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.

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

nicola walsh via chadwick models

Part IV of frockwriter's MBFWA Spring/Summer 2013/2014 model showcards series: the women of Chadwick Models in Sydney. The agency's show pack includes a dozen internationals who are flying in from the US, Canada, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and Malaysia; a few local faves such as Katerina Chang, Sarah Lorimer and New Zealand's Samantha Shorter; and a hell of a lot of new Australian faces, who are brand new to the event this year, some of whom we have recently covered in our New Faces series and elsewhere.

New faces: Nicola Walsh

chadwick models

The 2013 edition ("Cycle 8") of Foxtel's Australia's Next Top Model has just commenced production and already the dramas have begun. As you may recall, frockwriter thought to blog the full cast list of the David Jones Autumn/Winter 2013 runway showcase on Tuesday 5th February - the day before the show. We had a hunch a good story might arise. As it emerges, it’s one that involves the world’s biggest model agency, a model agency that noone has heard of, Australia’s growing profile as a fertile hunting ground for new models – and the fever pitch that that hunt has now reached, with IMG Models not only opening an Australian bureau last year, but also inking a deal with Fox8's high-rating modelling reality show. Not only is IMG Models the show’s new agency affiliate, which will offer contracts to the winner and potentially other contestants, the company dispatched two of the industry’s most influential scouts, IMG Models’ Vice Presidents of Scouting and Development, David Cunningham and Jeni Rose, down under last month to personally oversee Next Top Model’s state-by-state auditions roadshow. Amongst their numerous other achievements, Cunningham put Gemma Ward into international orbit and Rose is credited with reviving the flagging career of the Netherlands’ Lara Stone and propelling her to the world number one spot. We hear IMG Models is thrilled with the talent unearthed during auditions for Cycle 8. Which brings us to the David Jones cast list, which included one brand new face who was essentially unseen up until last Wednesday. Or so we thought.

Show ponies - David Jones Autumn/Winter 2013

grey wasp/blue wasp/splash news

Miranda Kerr has touched down (here she is, above, arriving at Sydney airport on Friday, Louis Vuitton luggage in tow) which means it's show time at David Jones. All eyes and cameras will be trained on the Australian department store's 7th floor tomorrow night for the Autumn/Winter 2013 showcase. Frockwriter will, as usual, have all the backstage action but in the interim, we were interested to take a peek at the list of 50 other names who will be flanking La Kerr on the runway. Not surprisingly, this season's cast list is reflective of the dramatic changes that the Australian modelling industry has undergone over the past 12 months, with the launch of a major new competitor in IMG Models. This time last year, a number of names - including Kerr - were repped by other agencies. 

New faces: Kaitlin Carter

So far in frockwriter's New Faces series, we've met models who were scouted while riding their horses, at a bus stop, even on Facebook. Three weeks ago Chadwick Models agent Jaime McHugh spotted 19 year-old Sydneysider Kaitlin Carter at Central train station. 

Andrej Pejic doesn't answer his phone for less than $10,000

nathan paul swimwear out-take via mariah jelena kordzadze's facebook

It’s been a long time since Andrej Pejic opened the Antipodium show at Australian Fashion Week. Three years to be precise. In the interim, alongside a score of headline-grabbing magazine appearances and advertising campaigns, Pejic has blazed a trail on the runways of fashion weeks in Paris, New York, London, Milan, Tokyo, Toronto, Sao Paolo, Barcelona, Berlin and Instanbul, modelling both menswear and womenswear - not to mention bridalwear. Digital Fashion Week Singapore is the latest fashion event to snap Pejic up, billing him as the "supermodel" star of its upcoming showcase, which will run from October 20-22. Apart from a couple of fleeting appearances downunder, why has he been conspicuous by his absence on Australia's runways you ask? Because we can’t afford him it seems.

MBFWA's top showgirls

Julia Nobis owned the runways of last year's Australian Fashion Week. Nobis had far bigger fashion fish to fry this year in the northern hemisphere, leaving the Australian Spring/Summer 2012/2013 field earlier this month wide open to the score of Australians rising up behind her. Last month, frockwriter published the MBFWA showcards of Australia's major model agencies; in each case a mix of runway veterans and promising new faces. So who had the busiest schedules at this year's event? We asked the agencies to name their top showgirls. 

The showgirls: Chadwick Models - MBFWA SS 12/13

georgia herbert/cameron etchells via an adventure

So who will walk the runways of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia? Here is Part II of frockwriter's MBFWA SS1213 showgirls series: the show pack from Chadwick Models. Once again, it's a mix of new, established and international faces. It is a testament to the ongoing success of the Australian modelling industry that, as with Chic Management, Chadwick's show pack includes two models who, although hitherto unseen at Australian Fashion Week, already have international runway experience. Jenna Hall has walked at Berlin Fashion Week. And Claire Collins has done one international ready-to-wear season. Oh - and a Chanel haute couture show. Our new fave Katerina Chang is also new to the event; as is Kiwi Brigette Thomas, the 2011 winner of New Zealand's Next Top Model.  

