Australia's next top models plot a New York Fashion Week takeover

elite via models.com

As far as frockwriter can ascertain, there is not a single Australian designer due to show during New York Fashion Week's Fall/Winter 2011 season, which officially kicks off on February 10th. Kit Willow Podgornik will shoot her Fall/Winter 2011/2012 lookbook in New York on February 9th, but that's a private event. This is a big change, of course, compared to five years ago, when up to seven Australian labels were showing their wares there. But this does not mean that there won't be any Australians on New York's runways. In fact, FW1112 is shaping up to be a bumper season for antipodian models in The Big Apple. The world number 5, Abbey Lee Kershaw, won't be among them, however, as she will skip New York Fashion Week this season. Although due to head to Milan and Paris, prior to those legs Kershaw will be tied up in London with a "personal music project" [telling her mother agency, Chic Management, this will involve a performance with "my band" - read Our Mountain, the band of Kershaw's boyfriend Matthew Hutchinson, with whom Kershaw has previously performed on stage). 

Victoria's Secret gives Australian models the cold shoulder

manik mercian for victoria's secret/getty via daylife

Since Miranda Kerr first touched down in the multimillion dollar extravaganza that is the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show in 2006, there has been a steady trickle of Australian faces onto its runway. In 2008, Kerr was joined by Abbey Lee Kershaw and Sarah Stephens. Last year, the Aussie VS triumvirate was comprised of Kerr, Kershaw and Elyse Taylor. No surprise that at seven months pregnant, Kerr is out of action at this year’s event. But what is perhaps surprising is that there are no other Australian models in this year’s show – the first taping of which has just occurred in New York, with another show imminent. Not even Kershaw, who is ranked by models.com as the world number five and who some believed was locked in. Frockwriter can confirm that Kershaw did not do the show. Her Sydney and New York agencies have been unusually quiet on matters VS in the leadup to this year's event - and given that all the Australians in the show to date have been from their stable, that's understandable. All Chic Management would say this morning was that Kershaw was "very busy" with other matters.

Summer blockbusters: Australians on the runways for SS11

Another international show season has wrapped. And as has been the case over the past seven years - since the arrival of Gemma Ward - Australian models continue to grab an increasingly large share of that runway real estate. Below is a list of all Australians on the Spring/Summer 2011 runways - updated from frockwriter's post three weeks ago, at the end of the season's first leg in New York. The list is ranked, top to bottom, by show numbers, but clearly, some shows eclipse others in prestige. Hence Abbey Lee Kershaw doesn't have the biggest show tally, but overall was booked for a higher volume of big shows. Unheard of this time last year, Julia Nobis walked in 43 shows, including some of fashion's biggest names. Ajak Deng and Lauren Brown also continued their ascent. Even Miranda Kerr, at five months pregnant, made an appearance on Balenciaga's runway. Who would have thought it possible two years ago? With Kerr recently lurching forward to the eighth position on models.com's Top 50 working models rankings - jumping seven places since we last profiled this list in July - that places three Australians in the world top 12.