Fat load of good: The Telegraph's yo-yo reporting on model weight

CS Lorente/the sunday telegraph

Apparently it’s not only the modelling business that has draconian expectations of women. Israel may be on the brink of escalating its military campaign in the Gaza Strip, but Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper today provides a front page story, accompanied by the irrefutably Walkley-worthy “Shocking pics” of Gemma Ward in a swimsuit at Byron Bay. Frockwriter is only too aware that we may have contributed to News Limited's interest in the story. The company's domain name is on this blog day in, day out and on January 1st we drew some attention to a hitherto under-the-radar December 27 Perth newspaper story (and ironically, a News Ltd paper), which revealed Ward would be holidaying in Byron Bay with Nicole Trunfio. The same story reported Ward is planning to return to modelling "in 2009", although not "in February" as claimed by today's Sunday Telegraph - with no supplied source.


screen grab/NEWS.com.au



Ward is not a working model at the moment.

Apart from promotional work for her multi award-winning debut feature The Black Balloon, Ward took her own "Gap" year in 2008, doing road trips in Australia and the US and trekking in Nepal.

And why shouldn't she take a well-deserved break?

Since turning 15, Ward has worked hard, reached the top of her profession, earned millions and made an effortless, and highly successful, crossover to film.

In the past 12 months moreover, she has been coming to terms with a personal tragedy.

But Ward's weight battle predated Heath Ledger’s January 2008 death.

The last time Ward copped flack after appearing in public in a swimming costume was in late 2007, while working for Chanel.

Following industry whispers in September 2006 that European casting sources had concerns about Ward's weight, by October 2007 her fuller, more mature figure was very much in evidence at Chanel’s SS08 show in Paris – prompting some unkind commentary across the blogosphere.

Ward has remained silent on the weight subject, however both American model Ali Michael and Canadian, Coco Rocha, went on the record in 2008 about their own struggles trying to maintain the hyper thin industry ideal.

Yes the modelling world has unrealistic expectations of its female workforce and the fashion business has much to answer for in this regard.

Precisely how many models are easily able to maintain “ideal” runway weight in the big fashion cities, for instance, without resorting to excessive dieting or an arsenal of fat burners, diuretics and other drugs, is a very moot point.

Tabloid newspapers such as The Sunday Telegraph and its Monday-Friday incarnation, The Daily Telegraph, get more than their fair share of mileage out of the skinny model story.

A case in point, the removal of another Australian model, Stephanie Carta, from Australian Fashion Week in April last year, following her agency’s concerns about her dramatic weight loss in Paris. Carta was reinstated the following morning.

The story made front page news on the next day’s Telegraph.

At the previous AFW, The Telegraph also made a big splash with the Alice Burdeu story.

At that stage still merely a contestant on Australia’s Next Top Model, Burdeu had been booked for several AFW shows.

In an April 27, 2007 story entitled “Dangerously good-looking” The Telegraph’s Sydney Confidential column noted:

“Carrying just 58kg on her willowy 185cm frame, Burdeu has a BMI of 15.3....The World Health Organisation considers 18 to be healthy, and models in Madrid who fall under this number are now banned from participating in fashion shows....The international call for action - particularly in relation to BMI scrutiny - has come following the death of three malnourished overseas models this year, but Australia is still seen to be taking a softer stand than most countries”.

Three months later, in a story entitled "Gorgeous Gemma Ward's new curves" The Telegraph had this to say about Ward:

“Gemma Ward rose to the top of international modelling with her china doll looks. But now at 19, it is the catwalk star's womanly curves that are gaining her a whole new profile”.

In spite of two years of debate on the subject of model weight and various token efforts on behalf of fashion week organisers, hyper thin remains the norm at the elite end of the international runway business.

By direct comparison to this international “norm”, many women working in the Australian and New Zealand market appear almost “plus sized”.

Three of Australia’s most successful new international modelling exports - Abbey Lee Kershaw, Catherine McNeil and Stephanie Carta – all worked locally, but dropped considerable weight before heading overseas.

