Five minutes with Ruby Jean Wilson

Born in Scotland and raised in the UK, Ruby Jean Wilson emigrated to Australia with her family at age 13 and started modelling three years later. In a very short space of time she has certainly made her mark. One of Australia's most high profile catwalkers on the international show circuit over the past couple of seasons, at the Spring/Summer 2013 shows in September and October she opened and closed Marc Jacobs and then opened Louis Vuitton, subsequently scoring ad campaigns for both brands. The campaigns were lensed by Juergen Teller and Steven Meisel, respectively, and she is the sole star of the Marc Jacobs campaign. Back home briefly from her new, New York base for a summer holiday, frockwriter caught up Wilson just before Christmas at the Australian Fashion Foundation party to announce the winners of the foundation's 2013 burrs. Among the topics canvassed with RJW: which other family members might follow in her fashionable footsteps? And whose name does she have tattooed on her left wrist? 

Codie Young is the face of Marc Jacobs' latest fragrance

via wwd

Congratulations are due to Codie Young on the occasion of her first fragrance campaign. The Sunshine Coast model is the face of Marc Jacobs' third womens' fragrance, 'Dot', which is due to be released in the US and UK in July according to a story in the April 6 edition of WWD, which also reports a projected global first year retail sales estimate of US$100million. With this campaign under her belt, 19 year-old Young - who has been modelling for under two years - has entered the ranks of Australia's highest earning models. How many other Australians have scored international fragrance deals? They include Alyssa Sutherland (Bulgari), Gemma Ward (Calvin Klein), Abbey Lee Kershaw (Gucci), Andrej Pejic (Jean Paul Gaultier), Catherine McNeil (Narciso Rodriguez), Skye Stracke (Cacharel), Sarah Stephens (Lacoste) and Juliana Forge (Ralph Lauren). 

Andrej Pejic on the cover of ZEIT magazin

zeit magazin's facebook

Andrej Pejic's first modelling job was a cover: issue #77 of Australia's Oyster magazine, in 2008, together with two female models. Given Pejic's profile today, that was extraordinarily good foresight on Oyster's part. What is surprising, perhaps, is that it has taken this long for Pejic to land a solo cover. Germany's ZEIT magazin is the first cab off what frockwriter understands is a rapidly lengthening cover rank for Pejic, with two other European covers shot in the past two weeks - one of them, quite a big deal in fashion terms. ZEIT magazin is the arts/culture supplement to German newspaper Die Zeit. Founded in 1970, the magazine describes itself as the paper's "emotional section" and its numerous investigations and scoops over the years include having tracked down, in Buenos Aires, the long-lost original version of Fritz Lang's 1927 German Expressionist masterpiece Metropolis, which then premiered at last year's Berlin International Film Festival.

Marc by Marc Jacobs Spring/Summer 2011 by Juergen Teller - the campaign

We've seen a preview of Marc by Marc Jacobs' Spring/Summer 2011 advertising imagery, lensed by Juergen Teller. But now, on his website, Jacobs has just unveiled much more of the campaign. It stars Latvian Ginta Lapina, Serbian Australian Andrej Pejic and, it now emerges, a third model: androgynous Dutchman Jaco van den Hoven, the only brunette amongst the three. Shot in Marrakech just before Christmas, the campaign illustrates Pejic's unique versatility: he's not just the dude in the dress, but can also rock the sexy surfer boy look in straight menswear.

Andrej Pejic and Ginta Lapina rock the casbah for Marc by Marc Jacobs Spring/Summer 2011

trisiantomike via TFS

So Marc Jacobs went the guess-the-gender route for his Marc by Marc Jacobs Spring/Summer 2011 advertising campaign? That was the theory, following the news that he had cast androgynous Australian model Andrej Pejic opposite lookalike Latvian Ginta Lapina. Judging by this first look at the campaign that was recently shot by Juergen Teller in Marrakech, as just scanned from Teen Vogue’s February 2011 issue (and which is an exact match with some out-takes from the shoot that were posted by Pejic on Facebook) Pejic looks more like a cute Australian surfer boy. More shots to come.

Andrej Pejic nabs Marc by Marc Jacobs to boot

armin morbach for tush via fashion gone rogue

 
Ah the Andrej Pejic story. There's just no end to the updates. So after mesmerising the Paris Spring/Summer 2011 mens runways in June, booking editorials with, among others, Vogue Paris and Vogue Italia, not to mention Jean Paul Gaultier's Spring/Summer 2011 ad campaign, WWD reported an hour ago in Monday's Fashion Scoops column (here) that Pejic has just shot the Marc by Marc Jacobs SS11 campaign (confirming previous reports on frockwriter that he had booked a second campaign). Last week Pejic debuted at No 40 on models.com's Top 50 Male Models. Notes MDC: "Andrej, in a few short months has become the face of a new sort of male beauty, the kind that sparks comments, controversies and intense scrutiny... look for Andrej's stock to rise even higher in 2011". You can count on it.

Yes, Emma Balfour did shoot Céline's Fall/Winter 2010/2011 advertising campaign

212 @ modernparty.cn via the fashion spot

On June 1, frockwriter mentioned that our well-placed sources had spotted veteran Australian model Emma Balfour shooting the Fall/Winter 2010/2011 campaign for French luxury brand Céline in New York alongside at least one other model. The first images of the Juergen Teller-lensed campaign have just surfaced and voilà Balfour, together with Martiniquais/French model Sigrid Agren (below). This is a huge coup for Balfour, who popped back up on the modelling radar in September 2008 during New York Fashion Week in the Marc Jacobs and Alexander Wang shows. Pushing 40, she was old enough to be the mother of her teen runway colleagues. By the Fall/Winter 2010/2011 season in February/March this year, which boasted Stella Tennant, Kristen McMenamy and Elle Macpherson, among others, Nineties modelling faces had made a small, yet significant, return to the runways - not to mention the ad pages. Here is 39 year-old Tennant in Balenciaga's FW1011 campaign.