The faces of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia SS 13/14

holly rose emery backstage at flannel SS1314

Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia is done and dusted for another year. Who were the top showgirls - and guys? Frockwriter asked all the major Sydney booking agencies for their top models at the event and here is the result. Yes there were a couple of high profile ring ins who flew in for show exclusives - Georgia May Jagger for Camilla and Hanne Gaby Odiele for Ellery. The list of 41 names, below, includes four other internationals (Solveig Hansen, Juliette Fazekas, Alanna Whittaker and Isabelle Sauer). Interestingly, however, the list is dominated by a plethora of new local faces who have never previously appeared at the event. Some recently profiled by frockwriter, notably Kiwi Holly Rose Emery, April Tiplady and Gabby Dover. Great to see some of Australia's biggest international runway names back in town supporting the local industry and it was no surprise at all to find Nicole Pollard, Julia Nobis and Ruby Jean Wilson at the top of the list. What is perhaps surprising is to see a newcomer such as Emery also at the very top of the list, ranked by her show numbers (not including off-schedule shows from the week before). 

Showcards: Chic Management (women) - MBFWA SS13/14

grace simmons via chic management

And now to the second instalment of frockwriter's Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia Spring/Summer 2013/2014 model showcards series - a preview of the models who will be doing casting rounds in Sydney over the coming weeks, in the lead up to Australia's biggest fashion runway showcase. Chic Management usually heads into the event with a major show pack and this year is no exception. 

Snow blind - Australians on the Fall/Winter 2013/2014 runways

Another show season bites the dust. As per usual, frockwriter has been following the Australian model story as the season rolled from New York to London to Milan to Paris (and interesting to see the mainstream Australian media also keeping close tabs on model movements). So far we have counted 31 Australian faces, which is not far off the all-time record of 38. And a dramatic increase on the 19 from the last season in September/October. Not bad, considering the freezing northern winter and notably, New York’s Snow Storm Nemo – which Julia Nobis described to us during New York Fashion Week as like “Flying snow resembling a washing machine on spin cycle. Needless to say, I now have the flu! Thanks Nemo, Jolly good times”.

Paris is burning - Fall/Winter 2013/2014

april tiplady closes junya watanabe FW1314 via wwd.com

Frockwriter was out at dinner last night when we received a call from Brigette Mitchell, director of Adelaide's Finesse Models, direct from a "freezing" Paris. "April just did her very first fashion show" said Mitchell proudly. "She hasn't even walked in a fashion show in Adelaide, but she just closed Junya Watanabe". April Tiplady - that's the 16 year old whose grandmother paid for a grooming course at the same agency two years earlier in the hope of boosting the confidence of her gangly grand-daughter. Last November, literally just signed to Finesse and with no modelling experience, Tiplady was signed by IMG Models worldwide (i.e. all its international agencies). Now she is a card-carrying member of the Australian model delegation at the Fall/Winter 2013/2014 show season. 

New faces: Sinead Ann

thom kerr

The Fall/Winter 2013/2014 shows rolled on to Paris this week and Australia's modelling delegation continues its assault on the season. Brisbane's Nicole Pollard nabbed the biggest show of the week - Balenciaga - while comeback queen Catherine McNeil added Dries van Noten, Balmain, Lanvin, Nina Ricci and Barbara Bui to her show list - opening and closing the latter two. Australians remain very much on the radar of international casting directors and it seems that everybody wants to know who the new girls are. The Agency Models in Sydney has a new name to throw into the ring in a couple of seasons' time: Sinead Ann.