Carta at one point told friends that she momentarily left the business in Australia, after gaining too much weight.

It would be handy if the tabloid media could make up its mind about body image because presumably it is not only the models who may be confused here.

Are elite runway models providing unhealthily thin body ideals?

And if that is so, then why is a former elite runway model such as Ward deemed worthy of a snarky headline such as “Roll model” because she gained a few pounds? Surely the hyper thin international runway norm is a ludicrously low base to be coming from.

Similarly, how does The Sunday Telegraph think the tag “Shocking pictures” makes Ward, and in fact anyone who is not “dangerously thin” - which quite possibly embraces a high percentage of the paper's readers - feel about themselves?

Not terribly happy - judging by the avalanche of negative reader comments already posted on NEWS.com.au.


CS Lorente/the sunday telegraph

Nicole Trunfio settles into her new role as model mentor

the cobrasnake

Well we heard Gemma Ward was due to be in Byron Bay, but who said anything about The Cobrasnake? Lordy, the dust has yet to settle on last night's news that Nicole Trunfio has just scored the plum gig of model mentor on the US version of Make Me A Supermodel, when lo and behold some fresh new pics of her popped up on Mark Hunter's infamous party reportage site. No sign of Ward, or this week's Cobrasnake star Stephanie Carta - who reports she has spent the past 48 hours getting a US visa, learning the Tarot and crying to Coldplay. But it appears there are plenty of other Oz fashion peeps and their mates in town at the mo, starting with model Cheyenne Tozzi (pictured above left, with Trunfio), Sneaky Sound System's Daimon Downey, LA DJ Steve Aoki and ksubi's Dan Single, looking like he doesn't have a care in the world. Frockwriter will take a bet that ksubi's (numerous) unpaid creditors would just love to be enjoying a party in Byron Bay at the moment.

Let's not be too hard on Trunfio. She has been working hard and is enjoying a break. And who doesn't like a Corona - or two - in their downtime?

But the 23 year-old would be well advised to be en garde, as she would appear to be in an especially vulnerable position at the moment.

Not only does Trunfio have a prestige professional image to maintain - one which the Murdoch press made a valiant attempt at trashing in New York back in July, following the appearance of her Guess? campaign images, in which, The New York Post suggested, she was styled up to look like Amy Winehouse.

But the ink is moreover still drying on what one must assume is a lucrative tv contract - as a model mentor who advises and cautions young girls entering the modelling profession.

Whatever she does, Trunfio can rest assured that Hunter will be on tap to capture the most undignified images of her that he can find.


the cobrasnake

RELATED:
DUDE, WHERE’S MY CAREER?
“TOO YOUNG”: THE COBRASNAKE EXPOSES 200 GIRLS, TALLULAH DOES A PANTS-FREE IV
TALLULAH MORTON – APPARENTLY STILL PARTYING WITH THE COBRASNAKE
TALLULAH TANKS
TALLULAH-RAMA
TALLULAH RISING – AND HAVING AN ABSOLUT BALL

Nicole Trunfio, tv star

ellen dahl/portrait.gov.au

As frockwriter reported on January 1st, Nicole Trunfio is said to be currently seeing in the New Year in a Byron Bay beachhouse with fellow Perth native Gemma Ward. And Trunfio has lots of reasons to celebrate this January, having just scored no less than the model mentor gig of the US version of Make Me A Supermodel. According to a press release from the Bravo tv network, Trunfio is due to join host Tyson Beckford in the show’s second season, replacing the first season's female model mentor and co-host, high profile US model Niki Taylor. Other new faces to join Trunfio in the second series include designer Catherine Malandrino and model Jenny Shimizu.


bravo via zap2it.com


Although relatively low profile in the US, Trunfio is nevertheless no stranger to the television genre, having won Australia's Search For A Supermodel in 2002.

Trunfio later went on to win third place in Ford's Supermodel of the World 2002.

