Abbey Lee gets on her high horse

SHOWstudio

Obviously Abbey Lee Kershaw never got the WC Fields memo - that you should never work with children or animals. Following hot on the heels of Vogue Nippon’s April 2008 ‘Daughter of the jungle’ editorial spread, for which Kershaw was shot in the amorous embrace of a clutch of behemoth plush animals (see below), comes a new shoot for Britain’s Dazed & Confused magazine.

Overnight on Nick Knight’s SHOWstudio blog a series of almost one dozen posts popped up with behind-the-scenes reportage on the shoot.

The posts include a number of videos which feature Kershaw (^).

In the clips, Kershaw attempts to negotiate not only the precarious operatic ensembles of Brit enfant terrible Gareth Pugh – one tabard fashioned entirely from safety pins and reportedly weighing as much as the designer – but also a 16.3 hand Friesian stallion.

Shot inside a west London studio, with the assistance of stylist KT Shillingford, makeup artist Alex Box and hair stylist Martin Curren, both Kershaw and the horse – whose name is Castiano – get kitted out in Pugh.

Prior to the addition of a unicorn's horn, here is Castiano being covered in Pugh's black geodesic 'armour':


SHOWstudio

Kershaw appears in one video practicing “her spinning” on the ground – balletic moves which she is then seen deploying astride Castiano in another video called “A final flourish”.

The “Charge” video sounds like it’s straight out of an episode of Absolutely Fabulous.

In the clip, Kershaw is mounted on Castiano. As the horse moves, a small voice in what sounds like an Australian accent can just be heard saying:

“Where are you going??”

Meanwhile two women, apparently horse wranglers, can be heard talking directly to the horse:

“Casti - Go back darling, back darling, back. All the way. Good boy”

No words of encouragement for Kershaw – but then she's probably not in it for a biscuit of lucerne hay.

Frockwriter would like to say well done anyway.

We would also like to suggest that if Kathy Ward - a director of Kershaw's Oz mother agency Chic Management and an avid dressage rider - has not already considered conducting some wannabe-supermods-meet-the-nay-nays workshops, it’s probably not a bad idea.


vogue nippon via tfs