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.

Stylist Zara Mirkin, who works as the fashion editor of No Magazine, says Seven is one of two models she will never tire of working with (the other one being Tallulah Morton).

"It's almost unhealthy for my work as they have set the standards so high. It's so important to work with amazing models - there are so many out there these days who are vain and competitive, and have let it go to their head, but these two haven't changed at all since I first started working with them."

Stylist Dan Ahwa also credits Seven's success to her humble attitude. "We've worked on a lot of shoots together, and she is still the same today as she was when I first booked her."

But it's Seven's unique look and style that has made her a favourite with non-fashion industry types, including lots of young fashion bloggers.

"I think the reason why so many girls are obsessed with her is because she is not a normal "supermodel", she is not an Amazonian six foot size zero freak of nature," says Mirkin. "People can relate to her because she is just a miniature kid from Grey Lynn who doesn't wear makeup, and doesn't think she is all that. She is such a shy, kind free-spirit, and yes, she has her own very unique, eclectic style that has made her into a muse not just to me but to many others."

Avril Planqueel, who moved here from France a few years ago, is another popular local model, a muse to Kate Sylvester and favourite to many a designer and stylist. Ahwa booked her for the latest Salasai campaign and lookbook, and counts her as one of his favourites. "She doesn't try so hard, she has a unique character and attitude.

She makes clothes look like they belong to her and she's lived in them. It's hard to reproduce that effect with other models, and Avril always has an understanding of fashion and photography that some models struggle to comprehend."

Planqueel's face has appeared in pretty much every New Zealand magazine, from Fashion Quarterly to Black to Metro to Pulp, and there was a season where it seemed she appeared in almost every single fashion designer's lookbook.

Derya Parlak (featured on the cover of this week's Viva) is currently modelling overseas; however she appeared in Cybele's summer 09/10 campaign and video, on the cover of ANZFW's The Guide and Juliette Hogan's summer and winter campaigns before she left.

"She fits my look beautifully and just encapsulates it really," says Hogan. "This last shoot was the third lookbook she has done for me, and I always get so many comments about how her look works for my label." She is right; Parlak's look is posh, pretty and well-mannered, which is fitting with Hogan's aesthetic. Photographer Guy Coombes, who has recently shot lookbooks for Sera Lilly and Stolen Girlfriends Club and photographed Parlak for Hogan's campaign, says, "She is one of the few models who needs little direction as everything [she does] in front of the camera photographs well".

The local industry recently also went gaga over Stella Maxwell, who returned home from modelling in Europe. The Dunedin-based model, who studied psychology at Otago University, has gone on to appear in a UK Vogue editorial, a fragrance campaign for chain store Mango, in shows for Luella, Vivienne Westwood and Issey Miyake and featured in an Alexander McQueen lookbook. That's mighty impressive for a girl who only began modelling last year.

Olivia O'Driscoll is another local girl who has been hyped overseas; last year she was put "on hold" for a Prada/Miu Miu show (that's a big deal in model land), and she has been photographed for AnOther Magazine, French Elle and German Vogue. Devonport-raised Katie Braatvedt was the first New Zealand model in 12 years to appear on the cover of Vogue (she frequently appears inside, the Australian Vogue team love her). She's modelled in Tokyo, Milan, Paris and New York for the likes of Isaac Mizrahi and Diane Von Furstenburg and appeared in campaigns for Italy's Twin Set and Japanese cosmetics company Shu Uemura. Currently in her final year at school, she is off to New York in 2010 where she will be represented by the prestigious IMG Model agency.

There are of course plenty of other local girls whose names you may not know but whose faces you will recognise, whether they be from an old Max campaign or a fashion designer's ad or from the social pages on a Sunday - think Lily Montana, Ngahuia Williams, Penny Pickard, Veronica Crockford-Pound, Phoebe Leonard, Elena Zubielevitch, Phoebe Watt. There are also those New Zealand girls quietly doing well overseas; Karla Devine is now based in New York and recently appeared next to Gossip Girl's Leighton Meester in a music video, Ella Drake has worked with Gucci's Frida Giannini as a fit model and Emma Champtaloup was "hand-picked" by Giorgio Armani to walk in the Emporio Armani and Armani shows in Milan earlier this year.

Then, of course, there is Jenna Sauers, the former model who grew up in Christchurch who caused a stir in July when she revealed herself to be "Tatiana Anymodel", the author of an anonymous blog called Modelslips, which gave an candid and incredibly well-written insider's account of the modelling scene.

Sauers returned to New Zealand to cover NZ Fashion Week last month, and appeared on the runway for the likes of Zambesi, Lonely Hearts and Trelise Cooper last year. When she "came out" as the anonymous blogger, she told The Guardian that she'd lost heart in the industry.

"Often when I was modelling, I felt like I couldn't express myself. After all, the point of a fashion model isn't that she necessarily has anything to say."