Showcards: Chadwick Models (men) - MBFWA SS 13/14

nicklas kingo by brice hardelin via morphoman

Part V of frockwriter's MBFWA Spring/Summer 2013/2014 model showcards series is the men of Chadwick Models. Not only will three of this country’s top international male runway stars be in town for the event – Angus Low, Joel Meacock and Kye D’Arcy (via Chic Management) – they will be joined by another top new name in male modelling, Nicklas Kingo, who just happens to be half Australian.

Twenty-two year-old Kingo first emerged in January 2012 during the Fall/Winter 2012/2013 European menswear season, walking as an exclusive for Calvin Klein and Louis Vuitton.

Born and raised in Copenhagen, Kingo’s mother is Danish and his father is Australian and he has spent some time down under with his father and paternal grandmother, who live in South Australia. Indeed, Chadwick reports that Kingo missed the most recent menswear season in January to spend time with the Australian side of his family in outback SA. He recounts some of his recent outback adventures in his blog.

In January, Kingo also blogged some honest confessions about his experience as an overweight teenager. In a New Year’s Resolutions post in which he expresses a hope to avoid binge-eating and enjoy a healthier attitude towards food in future, Kingo reports that he weighed 95 kilos at the age of 14, eventually whittling down to 90kilos at 19. After sending in some photos to a Copenhagen model agency in 2011, however, he was instructed to lose an additional 13 kilos in six weeks.

Notes Kingo on his blog:

“Now, I bloody love food. I love cooking it, smelling it, looking at it, and most of all eating it. Because of my childhood obesity my love of all things edible, and my industry, I have a truly messed up relationship with food. I will go for periods of eating clean and taking my job really seriously, and then just inexplicably plunge into dietary suicide all of a sudden. This started happening once the novelty of being a successful model faded, and this correlating with me not enjoying my job as much and not getting as much work ‘cos of aforementioned binging (I put on, and lose, weight super easily). Mind you, I love my job. Or rather: I love the things it allows me to do and I certainly don’t mind attention. But other than that I don’t have much interest in fashion and the childish bullshit you have to put up with. 

So this is numero uno on my list. I wouldn’t go as far as calling it an eating disorder. That wouldn’t be fair to people with bigger problems than mine in that area. But it is definitely something that causes me a lot of mental distress and therefore I want to correct”.

Interestingly, while media attention is often focussed on the subject of skinny models during any fashion week, the 2013 edition of Australian Fashion Week will feature at least two models (who we are aware of) who struggled with childhood obesity. The other is new Auckland face Holly Rose Emery, who is repped in Sydney by Chic Management. 

Like Kingo, as we reported last August, Emery also weighed 95 kilos at the age of 14. After losing 36 kilos over the following two year period by eating healthier food and getting more exercise, her school eventually enquired if she was suffering from an eating disorder - irking her family.

“Nobody called me when Holly was obese” her mother Leonie Emery told frockwriter.

Chadwick’s other new MBFWA faces this year will be:

Jay Darko, 21, Gold Coast

Nelson Powell, 18, Sydney

Mitchell Wynne, 20, Sunshine Coast