By Jen Melocco
May 14, 2007 07:32am
Article from: The Daily Telegraph

A YEAR ago Catherine McNeil didn’t even know who Mario Testino was – today the teenage model is the envy of her peers after signing an exclusive contract with the renowned fashion photographer and star maker.

The man who helped shape the careers of Kate Moss, Gisele Bundchen and even Princess Diana has said McNeil is the name of the fashion future.

Testino has spoken publicly for the first time in the prestigious US fashion magazine V.

“This girl is amazing,” he told the magazine. “I think Catherine has got what it takes to be an amazing model. That’s why I’ve put her on an exclusive contract.”

That six-month contract with Testino has already paid off for McNeil.

She has just shot a Versace campaign in Paris and she’ll star in the advertisements, due out in August, alongside Kate Moss.

The 18-year-old model spent last year working in Sydney with Chic Model Management before being catapulted into the international fashion world.

“I love working with him (Testino), he’s a good teacher and he’s got me some great jobs,” McNeil told The Daily Telegraph.

She has also recently completed an advertising campaign for Dolce & Gabbana’s D&G label and will star in ads for top New York designer Donna Karan.

The teenager has now left Australia and calls New York home. As well as the new surroundings she is also getting used to the title of supermodel.

After an era of waifs and girl-like looks for models, McNeil is being lauded for bringing back classic beauty and womanly curves.

V Magazine is the latest to give her the “supermodel” title as she headlined fashion shoot “Birth of a Supermodel”.

The New York Times also gave her the supermodel tag after she appeared at 34 shows for top designers in Paris, Milan and New York in February.

And she is set to again appear with the supermodel tag in prestigious US magazine Vanity Fair. It is a tag the down-to-earth teenager still has trouble believing.

“I’m just a normal kid who has a weird job,” she said. “I don’t think I’m a supermodel.”

She said her modelling success had given her the life she had always dreamed about.

Since January she has been living in New York and her life today involves constant travelling to a new job.

“When I was a kid I said I’d love to go to Paris and I’d love to travel. In the past four months I’ve been to every single place that I’ve ever wanted to go,” she said.

The big trip she is looking forward to now is when she returns to Australia in August.

“I’m coming back to see my family and just hang out,” she said.

“I can’t wait to just hang out.”

By Elizabeth Tilley
May 14, 2007 12:00am
Article from: The Courier Mail

AUSTRALIAN modelling agents can’t afford her any more, revered photographers are fighting over her and the world’s top designers are hand-picking her to open and close their catwalk shows.

Her name is Catherine McNeil and in the space of five months, this shy, beautiful 17-year-old from Logan in Brisbane’s south has gone from small-town unknown to big business.

Within 10 days of arriving in New York early this year, the leggy blonde-turned-brunette was spotted by legendary photographer Mario Testino, who has helped her develop an impressive resume.

Testino booked her for the Dolce & Gabbana print campaign, then a Hugo Boss shoot, Versace with Kate Moss and, just last week, she travelled to China to be photographed for the famous Pirelli calendar.

McNeil made her international catwalk debut strutting her stuff at New York Fashion Week early this year, working runway shows for Roberto Cavalli, Pucci, Versace and Fendi before heading to Paris for Dior, Valentino, Stella McCartney, Christian Lacroix, Yves Saint Laurent, Alexander McQueen, Chanel and Balenciaga.

But the former Shailer Park State High School student, who turns 18 in three weeks, doesn’t quite realise what all the fuss over her is about. The glamorous yet wholesome beauty was recently hailed as “the one to watch” by The New York Times, but she is at odds with its description of her as having “pillowed lips, Amazonian legs and a sultry adult face”.

“I don’t think I look like that at all,” McNeil laughs.

“I think I’m just interesting – but not all that.”

When McNeil spoke to The Courier-Mail in an interview from New York, she had just featured in a shoot for Vanity Fair and was getting ready to star in Donna Karan’s campaign.

“When I came to New York in January, I remember saying . . . ‘I hope I get one show’,” she says. “Well, I got my one show.”

Despite her recent rise to stardom and talk that she is tipped to become the next supermodel, McNeil says she is still just a heavy metal-loving high school drop-out who hasn’t let the attention go to her head.

“It’s just a job,” she says.

“I could be working in a shopping centre and still have the same frame of mind.”

But she admits her pay as a model would be somewhat more decent, although she won’t reveal just how decent it is.

“It pays the rent, which is good,” she says.

“And everyone needs a good Gucci bag and new shoes.”

Of course.

“But I’m trying to save because I’d like to buy a house by the time I’m 20.”

Preferably on a mountain in inland North Queensland, she says.

Her exclusive six-month stint with Testino ends in July, and while she will most likely have designers and photographers knocking on her New York door immediately after, McNeil can’t wait to get back to Brisbane.

“I miss my friends, my little sister and my family,” she says.

It doesn’t help that her mother is too afraid of flying to be able to visit her.

“She just said, ‘I’m not coming’,” McNeil says.

Kathy Ward of Chic Model Management, the agency which managed her in Sydney, says it is unlikely McNeil will be returning to Australia often from now on.

“She’s shooting Versace campaigns – we won’t see her back here until Christmas,” Ward says.

“We fight to get two days from girls like her, Miranda Kerr and Alyssa Sutherland.

“New York blows us out of the water because of course their rates are so much bigger.”

Dallys Models director Jodie Bache-McLean remembers when she first saw McNeil and persuaded her to enter the 2003 Girlfriend Model Search, which she went on to win.

“I phoned Chic (Model Management) and said ‘I found this girl – she’s awesome’,” Bache-McLean says.

“She was 13, very conscious of her height and not very confident.

“I said to her mum, ‘I’m going to put her in one of our courses’.

“It’s been a long road for Catherine because she liked modelling, but I don’t think she was confident enough.”

Unlike the wide-set-eyed alien look personified and made famous by fellow Australian model Gemma Ward, Bache-McLean says McNeil has more of a “movie-star” presence.

“She’s womanly, she’s sexy, she’s sultry,” she says.

“She has just the most incredible eyes and mouth, and being statuesque.

“She’s like Angelina Jolie in that there’s that incredible beauty.

“We’re looking for more, we need more Catherines.”

What a shame there will only ever be one of her.