Major Duomo

nicole pollard backstage at gucci FW1314 via stylebistro.com

And so to the mid-way point of the Fall/Winter 2013/2014 show season: Milan. Top designers notwithstanding, it’s not that hard to book a show or presentation in New York, where around 300 usually take place each season. London is a great fashion week, but even Julia Nobis skipped it altogether this season. Milan and Paris, however, are the money cities where the biggest luxury brands and opportunities lie. And on day one of Milan Fashion Week three Australian models were spotted in shows: Nobis, Catherine McNeil and Nicole Pollard. Just a reminder that Pollard had barely registered on the international circuit this time last year (she did 10 low profile shows at New York Fashion Week in September 2011). But after a prestigious haute couture debut walking for Christian Dior last July, followed by all of Dior’s subsequent shows, Dior’s Spring/Summer 2013 advertising campaign and some top shows in New York two weeks ago, there was Pollard in Gucci’s all-star model cast overnight - alongside Nobis and the world numbers 1 and 2 Joan Smalls and Karlie Kloss. In less than 18 months, Pollard has become one of the big girls. UPDATE 22/02: She can now add Fendi to her show list. And Catherine McNeil can add Prada to hers. 

Australian models on the S/S 2013 campaign trail

Their numbers on the Spring/Summer 2013 runways might have dropped by half from the previous summer season, but 19 Australian models still managed to cut a swathe through the New York, London, Milan and Paris shows in September and October last year. Some among them, such as Ruby Jean Wilson and Julia Nobis, scored high profile opening and closing roles. Judging by the SS13 advertising campaigns that are now beginning to roll out, the antipodians made quite an impression. To date, no less than seven Australian models have popped up in ten major international campaigns. Who are they?

Couture Chic

Australian agency Chic Management might be girding its loins for the imminent touchdown of IMG Models in Sydney and a potential run for its money as the toughest model negotiator in town, but when it came to the crème de la crème of world fashion events – the Paris haute couture shows, which wrapped yesterday – it had a clear monopoly. In the biggest Australian haute couture season that frockwriter can certainly recall, a total of nine antipodians worked the runways, seven of them repped in Australia by Chic: Montana Cox, Chrystal Copland, Nicole Pollard, Jemma Baines, Alexandra Agoston, Catherine McNeil and Ajak Deng (Deng is represented in Sydney only; her mother agent/personal manager is Stephen Bucknall from FRM Management in Melbourne). While it was the first haute couture season for Cox, Copland, Pollard and Baines, interesting to see McNeil and Agoston back at the couture for the first time in, by our estimate, three years.

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. 

To Marcs with love

Another day, another Australian Autumn/Winter 2012 campaign reveal. After casting Julia Nobis for two seasons, opposite rising Oz stars Broed Dilleward and Nick Hinman, sportswear chain Marcs upped the ante last summer with five fresh Australian faces. Creative director Rachel Allen has gone for a multi-girl and –boy look yet again for AW12, this time with four models: in her second Marcs season, Chic's upwardly mobile Nicole Pollard, alongside the 2010 winner of the Girlfriend Model Search, Jemma Baines, Belgian Cesar Casier and Brit Sid Ellisdon. Shot by Steven Chee at two Sydney cafes – Mohr Fish in Surry Hills and Coffee Tea & Me in Redfern – the styling and indeed collection proper have a cool Sixties vibe. To be sure, there’s a hint of Burberry here. And while mid market Marcs is by no means selling luxury handbags, the brand's leather goods - which are designed by Brydie O’Neil and start at $79, maxing out at $249 – are not only looking pretty sharp, but, unless frockwriter is imagining things, far more centre stage than ever before. 

Bath party: Marcs' five faces of Spring/Summer 2011/2012

Australian sportswear brand Marcs has been producing some cool advertising campaigns of late. Nabbing new Australian modelling superstar Julia Nobis was a good start of course. Nobis co-starred in the Spring/Summer 2010/2011 and Autumn/Winter 2011 campaigns with Broed Dilleward and Nick Hinman, respectively. Here is a first look at the SS1112 campaign, for which Marcs' creative director Rachel Allen has upped the ante with not two but five rising Australian stars: Chic's Rachel Rutt and Nicole Pollard, Viviens' Rosie Tupper, Priscillas' Andy Smith and EMG Models' Jack Vanderhart (who made his international debut at New York Fashion Week in February, with a Calvin Klein exclusive). Shot by Steven Chee, the campaign also showcases one of Australia's most beautiful sea baths: the heritage-listed Wylies Baths in Sydney's Coogee.