Like Ward, Trunfio is also repped by IMG in the US, the world’s biggest model agency - and an agency with more than its fair share of media connections.

Given the intense competition, it’s a pretty amazing get.

Congratulations Nicole.


RELATED: NICOLE TRUNFIO SETTLES INTO HER NEW ROLE AS MODEL MENTOR

Big boys' toys

brett lloyd/ponystep

In case you had not noticed, 2008 was all about the babymodel. At least five controversies erupted involving underage female photographic models, all but one of them, interestingly, in Australia: the Bill Henson case, Annie Leibovitz's Miley Cyrus shoot for Vanity Fair, the Zippora Seven editorial in RUSSH magazine and the brouhaha over 14 year-old Polish IMG model Monika Jagaciak which lead to an under-16 ban at Australian Fashion Week. Shortly after that – following controversy over its own childrenswear advertising - Australian department store David Jones implemented an under-18 runway ban. With the mens FW0910 shows coming up in Milan and Paris, frockwriter thought it was high time to put a little focus on male modelling. And if not on technically underage male models, then at least the newbies. So meet up-and-coming Brit Josh Blount. According to his agency, London’s Select Model Management, Blount is 18 and has been modelling for just under a year. Are we likely to see him at the Milan/Paris shows? Not according to Select. A spokeswoman told frockwriter that Blount “is not ready” for the bigtime runway. But apparently Blount was ready for the following image. Warning NSFW.


brett lloyd/ponystep

This image of Blount is part of a Calvin Klein homage spread called “CK Teen Screen Grabs” that was shot by photographer Brett Lloyd and styled by Nicola Formichetti for British fashion website Ponystep – co-founded by BoomBox’s Richard Mortimer. The shot also features on Formichetti’s blog.

In an accompanying feature by Dean Mayo Davies, no mention is made of Bruce Weber’s groundbreaking homoerotic imagery for Calvin Klein Underwear in the early 1980s, or even Steven Meisel’s so-called “kiddy porn” campaign for CK Jeans in 1995, which was ultimately pulled by Klein after a conservative backlash. However the Ponystep CK homage looks to have been inspired by both.

But is the object in question in the above image, which appears to peep put of Blount's Calvins, indeed his erect phallus? Or is it his foot folded underneath his leg? Even when you click on the image to enlarge, the resolution is insufficient to be able to clarify.

"Oh I had not spotted that before" noted Select Model Management spokeswoman Elizabeth Bowman when frockwriter called to check - and sadly, offered her Blount's foot as a possible alternative.

After putting me on hold for approximately 30 seconds, Bowman rushed back, then replied, "Oh yes, that's right, it's his foot".

Either way, there is something predatory, and degrading, about these images (the complete portfolio of which can be seen here).

In the above image, which is entitled “NO_NERVES_DUDE”, Blount is kneeling in a corner, with his arms held behind his back. The word "FUCK" is scrawled in lipstick or other, in large type, on one leg, with the word "ME" written on the other.

In another image, entitled “XXX_CK_WET_DREAM”, another model hunches forward before the camera, with the letters “CK 4 EVA” and “PONY” written down his back:


brett lloyd/ponystep

This was of course a shoot designed for a website and as such is "not the same" as mainstream advertising imagery.

That said, in the light of a flood of homoerotic imagery which is pouring out of some model/fashion industry websites, frockwriter feels the need to make the following point.

Frockwriter is not homophobic. In fact we know and love many, many gay men.

We are just unaccustomed to having their gay porn magazines thrust in our face every time we hang out with them.

And yes, we know, Giorgio Armani has taken to advertising his own jocks with David Beckham’s crotch thrust in our face.

Louis Vuitton has just returned fire in its upcoming SS09 ad campaign, with a shot of Madonna, legs completely akimbo - her modesty saved by a pair of LV panties - holding up an LV tote with one foot.

There is a lot of sex in advertising. That's not the point.

Nor is the point necessarily the question of audience suitability. Even if a lot of these parties appear to be oblivious to the fact that they are not just talking to their own private men’s club and that the fashion audience viewing these sites is at once broad, and often, extremely young.

