Vogue Australia's Model Series is an IMG Models exclusive

The competition in Australia's modelling market was already heating up before IMG Models rolled into town last July. Sydney agency Chic Management was accused of "undercutting" the competition at last year's Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia via the agency's "Chic Exclusive" shows featuring only Chic models. Frockwriter understands that the Chic Exclusives will continue at this year's event, which officially starts on Monday, but has kicked off already with a few off-schedule shows around town this week. Tomorrow morning's Carla Zampatti show in the Sydney CBD will feature only Chic girls. Meanwhile, IMG Models Australia has returned fire by stitching up its own big exclusive - with no less than Vogue Australia. And the other agencies are fuming. 

In Vogue: Cassi van den Dungen

Frockwriter recently revealed that Cassi van den Dungen had her first editorial coming up in Vogue Australia – 16 pages no less. Hot on the heels of her international runway debut for Giles Deacon and Miu Miu, here is a sneak peek of the issue, which is due out on Monday. Expensive? At $19,000 for this Chanel dress, van den Dungen should do her former Australia's Next Top Model colleague Alex Perry proud. 

Cassi van den Dungen makes her move

stephen ward via dion lee's facebook

Cassi van den Dungen fans will no doubt be thrilled to hear that the next instalment of the Cassi saga is.... she just made her international runway debut at London Fashion Week, walking for Australian fashion star Dion Lee in the International Woolmark Prize show overnight. Lee lost out to Belgium's Christian Wijnants, but the whole exercise was a fantastic promotional opportunity for Lee and all the other contestants, not to mention van den Dungen, who strutted her stuff in front of a prestigious judging panel headed up by no less than Diane von Furstenberg, Donatella Versace and Vogue Italia editor Franca Sozzani. 

Kirstie Clements' Vogue Factor

vogue australia september 2011 - via fashionmodeldirectory.com

Judging by the response to Frockwriter’s Salute to Kirstie Clements tribute last May – one of our top 10 posts of 2012 – there is a huge amount of interest in, and goodwill towards, the former Vogue Australia editor. Her shock axing last year, followed by the dismantling of pretty much the entire Vogue Australia team she worked with, had the Australian fashion industry abuzz. But Clements fell on her feet quickly, snapped up by Melbourne University Press to pen an autobiography about her 25 year career – nearly all of it spent at Vogue, starting as a receptionist in the 1980s. The book, called The Vogue Factor, is due out February 28th (you can pre-order it here). We caught up with Clements to learn a little more about her fashion “tell-all” and what she’s up to. Incidentally, you’ll never guess who she was about to put on the cover at the time of her departure.

Catherine McNeil covers Vogue Australia (again)

vogue australia via chic management

Well we did say last month that Catherine McNeil looks to be enjoying a brand new lease of life, with a new love interest in the form of 21 year-old British model Miles Langdon. And now her great 2012 run with the Vogue brand - which has seen three spreads in the Australian, French and Chinese editions so far this year - continues next month with the November cover of Vogue Australia. Believe it or not, this is McNeil's sixth cover of the Australian edition. The last being in February 2011.  

In Vogue: Catherine McNeil and Miles Langford

catherine mcneil's instagram

And in news just in, Catherine McNeil has a new love interest: British model Miles Langford. But far more newsworthy, we feel, than the fact that McNeil is taking a break from the laydees (prompting some minor kvetching from lesbian forums such as The L Chat) is the birth of a cool new modelling It couple. After McBeha - the hybrid nickname for McNeil and former gf, Danish model Freja Beha Erichsen - and McNeil’s brief engagement to Australian model-turned MTV VJ-turned DJ Ruby Rose, we give you MiCat. Well, that's what we're calling them. 

