Snubbed by ANTM - booked by Prada and Gucci

Myf Shepherd, as shot - although not literally, we hope - by Douglas Perrett/COACD

We mentioned two weeks ago that the NY hype had already started before Myf Shepherd had even gotten on the bloody plane. But now, a fortnight in the Big Apple and she is already making model waves - christened by no less than Prada and Gucci. All the more amusing therefore to hear from Shepherd’s Sydney agent, Kathy Ward, that the 17 year-old Queenslander was, earlier this year, culled from auditions for the current season of Australia’s Next Top Model because the producers didn’t, ahem, think she had what it takes.

Scouted in January this year on the street in Newfarm, Brisbane by Alexis Elliott, head of Chic Management’s Future Faces Division, Shepherd (nee Myfanwy Amy Shepherd, but previously known as Amy Shepherd) hit the ground running at last month’s Australian Fashion Week, walking in 17 shows in her first show season - more than any other model from the same agency.

Neither Foxtel nor ANTM production company Granada Productions were at press time able to confirm or deny that Shepherd had auditioned for the series.

On November 1st 2007 however, The Gold Coast Bulletin published a story about Shepherd’s hopes for selection in Cycle 4. In the story, ANTM host Jodhi Meares is quoted as saying:

“Definitely, I will be pushing for her to go through. I think she is quite amazing”.

Evidently Meares wasn’t pushy enough.

Shepherd walked in the Prada Resort show earlier this week in New York. According to The Ones 2 Watch, she was also booked for Gucci’s “two-day” resort presentation – although it’s unclear whether this refers solely to Gucci’s lowkey New York showing to editors, or additionally the big Gucci resort runway extravaganza that is reportedly due to take place in Rome on July 8.

Shepherd’s compatriot, and fellow Chic Management fledgling, Sarah Stephens, was also booked for Gucci according to TO2W. Kathy Ward said she was unaware if either model had been retained for anything Gucci-related beyond the New York editors presentations. No news yet on options for the haute couture shows in Paris, which begin in a few weeks. But Shepherd at least heads to Paris early next week for casting sessions.

On Thursday Shepherd popped up in a cameo on the COACD blog of model hypemeister Douglas Perrett, a US casting director (picture and link above^) - and on Friday, on that of Wayne Sterling, aka The Imagist, who is a co-founder of models.com. TO2W also reports that both Shepherd and Stephens are due to appear in a new faces spread in the UK 10 Magazine; that Stephens is booked for Numero and that Shepherd is not only confirmed for the Numero Tokyo option we mentioned two weeks ago, but is also due to appear in an upcoming editorial in Exit Magazine.

And no, the latter apparently has nothing to do with Dr Philip Nitschke – even though one could be forgiven for so thinking in the wake of a comment made by leading casting director James Scully at Tuesday night’s CFDA model health chinwag in NYC:

“Let’s stop treating models like greyhounds we plan to shoot after a race”.

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