Top talent

Zippora Seven. Photo / Supplied.

A white model painted black in French Vogue. Another model in Ralph Lauren campaign with her body badly photoshopped into something looking similar to a Bratz doll.

A London stylist quitting a designer's show after he, shock horror, decided to use average-sized models to showcase his tight mini dresses. The always charming Karl Lagerfeld saying that, "no one wants to see round women" on the runway, and claims the outrage over skinny models is mainly the concern of "fat mummies" eating chips in front of the television.

Models have been in the news for all the wrong reasons recently, and though these controversies are all actually due to the actions of those who work with them, it has turned the spotlight on the modelling world.

Who are these girls who appear in our magazines and ad campaigns as the nameless faces trying to sell us new clothes, beauty products and more? Do we care? It seems yes - just look at the popularity of the first season of New Zealand's Next Top Model (don't pretend like you didn't watch it). Notice the increasing number of model profiles in glossy fashion magazines - Russh usually dedicates two pages to their cover girl, Lula's most recent issue is guest-edited by red-haired model Karen Elson and Vogue usually does a token model profile or two.

And go on the internet and marvel at how many bloggers obsess over the words, actions and outfits of the likes of Lara Stone (the model who appears in blackface), model/designer Erin Wasson, Freja Beha and Tallulah Morton (an Australian model beloved by the likes of Lover, The Cobrasnake and New Zealand's own No Magazine).

Models need to be more than simply "clothes hangers"; they can be muses and they act as visual storytellers - plus, yeah, they're pretty. But it's the girls who do more than just "be pretty", those who bring their own story to their work, who have become celebrities in their own right. Think of Kate Moss, Erin Wasson, the supermodels of the 90s and um, Tyra Banks.

Models closer to home certainly aren't as famous or well-known - go on, name five local girls off the top of your head; it's a lot harder than it sounds - but there are some who are slowly entering the public consciousness with their work here and overseas. It's no longer a case of Kylie Bax and Rachel Hunter being our only model claims to fame.

Zippora Seven is probably our most distinctive local girl, having appeared in shoots in French Vogue (shot by renowned photographer Bruce Weber), Jalouse, Japanese Elle, Russh and more, as well as in a campaign for See by Chloe. Once dubbed "the New Zealand Kate Moss" (because she's relatively short by model standards), fashion gushes over Seven. She opened the Twenty-seven Names show at Air NZ Fashion Week last month, appears in new season campaigns for Lonely Hearts and Sera Lilly, and fashion websites are obsessed with taking her photo.