Bob's your uncle: Catherine McNeil also gets the chop

nicole bentley, vogue australia september 2010 via TFS

Yes that’s a wig that Catherine McNeil is sporting in this Vogue Australia September 2010 editorial, above. But apparently the world #12 liked the look so much, she’s gone and had it replicated. Well, kind of. By all accounts, McNeil's new do is not a "long, choppy" Abbey Lee Kershaw bob, aka a "Kob", but a bob nonetheless and black to boot. There is as yet no hard photographic evidence beyond a bunch of Facebook photos and the shot, below, published on October 21st on the blog of McNeil’s model mate Stephanie Carta, together with the caption, “Yesterday kitty cut her locks off, Sorry, died them black! Meow”. UPDATED 29/10: HERE ARE SOME FIRST SHOTS. Not even McNeil’s Sydney-based mother agency was up with her hair news when we enquired earlier this week. But after days of buzz on model forums, Stephen Lee at McNeil’s New York agency Next finally confirmed the earth-shattering news to frockwriter overnight: yes, McNeil has definitely cut her hair. Lee added that McNeil has been enjoying a month’s break of “total normality” from the modelling business. 

"It's nice to be able to see how a short break from the business can rejuvenate and revitalize that spark that everyone, no matter what their business, needs" said Lee. 

That’s a second break, presumably, after McNeil already took some time off from the world’s runways late last year and then began to make a return at New York Fashion Week in September, only to mysteriously disappear off the Spring/Summer 2011 circuit in London.

   

Perhaps McNeil was also inspired by the deluge of publicity that followed the recent decisions by compatriot and Chic/Next stablemate Kershaw to not only cut her hair, but later dye it platinum blond. In a business that's all about 'the look', a new haircut could be a great career move.

carta is back