Tallulah Morton - apparently still partying with The Cobrasnake

the cobrasnake

Four months after controversial party photographs of 16 year-old Australian model Tallulah Morton first surfaced on the high profile website of US party snapper Mark ‘The Cobrasnake’ Hunter – and kept on surfacing – yet more classy Cobrasnake party snaps of La Morton have appeared. The latest were taken in Auckland over the weekend at a party for No Magazine.

There to celebrate the first anniversary of the quarterly indie Kiwi mag – whose fourth cover, of Peaches Geldof, was taken by Hunter – Morton and Hunter appear to have been the guests of honour.

Morton lived up to her reputation as a hard partying gal, snapped arm-in-arm with other partygoers, couch and podium dancing and even handing out poppers. That's poppers of the innocuous streamer variety, frockwriter trusts – as we trust that was mere orange juice being knocked back by Morton, who is of course still under the legal drinking age in Australia and New Zealand.



the cobrasnake

I did not mention it at the time, because frankly, I thought I'd give her a break, but the fact is, Morton was wandering around the party which followed Myer's Sydney show in August, with a glass of champagne in her hand.

At a big party, that was crawling with photographers, that’s really a great look for a 16 year-old who had made the news in Australia several weeks beforehand over a series of Paris party shots.

In the latter photographs, taken by Hunter, Morton had looked very much under the weather, whilst holding a magnum of Absolut vodka.

Morton's mother agency, Scene Models, laughed off the Paris party shots at the time.

Scene’s Nicolas Alexander told The Sydney Morning Herald:

"Tallulah is always such a responsible young lady, and this seems out of character. She always has someone in each country with her when away and is always with a chaperone, so it would appear the pictures are being made out to be more than what they actually are."

Although some assumed Morton might have consolidated her nascent international runway career in the Spring/Summer 2009 season, as revealed by frockwriter in late September, Morton was recalled to Australia after the season’s New York leg, after failing to shake a nagging flu.

The Troyt Coburn editorial that we mentioned was coming up in Australian Vogue’s December issue is now out. The spread is called, funnily enough, 'Indecent Exposure'. Speculation in Auckland suggests that Hunter may be shooting Morton for the next No Magazine cover today.

Pedestrian TV was evidently on the money when it asked, back in July, ‘Is Tallulah Morton the new Cory Kennedy?’.

Morton would appear to have definitely supplanted Kennedy as Hunter’s muse.

Although denied by Morton, there is much speculation that Morton and Hunter may even be romantically linked. Shots of Morton brushing her teeth in what one assumes is an Auckland hotel room, don't really help quell that speculation. But look, we're sure it's great for Hunter's image as a playboy.

As for Morton's image, it should be noted that Cory Kennedy was a teenage nobody before being snapped by Hunter and transformed into an overnight net celebrity.

Morton, on the other hand, is a professional model who was being paid for her image from the age of 13. Her career, or at least the kind of career to which one assumes Morton and her management aspire, hinges on the propensity for prestige international publications and luxury fashion and beauty brands to continue to pay her for it – because they think her look aligns with their brands.

Is she at risk of cheapening that image by continuing to give it away in this way?

Or is there no such thing as bad publicity?

Time will tell.

UPDATED: 'TOO YOUNG' - THE COBRASNAKE EXPOSES 200 GIRLS, TALLULAH DOES A PANTS-FREE IV