From Goot to Gaultier? Tallulah rising

Tallulah Morton in Jean Paul Gaultier's FW0809 haute couture show, July 2nd/Style.com


Balenciaga's Nicolas Ghesquière has Stephanie Carta. Could compatriot French designer Jean Paul Gaultier also be going for an Oz model muse in Tallulah Morton? Three years after the now 16 year-old first emerged at Australian Fashion Week, opening Josh Goot's debut AFW show, Morton appeared in not one but two Gaultier shows in Paris over the past week.

First up, she was one of a handful of female models in JGP's SS09 menswear show. Then on Wednesday, Morton walked in his haute couture show [above^].

Morton moved to Paris in February and is now repped there by the Marilyn agency. She walked in an impressive ten FW0809 shows in her first Paris season, including Christian Dior, Ungaro, Kenzo, John Galliano, Hussein Chalayan, Gaultier and also Hermès, whose creative director is of course....Gaultier.

This now makes in fact four Gaultier shows for Morton in the space of four months.

According to Vikki Graham, who heads up Morton's Sydney mother agency Scene Models, Morton was recently handpicked by Gaultier to appear in an upcoming Hermès retrospective editorial feature in Paris.

Graham reports there is quite some new Morton fashion editorial about to hit the stands, including Italian fashion magazines Muse and Velvet. Morton is due to appear on the latter's August/September cover and in 18 pages of editorial.

After her appearance at Goot's AFW debut - and tipped as "the next Gemma Ward" - the subsequently much-hyped Morton appeared in a multitude of Australian fashion editorials and advertising campaigns.

In September 2006, when she was still only 14, she made her international runway debut at the SS07 shows in New York. Two weeks later she failed to show up on the European runways.

According to Graham this was primarily due to the restrictions imposed on under-16 models in Europe, notably Paris.

With models such as Tanya D working steadily across the world from the age of 14 however, it is clearly not impossible for under-16s to get the appropriate paperwork cleared.

In Paris that season, one casting source told me that he believed the real reason why Morton failed to take off on the Paris runways was because she was "too chunky".

Experience is increasingly dictating of course that in Paris/Milan model biz speak, "too chunky" may be code for "you don't look anorexic".

So, did Morton "tone up" as they say in the modelling biz? Or has she simply finally emerged in the right place at the right time?

According to Graham there were never any weight issues. Morton lost "maximum two kilos" prior to her Paris move, said Graham, but that was due to a new training regime.

"It was more about trying top get her into toning up her teenage body and getting her into good [eating] habits" noted Graham. "Not a single agency said to me that she needs to lose weight".

She added, "What they all said was, 'Get her here as soon as you can'".


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