Seven minutes with Christine Centenera

You've got to hand it to Christine Centenera. The former fashion editor of Harpers Bazaar Australia, newly-appointed senior fashion editor of Vogue Australia and fashion director of the soon-to-be-unveiled "diffusion brand" Miss Vogue, consultant to Kanye West and Ksubi – not to mention life partner of hotshot Australian designer Josh Goot – is one of the most globally-visible Australian fashion figures. If not the most visible, with her killer personal style religiously documented by the world's fashion media every time she steps out at an international fashion event. And much to her eternal chagrin it seems. Another thing that singles the über stylish, part-Filipino out is her humility. In a world of attention whores, Centenera seems genuinely embarrassed by the attention, barely putting herself out there in social media – with just a recent Instagram account to her name.

A salute to Kirstie Clements

vogue.com.au

The Australian fashion industry had a reality check yesterday, with the announcement that Kirstie Clements had been unceremoniously dethroned as editor of Vogue Australia. Unceremoniously is putting it kindly. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, Clements - up until yesterday the second longest-serving editor of the current Australian mainstream fashion magazine pack after Marie Claire's Jackie Frank - was escorted from the premises by security, with her phone confiscated [update 19/05: although Clements made no effort on Thursday or Friday on Twitter to correct this version of events - which we understand were witnessed by third parties - she has since denied to the SMH that her phone was confiscated or that she was escorted from the building]. The axing of two other senior NewsLifeMedia editorial executives at the same moment might have helped assuage the humiliation. This was business, after all, for News Limited, nothing personal. Given the accompanying press release, it was pretty clear that new News Limited ceo Kim Williams and his axe-woman, new NewsLifeMedia ceo Nicole Sheffield, had no idea just how personal a matter it would have been for Clements. They stated she had been Vogue's editor for 10 years, out of a total 13 years with the magazine. In fact, Clements was Vogue's editor for 13 years - but she originally joined the title in 1985 as a receptionist, before moving up through the ranks and briefly defecting to the newly-relaunched Harper's Bazaar in 1998. Some thank-you for almost 30 years of service to one of the world's greatest publishing brands.

What does Andrej Pejic have to do to make the cover of Vogue Australia?

gazelle paulo/freak chic

Andrej Pejic’s first modelling job was a cover shoot – for Oyster’s 77th edition, back in 2008, flanked by a phalanx of male and female models. And while many cover tries never make it to page one, one of Pejic’s Oyster shots did, together with two of the women. It’s fair to say, however, that very few in the Australian industry knew who he was at this time and he was by no means the sole focus of the story. Fast track to August 2011 and Pejic has appeared on no less than eight international magazine covers in the space of six months: Zeit Magazin (February), Photo (March), Dossier Journal (Spring 2011), Citizen K (Spring 2011), Carbon Copy (Spring 2011), L’Officiel Ukraine (June 2011), Follow #5 and just this week, the very high-profile New York magazine, as one of four covers of the magazine’s Fall 2011 fashion special. Here is a photo gallery of all nine covers (best viewed on the blog): 

Robyn Lawley strikes again - in Vogue Australia's first ever plus size fashion shoot

max doyle for vogue australia september 2011

On the occasion of her groundbreaking recent cover of Vogue Italia, alongside two other plus-sized models, we mentioned that Australia’s Robyn Lawley had another high fashion coup up her sleeve, just shot in Australia with Max Doyle. Frockwriter can reveal that that shoot is in fact a 10-page designer fashion editorial called 'Belle Curve' in the September edition of Vogue Australia, which is out on August 3rd. Subscriber copies landed today (thanks to our tipster who emailed the shots in). The editorial is accompanied by a double-page interview with Lawley. According to Kirstie Clements' editor's letter, this is the first time in Vogue Australia's 52-year history that the magazine has shot a plus-sized model for a fashion editorial. Hot on the heels of Lawley’s Vogue Italia cover and her Elle France cover in April, 2011 is turning out to be a banner year for Lawley, Bonner and the plus size-specialist modelling industry. 