The key issue here is the duty of care to young male models who are entering the industry.

It is now almost de rigueur to see images of up-and-coming male models with either their shirts – and/or their trousers – off.

Of course, they are being shopped to potential customers. But then, so are the women. And the latter are, more often than not, wearing a pair of jeans and a singlet.

When it comes to the guys, it’s really starting to look like a meat market.

If Josh Blount is 18 then legally, he is able to make his own decisions about the type of imagery in which he appears. Is he gay? Is he straight? Does his sexuality really make any difference here?

These kids are young and inexperienced – and no doubt, also very eager to please, to get a legup in the industry.

In October, some readers may recall, 20 year-old former Dior Homme star Randy Johnston died of a heroin overdose. According to friends, Johnston had battled a substance abuse problem for some time.

Some of these friends claimed the fashion industry was partially to blame.

Drug addicts are found in all sectors and walks of life, however frockwriter remains haunted by the following comment posted by someone claiming to be the mother of a young male model, which was left on our updated Johnston post last month:

“This is close to home for me, my son is a model, scouted by an agency at 16 years old(and I wish he never had been) and working now all over the world, he had drugs offered to him at 16 at his first fashion show.He says that drugs are everywhere in the industry and de riguer at every party-- the agency bookers know definitely- they don't care unless it becomes a problem with someones ability to make $$, ie ,show up ontime.. but are happy with the effect on both girls and guys that helps them to work, ie,keeps them thin. Then along with the predatory sexual nature of many of the shoots of guys, (you mentioned ID etc), they lose their innocence very fast) I recommend any parent whose child is approached, to think long and hard about it. I wish I had known more, but once they are 19, 20 , you can't do much about it, the fashion industry has already taken their soul”.

Dude, where's my career?

the cobrasnake

“i want to be in the next Balenciaga campaign. And im really impatient, and feel like sitting here on the computer all afternoon is such a waste of time and i need to be doing more. But everyone in my house is doing the same thing right now. I guess everyone is human and the thought of another party right now, for once does not interest me. (I mean its not like Pip, Dangerous, Cat, Natedog, MattSaville, Mikey, etc all my other fun people) are in the house to make me definately think otherwise about starting a Half Party)”. So wrote Stephanie Carta on her Magna Carta blog on November 3.

An erstwhile muse of Balenciaga designer Nicolas Ghesquière – and a two-time runway model for the 2008 shows of the venerated French fashion house – such was the strength of Carta’s second international show season, models.com nominated her as one of SS09’s Top 10 Newcomers in October.

Sadly, while Carta did make Balenciaga’s SS09 show, reportedly she has not made the SS09 ad campaign - which is said nevertheless to boast 10 other models.

And nor it appears may Carta have scored any SS09 campaigns – unlike her compatriots Catherine McNeil, Abbey Lee Kershaw, Myf Shepherd and Alice Burdeu.

As a consolation prize, and in tandem with her buddy, Tallullah “Party” Morton, Carta has become a regular star on the party photoblog of Mark "The Cobrasnake" Hunter. Including this delightful cameo (^) from last week's ksubi/Cobrasnake/Steve Aoki et co NYE party at Kings Cross nightclub Club 77.


pedestrian.tv

In The Cobrasnake shot, Carta appears as a caricature of what everyone imagines to be wrong with the modelling business.

Perhaps taken at an (extremely) unflattering angle, Carta looks not only underweight (which is awkward in light of the weight controversy in which she found herself embroiled in Sydney last year), but totally off her face.

The party occurred of course during Carta’s downtime, while she is, like many other models, enjoying a summer vacation.

This afternoon I asked another photographer his position on the ethics of photographing those who may be momentarily mentally incapacitated due to the effects of alcohol or other substances.

Hunter is documenting the international party scene, came the response. And makes, by all accounts, a handsome living out of doing so.

If anyone walks in front of Hunter's lens, said my photographer, Hunter is entitled to shoot them regardless – and publish those shots on his high traffic website.