Shaik, rattle and roll

next models

In 2008, 17 year-old Shanina Shaik was named the runnerup of Seven Network’s unsurprisingly short-lived reality show, Make Me A Supermodel. By February 2009, she had moved to New York, popped up in a handful of shows at New York Fashion Week and started dating US model and reality tv star Tyson Beckford, the co-host of the American version of Make Me A Supermodel (who is currently shooting Britain & Ireland's Next Top Model with Elle Macpherson). The pair had originally met during the filming of the Australian show, on which Beckford played model mentor. Although a contract with New York Model Management was part of Shaik’s prizes, not much was heard from her until November 9 2011, when she appeared in the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show in New York, alongside some major modelling names, including compatriot Miranda Kerr. 

Katerina Chang is the bomb

Frockwriter first noticed Katerina Chang at the David Jones show in Sydney last month. As it emerges, it is no surprise that we haven't seen that much of her. Living in Australia for four years, initially studying a marketing degree at the University of Western Sydney, this 21 year-old Taiwanese beauty with Marlene Dietrich cheekbones first walked into the Sydney offices of Chadwick Models in July last year. She has been quietly building a body of work.

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. 

Andrej Pejic: Shooting Jean Paul Gaultier's Spring/Summer 2011 campaign with Karolina Kurkova, rattling rednecks from Sydney to Serbia

karolina kurkova's facebook

Overnight Czech supermodel Karolina Kurkova published a shot of herself and a Jean Paul Gaultier Spring/Summer 2011 campaign co-star on Facebook and the cat is out of the bag and all over the net. Australia’s Andrej Pejic is also in the campaign. That’s the second big international SS11 campaign booked by Pejic to which frockwriter referred in our post on Tuesday. It is unclear at this stage if the JPG campaign features any other models beyond Kurkova and Pejic. But both do look to be wearing similar pleated trench coats – which were prominently featured in Gaultier’s SS11 womenswear show in Paris in October. The garment does not, however, appear anywhere in Gaultier’s mens SS11 collection, which was shown in Paris in June and which, as you may recall, Pejic in fact walked. What conclusion can we draw from this? That, unless Kurkova posted a staged teaser shot, Pejic may well be modelling womenswear in this campaign. Stop the press. 

James Varley shoots Trimapee

trimapee AW11 lookbook shoot/jamie wdziekonski 

Frockwriter predicted it wouldn’t be long until new Chadwick glamour boy James Varley added to his newbie model portfolio. How does a full page feature in Melbourne’s Age newspaper sound? That’s what Varley scored on Friday, in Jan Breen Burn’s great piece entitled Beautiful Boys. Most of the story was about Australia’s latest supermodel-on-the-cusp – androgynous Melburnite Andrej Pejic – but Varley was quoted in the story and prominently featured photographically, epitomising what Chadwick Melbourne director Matthew Anderson coined as the new “femiman” look. Well Varley is about to further add to his book. This morning, in Melbourne, he is shooting the Autumn/Winter 2011 lookbook for Trimapee, the four year-old label from Mario-Luca Carlucci and Peter Strateas. Lensed by Christian Blanchard, the lookbook also features new girl Kate Clements from Giant. Here is a sneak peek at the preps – and some of Trimapee’s new season leather. Follow Trimapee’s new marketing dude, blogger Jamie Wdziekonski, on Twitter for real-time updates throughout the shoot.

James Varley: Chadwick's latest glamour boy

mariah jelena kordzadz, fashion journal via chadwick

Andrej Pejic is in Tokyo, having just wrapped Japan Fashion Week and waiting to find out whether he flies to Paris or New York for a couple of very interesting job options. Meanwhile, he just scored a mention in W's November issue, in the "She's a (fabulous) he" story about fashion's androgynous moment. The story was penned by Hintmag founder Lee Carter, who describes Pejic as "a slender Kate Moss look-alike". But while Pejic's Australian mother agency, Chadwick, waits to see just how prominently the Melburnite features in the November edition of another equally prominent international fashion title, which is days away from release, the agency has just signed another new male model with a similarly androgynous look: 21 year-old James Varley. Modelling for just a few months, this science student's slim CV so far boasts a lookbook for Melbourne label In Mind's Eye, editorial in Fashion Journal 100, Melbourne Street Fashion and indie Melbourne magazine Spook and a few test shots. Frockwriter has little doubt it will soon be expanding.