In Vogue: Emilia Skuza and Melissa Johannsen

nicole bentley for vogue australia via viviens' facebook

Two under-the-radar models, both repped by the same Adelaide mother agent (Finesse Models), but two separate Sydney agencies (Viviens and Chadwick), wind up shooting a 16-page editorial together in Vogue Australia. What are the odds? Voilà a taste of the “Twin Peaks” story from Vogue’s July edition, out tomorrow. Shot by Nicole Bentley in New Zealand, it stars Emilia Skuza (left, above) and Melissa “MJ” Johannsen, who appear to be channelling not so much David Lynch as Alfred Hitchcock, with cateye makeup and windswept '60s flips. Neither model had previously been featured anywhere in the magazine and although Johannsen was one of the stars of the Rosemount Australian Fashion Week runways earlier this month in Sydney, Skuza has never worked at the event – and was in fact booked sight unseen by Vogue according to Chadwick. But regular readers of this blog may recall both names. We first encountered MJ in November at the Adelaide Fashion Festival when the Alice Springs resident had been modelling for a matter of weeks. And Adelaide-bred Skuza popped up on our radar in January, after emerging at the Paris haute couture shows. Both girls went on to walk in a number of top Fall/Winter 2011/2012 shows in New York, London and Paris in February and March. 

Onya Anja

solve sundsbo for muse magazine fall 2010/touch puppet

Where didn’t frockwriter's interview with world number 3 Anja Rubik go last week? From New York Magazine’s The Cut to The Huffington Post to Vogue UK, Grazia UK and Elle US...not counting a score of other blogs, we lost track in the end (and thanks to Next Management's Stephen Lee for the hookup). Not surprisingly, everyone seized on Rubik’s revelation that she turned down Terry Richardson’s 2010 Pirelli calendar because she was uncomfortable with his aesthetic – which in her own words, borders on “vulgar”. It was a great kickoff to the New Year for this blog, as it rapidly approaches the one million visitor mark. On Monday 3rd January, we were extremely honoured to be featured on the website of hot New York-based Nepalese designer Prabal Gurung, as part of his blogger series (which has previously profiled The Cut’s Amy Odell, Fashion Toast’s Rumi Neely, Nylon’s Faran Krentcil, Fashionista’s Lauren Sherman and Papermag’s Alyssa Vingan). Then on Friday, frockwriter was blog of the week on new UK online magazine Motilo. Many thanks for thinking of us. Rubik, FYI, capped off a week's work in the outback with Vogue Australia with a big bucks shoot for a Polish jewellery brand up at Sydney's Palm Beach over the weekend our sources report. 

Alison Veness-McGourty out at Grazia

life.com

The latest in a (very) long line of recent ACP executive departures, Alison Veness-McGourty apparently cleared out her editor-in-chief’s desk at Grazia Australia before Christmas. But it took a Facebook status update from Damien Woolnough, the online editor of Grazia rival Vogue Australia on January 4, to alert the industry that something was up. Noted Woolnough: “Wow. Only Jan 4 and already big changes in the industry...... Nothing here guys.... Chair shifting on another ship with one man overboard”. Today, the official confirmation from ACP managing director Phil Scott – via Vogue licensee News Ltd - that Veness-McGourty has indeed resigned. Scott, with whom frockwriter hears Veness-McGourty did not see eye to eye, dismissed rumours that former Australian Women’s Weekly editor Robyn Foyster, now an associate publisher at ACP, would be replacing her. Scott also denied that Veness-McGourty was pushed because of Grazia’s poor performance. But given that sales slumped more than 10percent to 55,026 in the most recent audit, perhaps it’s not that surprising - one of six ACP titles to see a 10percent+ sales dive year on year (also OK!, TV Week, Zoo Weekly, NW and Picture). The founding editor of Grazia's Australian edition, which launched on the cusp of the GFC in July 2008, Veness-McGourty previously spent eight years as editor of ACP stablemate Harpers Bazaar Australia. During her tenure, the latter at one point outsold Vogue. 