This is irrespective, he noted, of whether or not the subject happens to be professional model with an image to maintain. Or even a friend.

Carta cannot claim that she does not know who Hunter is, because she has appeared in previous Cobrasnake party reportages.

At 23, Carta is also most definitely a consenting adult.

Hunter is reporting the news, in other words.

And sometimes, of course, it's not pretty.

O what a tangled Web

On Tuesday, The New York Times published a story about the popular Michelle Obama style-watch blog Mrs O, which, as it now emerges, is not an independent blog at all - as many assumed - but operated by New York ad agency Bartle, Bogle, Hegarty (a fact which was originally mentioned in passing in this December 29 National Public Radio report). The blog was launched in September by BBH's new brand-building division, Zag, following a pitch by a BBH employee, 27 year-old account planner Mary Tomer. The company reportedly invested US$2000 in launching the site, not counting the salaries of 14 BBH employees who have worked on the blog in various capacities. The NYT story was not presented as an expose, merely a news story about ad industry initiatives. And when New York Magazine’s The Cut blog blogged a post purporting that Mrs O had duped readers, Advertising Age responded with a counter-piece entitled, “So a Blog Is a Marketing Ploy? Who Cares?”. Frockwriter shares The Cut’s disappointment – and wonders if both the NYT and Ad Age are not perhaps missing the point.

Bartle, Bogle Hegarty’s involvement in Mrs O is indeed mentioned on the blog - that is, buried at the bottom of the site, within the Terms and Conditions.

Supposedly last updated on September 26, 2008, one assumes this page has been live on the site since the blog first launched, as opposed to being added in the past few days.

More fool anyone, therefore, who failed to check the fine print - that's the position, presumably, adopted by BBH and its legal division, which must firmly believe that the company's duty of disclosure was well and truly discharged.

However the blog’s "About" section makes no reference to BBH:

“Mrs. O is a website dedicated to following the fashion of Michelle Obama. It was first inspired by Mrs. Obama’s wardrobe at the Democratic National Convention in August 2008. The site hopes to be a central, ever evolving resource to chronicle Mrs. O’s look, while providing fashion commentary and information. The site will encourage visitors to contribute tips, photos and commentary, and share enthusiasm for the budding style icon, Mrs. O”.

Only one of the bios of the site’s eight writers makes any reference to Bartle Bogle Hegarty: that of Mel Exon, who is described as a company director at BBH in the UK.

Elsewhere on the net, Exon is additionally described as a managing partner of "BBH Labs" - and was, and possibly still is, the director of the lucrative global Levi’s account.

Describing BBH Labs as "a new, independent innovation unit", Exon recently advertised for a creative director, and noted the company was "looking for someone who has proven experience leading radical change in communications".

Not twigging that BBH has any other involvement in the blog, the average reader might simply gloss over Exon's bio, assuming that she is just another wage slave with a blog on the side.

Tomer however, we now know for a fact, is also a fulltime Bartle, Bogle, Hegarty employee - and one moreover, who most definitely writes the blog on the company's dime.

There is no disclosure of Tomer's BBH affiliation on her Mrs O bio.

Nor is there any reference to Tomer's ad industry affiliations in her bio on The Huffington Post, to which Tomer has contributed at least one story. Amusingly, the story is entitled, “The Face of Fashion Democracy”.

Now of course the names may be purely coincidental, however frockwriter located UK ad industry connections to the names of two other Mrs O writers, both of whom Mrs O reports have links to London: Patricia McDonald and Kirsty Saddler.

There is a Patricia McDonald listed as Planning Director at Bartle, Bogle Hegarty London (also with Levi's affiliations).

And there are numerous net references to a Kirsty Saddler, senior planner with Doyle Dane Bernbach London.

Then there is the domain name of the blog itself, www.mrs-o.org.

With mrs-o.com already taken by an aspiring babywear manufacturer, frockwriter is curious precisely why Zag chose a .org URL – which is the type of URL that is normally reserved for non-commercial organisations, such as universities, libraries, NGOs etc..

