando Bloom. Then she announced she was four months pregnant - to Spanish Vogue. Then in October, when she was five months along, she walked on Balenciaga's runway in Paris - later that month, popping up nude, obviously shot pre-pregnancy, in Russell James' new V2 book. Last week, when she would normally have been basking in the - shared - spotlight of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, Kerr managed to gazump even that media bonanza with news of a nude Patrick Demarchelier photoshoot for W magazine. Kerr’s latest headlines: a profile on Australia’s 60 Minutes this evening and, confirming a rumour first floated by New York Magazine’s The Cut blog last month, she will appear on the January cover of Vogue Australia. Update 15/11: And here is a highres image, above.

Shot by Carlotte Moye, Kerr is fully clothed this time – as revealed by the sneak peek in today’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper (below). No surprise there, since News Limited owns the Vogue Australia license. And no surprise either, really, that this is the first time Vogue Australia has featured a pregnant covergirl. What is perhaps surprising, however, is that it has taken this long for Kerr to land her first Vogue Australia cover. 

Although technically a 2011 cover, this represents the third Vogue cover that Kerr has shot this year, after the Spanish and Italian editions. She also featured in three editorials in the September edition of US Vogue. 

Little wonder that although many may have assumed Kerr's pregnancy might place a dint in her so far promising crossover from the more lucrative commercial arena of Victoria's Secret and co to the edgier high fashion area, modelling authority models.com recently upgraded her world ranking from #15 to #8. 

In the accompanying Sunday Telegraph interview, Kerr reveals that she recently shot a new campaign for David Jones, with some of the footage to air in tonight's 60 Minutes story.


One bit of publicity that Kerr did not court, however, was an unauthorised nude spread in London's News of the World newspaper. And frankly, who could blame her? 

Last month, frockwriter revealed the name of the photographer who attempted to sell eight year old nude images of a then 18 year-old Kerr (according to our sources, to The News of the World) but wanted his name left out any sales deal: Jasper Glavanics. 

It's unclear what has happened with these photos. They have yet to surface in any publication, in spite of claims by local photo agency Tito Media that they soon would be. The agency had first tried to sell the photos to Kerr to get them off the market. Kerr's camp vehemently denies that it purchased the photos.

Many have since asked, just what was the fuss, given that Kerr has posed nude for numerous publications?

The nudity is not the issue, here. Nor was nudity the issue in the case of Playboy's recent Greg Lotus photos of Lara Stone - whose body of nude work is far greater than Kerr's. 

Stone may well have happily posed for Lotus as a favour for a magazine test shoot or other two years ago, but apparently she was never consulted over the sale of the images to Playboy and recently successfully sued both Playboy and Lotus for their unauthorised publication.   

scan by geniedemelbourne/tfs

  vogue cover: supplied

Was Marion Hume fired from Vogue Australia for putting a black woman on the cover?

Naomi Campbell is never far from the headlines. On Sunday she managed to inadvertently embroil an Australian publisher in one. In a story headlined 'Editor sacked in racism row', Campbell told the UK Telegraph, "One time, I went to Australia. The editor-in-chief of a magazine there told me that she got fired for putting me on the cover. I do remember going there and saying, 'Where's the Aboriginal model? There should be one. They're beautiful women.'" No names are mentioned. But coincidentally, another Brit by the name of Marion Hume edited Vogue Australia for 18 months in the late 1990s, during which time she commissioned Peter Lindbergh to shoot Campbell for the June 1997 cover, above. In 1998 Hume was fired, following a controversial tenure, during which, it should be noted, she did not manage to stem the erosion of circulation and advertising that had begun prior to her appointment with the arrival of marie claire in 1995 and continued with the 1998 rebirth of Harpers Bazaar Australia. From 1995-1999 Vogue lost almost a quarter of its readers and two-thirds of its ad share. In 2002, Conde Nast withdrew from Australian publishing, selling the Vogue license to FPC Magazines, which in turn was acquired by News Limited in November 2006. 

Another British native, Juliet Ashworth, briefly succeeded Hume at the helm of Vogue Australia. She lasted a year.

Industry insiders claim that Hume was responsible for budget blowouts that took current editor Kirstie Clements, who arrived in 1999, years to pay off. One could speculate that had Hume managed to turn the circulation around, Condé Nast might have turned a blind eye to the costs.  

Hume was also criticised for taking the magazine "downmarket". A newspaper-trained journalist and former fashion reporter for The Financial Times, Hume's critical reviews of the thin-skinned designers on show at the newly-minted Mercedes Australian Fashion Week caused a minor uproar in Australia at the time.

But could the Campbell cover really have factored into Hume losing her job?

Frockwriter contacted Hume, Clements and News Magazines earlier today and we are waiting to hear back. Not that News Magazines was involved at the time of course. 

The whereabouts of Peter Gaunt, the former Condé Nast Australia managing director who fired Hume, are unknown. But we are also waiting to hear back from Didier Guerin, the former Condé Nast Asia Pacific president who hired Hume and who is now the president and ceo of the Sydney-based company Media Convergence Asia Pacific.

A former Vogue staffer who worked with Hume said they had never previously heard the racism theory floated with regard to her termination. They did, however, concede that the Campbell cover, which was apparently Hume's first complete issue, did raise eyebrows in the industry at the time.

"I remember it being 'shocking'" they noted. "I do recall people talking about it being controversial, but in a brave kind of way in the fashion industry. I don't remember anyone being aghast".

Being Hume's first complete issue, this also meant that she survived in the job well over a year after the issue was published. 

As part of her settlement with Condé Nast, we understand Hume signed a confidentiality agreement. 

vogue US, september 1989 via we shall overcome in couture

Why would anyone be shocked about a black woman being on the cover of Vogue Australia? 

Because there have been so few black women on the cover of Vogue Australia.

And indeed even on the cover of the American edition. Some may recall that when flicking through old issues of US Vogue in The September Issue documentary, editor Anna Wintour paused at her September 1989 edition, that was covered by Campbell (above), and made a point of noting "that was a very controversial issue".

It is unclear just how many times women of colour have graced the covers of Vogue Australia since the publication's 1959 launch.

In terms of indigenous Australians, there have only been two in 51 years: Elaine George in September 1993 and Samantha Harris in June this year:

vogue australia june 2010 via TFS

It was tricky tracking down a complete Vogue Australia cover archive, but certainly on the seven year cover archive on vogue.com.au's website, Harris appears to be the first non-Caucasion to have made page one since 2003.

Diversity of all kinds is currently a hot button issue in the fashion business at the moment. 

In terms of ethnic diversity in the modelling business, longtime black inclusion activist Bethann Hardison told The New York Times in 2007 that “It’s the worst it’s ever been”.

Campbell has also been extremely vocal on this issue, claiming in 2007 that she had never once appeared on the cover of her home town edition of Vogue, ie Vogue UK.

It subsequently emerged that Campbell had in fact been on the cover of Vogue UK eight times in 20 years. So really, how credible is her testimony?