April Tiplady takes flight

McQ resort 2014 via style.com

You know April Tiplady. The brand new Adelaide face whose grandmother bought her a Finesse Models deportment course for her 14th birthday and who, in November last year, two years later, was signed worldwide by IMG Models. Then in March - a month before making her Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia debut, walking in nine shows - she made an appearance at the Paris ready-to-wear shows and nabbed the cover of L'Officiel Singapore. Now 17, Tiplady has just popped up in the Resort 2014 lookbooks for the McQ diffusion label of British brand Alexander McQueen (above) and Italian designer Roberto Cavalli (below). And frockwriter hears she has some even bigger coups up her sleeve.

roberto cavalli resort 2014  via style.com

First up, appearances in two of the world's most prestigious fashion magazines, shot by one of the industry's most influential photographers. One of these shoots is an "only-girl" editorial, where Tiplady is the only model featured. 

We understand that the same photographer also shot Tiplady for a (minor) beauty campaign. 

The editorial spreads are due to be published in August/September, just in time for the Spring/Summer 2014 show season. Tiplady is tipped to be on the SS14 circuit, according to her "mother" agent in Adelaide, Finesse Models' Brigette Mitchell, who has been busy herself keeping up with demand for her new star. 

"It's crazy - we get her back and then two days later, we get an international phone call in the middle of the night" Mitchell told frockwriter. "It's been a dream run thus far for her".

Since signing with IMG Models, Tiplady headed to Singapore in January to shoot the L'Officiel cover. Then to Paris in February, where she stayed for several weeks, with Mitchell, walking for Junya Watanabe and having meetings with the above-mentioned snapper. 

Over the past month, she has travelled to London twice, with a side trip to Rome to shoot the Roberto Cavalli lookbook on June 9th. 

Currently still enrolled in Year 12 in Adelaide, she is considering finishing her studies via correspondence according to Mitchell. Not a bad compromise, in fact, between grabbing work opportunities as they come your way and finishing your secondary education. It's not like it's a job where you don't spend countless hours twiddling your thumbs on planes and in hotels and hair & makeup. 

While Tiplady has been modelling for just six months, her international bookings so far outweigh her local work, which includes an upcoming editorial for Oyster magazine, a lookbook for jewellery brand Eight Other Reasons and the current covers of two local Adelaide magazines, Aspire and Attitude (see below).  

But isn't that often the way down under? 

both covers: supplied by finesse models