The mrs-o.org domain name also happens to have been registered via Domains by Proxy, which obfuscates the details of the real registrar.

And while the deployment of proxy domain registrars may be relatively commonplace nowadays - at least with individuals, who are seeking to protect their privacy - this additional element nevertheless just adds to Mrs O's laundry list of less-than-transparent details.

In the Ad Age piece, reporter Ken Wheaton notes:

“Say what now? Firstly, if a blog is worth reading, it's worth reading. Period. End of story. Who cares who's funding it? Secondly, and more importantly, in what unicorn-inhabited landscape are people living in when it comes to Web 2.0 properties?...Such discussions are fine, but let's call a spade a spade. It's marketing. It's marketing Web 2.0; it's marketing yourself; it's marketing your company; it's marketing your services”.

But from where frockwriter is standing, it's one thing for a blogger to market themselves – and even accept and display advertising. Provided that any commercial affiliations are clearly disclosed and that any advertising is clearly defined as advertising.

By the same token, a blog attached to a corporate website is not misleading readers, in much the same way that an editorial-style catalogue is not misleading readers, because the commercial affiliations of both the blog/catalogue parents are, one hopes, clearly delineated.

It’s another matter, surely, to fail to mention that the vehicle that you are using to widely disseminate information, and via which you are touting yourself as a credible commentator and possibly also opinion leader, is being semi-covertly financed by a multinational ad agency?

If Tomer and co harboured a secret passion to blog about Michelle Obama, then why didn't they just do it in their own time?

Or fess up at the very beginning, making everyone's affiliations transparently obvious, pointing out that BBH was footing the bill? They may well have no hidden agenda, however by having their details disclosed for them, it makes them appear secretive - or worse, ad industry shills.

In a comment on the Ad Age story, “Jack Jones” makes the following salient point:

“The Web has already made it very difficult for the public to distinguish content from commerce – or politics. Studies show a significant chasm between being able to distinguish commerce/politics on the Web versus other media. There certainly are instances where the creator is questionable, particularly when they turn out to be some lobbyist or PR scumbag covertly pushing an agenda. Ad agencies and advertisers are really guilty in this area too. In this case, there could be controversies. For example, it's likely that a large percentage of visitors to the Mrs. O blog are African American women. How do you think they might respond to knowing the blog was owned and operated by an advertising agency on Madison Avenue, where African Americans have faced discrimination for decades?”

Cornish (fashion) language

carlo pieroni/vanity fair


Well Abbie Cornish and Ryan Phillippe have come and gone. A little earlier than anticipated - but then after that warm welcome by Sydney’s stalkerazzi, why hang around any longer than they needed? As the duo was making its way into Calvin Klein's Sydney party venue on Cockatoo Island on December 16, and before being whisked off by PR minders, frockwriter managed to grab these as yet unpublished comments from Cornish about her personal style.

Calvin Klein is such an iconic brand. What are you earliest memories of it?
Abbie Cornish: I was thinking about this today. I had a friend in school, when I was about 14, who used to wear Calvin Klein One. And she just loved that perfume, loved that fragrance, and that was her thing. And soon as the bottle would get close to empty she would go out and buy another one. And that is my earliest memory.

Does your friend know that you were coming to this event as a CK ambassador?
No. I haven’t told her yet. She’s a friend that I see every so often. But I’ll have to give her a call.

How would you describe your personal style?
Eclectic - definitely. I like all different sorts of things, new and old.

And how do you negotiate Hollywood’s red carpet politics?
I think it’s important to wear what you feel comfortable in and what you like, you know? And whatever that is.... just to have a strong opinion about the clothes that you put on. Like you do every day.