Sasha Knezevic popped the question to Anja Rubik after a vampire musical

the rocks, december 31st 2010/stephen lee

Anja Rubik and fiancé Sasha Knezevic were among out-of-towners who rang in 2011 in Sydney. Confirming an earlier report by frockwriter that the world number 3 ranked model was en route downunder to shoot for Vogue Australia, the duo arrived on the morning of the 31st and spent the day sightseeing with Stephen Lee, who heads up Rubik’s New York agency Next Model Management, including lunch at iconic Watson’s Bay seafood restaurant Doyles. And at midnight? Joining an estimated 1.5million who assembled to watch the city’s NYE fireworks from the harbour foreshore, Polish native Rubik and Serbian Knezevic, a former pro basketballer-turned-model (who also jointly edits Viennese fashion magazine 25 with Rubik), braved the hustle and bustle of The Rocks (where the above shot was taken). But as Rubik explains in this interview I recorded on New Year’s Day, the model duo loved it. Rubik, whose career highlights include multiple campaigns for Fendi and Chloé and 10 Vogue covers, dishes on her engagement deets, the Vogue Australia shoot and Karl Lagerfeld’s 2011 Pirelli calendar, with one fascinating revelation. She turned down the opportunity to shoot the world’s best-known calendar in 2009 for one reason - because Terry Richardson was shooting it.

Myf Shepherd goes back to work

The February 2011 edition of Vogue Australia doesn’t just offer up Catherine McNeil’s fifth cover of the magazine. It also represents the return of Myf Shepherd to modelling after a year hiatus to study set design in Sydney. McNeil’s Chic Management stablemate rocketed to international modelling stardom after her debut at Rosemount Australian Fashion Week in May 2008, walking the runways of some of the world's biggest fashion names and booking campaigns including Gucci and Miu Miu, only to put her burgeoning career on ice this time last year. Chic Management reports that the Vogue shoot was Shepherd’s first job back at work. She appears in six images in the massive 30-page New Season Hit List story that was shot by Nicole Bentley and also stars Codie Young, Alice Burdeu, Samantha Harris, Ruby Jean Wilson and Annaleise Smith. Chic reports that Shepherd has also shot a campaign for Myer [possibly the autumn/winter 2011 campaign] in addition to two other local campaigns. “Myf’s back modelling” Chic Management director Kathy Ward told frockwriter. “She’s continuing on with her studies but she’s very excited to be based in Sydney now and modelling for top end magazines and securing some major Australian campaigns as well. She may go back for the [Haute Couture SS11 or FW1112] shows, although there are no plans at this stage. But things happen very quickly, there’s a slight chance she may”.

Catherine McNeil scores her fifth Vogue Australia cover

vogue australia via TFS

It seems Vogue Australia just can't get enough of Catherine McNeil. Just five months after her last Vogue Australia cover, an edition which also included multiple McNeil editorials, here she is on the cover of the magazine's February 2011 issue. According to McNeil's mother agency Chic Management, the cover was shot by Max Doyle in Sydney "several months ago" - before McNeil cut her hair into a short bob and died it black (and was quite possibly shot in August, when she was in town for the David Jones Spring/Summer 2010/2011 runway show). This is McNeil's fifth Vogue Australia cover. Currently at home enjoying the Christmas-New Year break with her family and friends, McNeil is soon due to return to the work in the northern hemisphere.  

