AUSSIE model Abbey Lee Kershaw adds her trademark tough-girl glamour to feminine shapes and bold embellishments.
Abbey Lee Kershaw is good at what she does. At 25, she's already spent almost 10 years in the business and is, according to Models.com, the fifth most in-demand model in the world.
While still at school, in 2004, Kershaw was spotted at the beach by a model scout and encouraged to enter a teen magazine model search, which she won. But, until then, it hadn't been a job she'd considered.
"I was thrown into [modelling]," she says. "It ended up working out, but it wasn't something I'd aspired to do."
In response to the recent debate about modelling competitions for teenage girls, Kershaw insists there's nothing wrong with starting out early: "If you look at all the elite industries, everyone starts young.
As long as you have someone supporting you and keeping your feet on the ground, it's fine."
Now based in New York, the Melbourne native has been the face of Aussie brand Portmans since 2010, a role which brings her home a few times a year. Homesickness, however, is constant as she's always on the move. "I pretty much travel all the time," she says with a sigh. "I'm really close to my family, so it's hard being away from them. I miss them the most."
Affixing another 'slashie' to her job title, Kershaw recently added 'actor' to her model/artist/musician repertoire and, following her photoshoot for sunday magazine, has flown to Kenya for a break before she returns to the set of Mad Max: Fury Road in Namibia.
"I was asked to audition and offered the part, and I thought, why the f**k not? Acting isn't something I dreamt of doing; it fell in my lap and I'm lucky it did."
The budding actor admits she's learning on the job for Mad Max, a "re-imagined" version of the 1979 post-apocalyptic hit, in which she appears with fellow models Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Zoe Kravitz and Elvis Presley's granddaughter Riley Keough, as well as stars Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy. "So far, I've loved every minute," she adds. "I don't know if I'm any good, but I can see myself wanting to do more."
Kershaw says she feels "bored and restless" when not busy, which is why she throws herself into acting and modelling, as well as her art and performing with Our Mountain, the band led by her musician boyfriend Matthew Hutchinson.
"I try to juggle everything because they're all important parts of my life, but it does mean I'm tied up all the time," she admits.
But the model often makes headlines for more than her talents - she fainted at an Alexander McQueen show (blaming a too-tight corset), fell from dizzying heels on a Rodarte catwalk in 2008, and refused to wear McQueen's 30cm-tall 'armadillo' shoes in 2009. ("Fashion Week is gruelling," she says.)
With her career going from strength to strength, Kershaw doesn't look set to slow down any time soon and she's determined to live in the moment.
"I try to do the best at what I'm doing at that given time without looking too far ahead."