The shows to go on for Hoppy McNeil

flynetonline.com via gossipgirls


Earlier today frockwriter posted an image of supermods Cat McNeil and Freja Beha Erichsen emerging from Sydney’s Sheraton on the Park Hotel on New Year’s Eve. Just in case anyone was fretting that McNeil’s new accessory – a pair of crutches – might spell disaster for her upcoming FW0910 runway season, rest assured, it’s “all good” according to McNeil's Sydney agent Kathy Ward. The ankle isn't broken and that is not a plaster cast, “Just a bandage, torn ligaments trekking with family in Qld, she won’t miss the shows” reports Ward.

Well, that's if she doesn't stack on weight in the interim. The fashion biz, of course, not being known for its enormous tolerance of a few additional runway kgs.

Abbey Lee's Gucci x 4

gucci SS09 campaign image via models.com


Frockwriter said it remained to be seen whether a recent Gucci shoot done by Abbey Lee Kershaw was for the recently-surfaced Resort 2009 campaign – or something else. And now voilà Kershaw in Gucci's new Spring/Summer 2009 ad campaign, alongside Natasha Poly, Lily Donaldson and up-and-coming Swede Jonatan Frenk. That makes four Gucci campaigns for Kershaw in the one (fiscal) year after FW0809, Flora by Gucci and Resort 2009.

In spite of the fact that Kershaw may merely feature in the background of this first SS09 campaign shot to emerge, what is even more interesting about her Gucci run is the fact that she has been partnered with far better established models.

Russian Poly and Brit Donaldson have both been working internationally since 2004.

The winner of the 2004 Girlfriend Model Search competition in Australia, Kershaw spent from 2004-2007 working locally.

McBeha on the Park

flynetonline.com via gossipgirls

How many supermods does it take to ring in New Year’s in Sydney? At least three going by a set of images which has just surfaced of Catherine McNeil and Danish gf Freja Beha Erichsen walking out of Sydney's Sheraton on the Park Hotel yesterday. The world numbers eight and 11 respectively, as ranked by models.com, join the world number three, Canadian Coco Rocha, who is spending two months in Australia over summer, with all of it to date in Sydney. Judging by the support bandage (or possibly even plaster cast) and crutches sported by McNeil, one wonders whether perhaps she may have incurred an injury playing soccer – as did Rocha a few days ago. That’s what happens when you play soccer in gladiator sandals. With Gemma Ward, the world former number one – now ranked as models.com’s world number 24 “Money Girl" – reportedly about to shack up with fellow Perth mod Nicole Trunfio at a Byron Bay beachhouse, that’s a lot of supes in NSW.

Although there are direct quotes from Trunfio, but not Ward, in this recent Perth newspaper story, Ward reportedly confirmed to the paper that she plans to return to modelling in 2009.

Ward and Trunfio, one assumes, may not be 'shacking up' in quite the same manner as McNeil and Erichsen, aka “McBeha”. If not, then perhaps the fashion world is about to greet its latest model hybrid.

Although these new McNeil images first popped up on GossipGirls.com, the celebrity gossip blog neither recognised Erichsen, nor, hilariously, even appeared to be aware of her much-mooted liaison with McNeil.

The site refers to Erichsen as McNeil's "gal pal" - since corrected from the original version, as listed on Google News, and which referred to Erichsen as McNeil's "sister".

The story also mentions a mystery "boyfriend". The latter seems nevertheless to be merely carrying the duo's packages - which include a large David Jones bag (and may, as it turns out, have been the partner of McNeil's New York agent Stephen Lee, who is in Sydney with McNeil. According to McNeil's agency, they were heading out to dinner when the photographs were taken).

Fashionologie, naturally, did fill in the blanks.

As just noted by the L Anonymous "Lesbian gossip and wit" web forum, McNeil and Erichsen appear to not only be wearing matching silver rings on the same finger, but also swapping clothes.

One L Anonymous poster has located an image of Erichsen standing in what looks to be Hyde Park, which is located directly opposite the Sheraton on the Park Hotel, in the same grey T-shirt worn yesterday by McNeil. The shirt is emblazoned with drug references.

According to the Sheraton on the Park Hotel, a "C McNeil" is still in residence at the hotel.