Rosemary Smith pieces together Jigsaw for Autumn/Winter 2011

Rosemary Smith has had a big year. After a slow burn in 2009, during which she shot for Harpers Bazaar Australia and Marie Claire Australia - and made it onto models.com's emerging models/creatives site, The Ones 2 Watch - this year she nabbed a Vogue Australia exclusive, which saw her featured in the August, October, November and December editions, swapped agencies (from Viviens to Chic Management) and will soon be featured in a new faces spread in V Magazine in the US. The latter was shot last month, while she attended castings for the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. Smith wasn't cast in the latter, however she has just bagged another local ad campaign. Adding to her recent Ksubi Eyewear and Ojay campaigns, here is a first look at Smith in the Autumn/Winter 2011 campaign for another Australian high street fashion chain, Jigsaw. It sees the Daria Werbowy lookalike reunited with photographer Nicole Bentley, who shot two of the Vogue editorials. The campaign was styled by Claudia Navone and photographed in a private mansion in Bellevue Hill. After her recent turn on the David Jones runway, where Smith caught the eye of Sydney expat casting director Kannon Rajah (who just added Versace to his client list, which already includes Fendi and the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show), let's hope we see her on the international runways in 2011. 

A supermodel New Year

vogue paris june/july 2009 via style frizz

Some parts of the world might be winding down for the holidays but of course, fashion never sleeps. Frockwriter has it on good authority that Polish supermodel Anja Rubik (above)  – who is ranked as the world No 3 by models.com – will be winging her way downunder to shoot for Vogue Australia, in time for New Year’s Eve. With 11 international Vogue covers to her credit, six of them in 2010, one could only speculate that if Rubik was going to be featured anywhere in an upcoming edition of Vogue Australia, surely it would be the cover? If that’s the case, then good to see our Vogue finally shooting more of its own material, after many years of rehashing covers from international editions. Sure, plenty of other international and local titles do this, however all the publicity and accolades regarding Vogue Australia’s original covers over the past year, from Cate Blanchett to Abbey Lee Kershaw, Catherine McNeil and Miranda Kerr, can’t have hurt push the idea along. But we understand that Rubik might not be the only supermod in town over the New Year. 

Miranda Kerr, publicity machine

You’ve got to hand it to Miranda Kerr. When most pregnant models would be expecting to spend a fair amount of time out of the spotlight as they await their bundle of joy, Kerr has arguably spent more time in the spotlight than ever before over the past four months. Ever since the news first whipped around the world in July that she was skipping the Spring/Summer 2010/2011 launch of Australian department store David Jones because of her sudden wedding to Orlando Bloom. Then she announced she was four months pregnant - to Spanish Vogue. Then in October, when she was five months along, she walked on Balenciaga's runway in Paris - later that month, popping up nude, obviously shot pre-pregnancy, in Russell James' new V2 book. Last week, when she would normally have been basking in the - shared - spotlight of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, Kerr managed to gazump even that media bonanza with news of a nude Patrick Demarchelier photoshoot for W magazine. Kerr’s latest headlines: a profile on Australia’s 60 Minutes this evening and, confirming a rumour first floated by New York Magazine’s The Cut blog last month, she will appear on the January cover of Vogue Australia. Update 15/11: And here is a highres image, above.

Was Marion Hume fired from Vogue Australia for putting a black woman on the cover?

Naomi Campbell is never far from the headlines. On Sunday she managed to inadvertently embroil an Australian publisher in one. In a story headlined 'Editor sacked in racism row', Campbell told the UK Telegraph, "One time, I went to Australia. The editor-in-chief of a magazine there told me that she got fired for putting me on the cover. I do remember going there and saying, 'Where's the Aboriginal model? There should be one. They're beautiful women.'" No names are mentioned. But coincidentally, another Brit by the name of Marion Hume edited Vogue Australia for 18 months in the late 1990s, during which time she commissioned Peter Lindbergh to shoot Campbell for the June 1997 cover, above. In 1998 Hume was fired, following a controversial tenure, during which, it should be noted, she did not manage to stem the erosion of circulation and advertising that had begun prior to her appointment with the arrival of marie claire in 1995 and continued with the 1998 rebirth of Harpers Bazaar Australia. From 1995-1999 Vogue lost almost a quarter of its readers and two-thirds of its ad share. In 2002, Conde Nast withdrew from Australian publishing, selling the Vogue license to FPC Magazines, which in turn was acquired by News Limited in November 2006.