Gal pals have it covered Andrew Hornery SYDNEY MORNING HEARLD
October 18, 2008
Happy place … Catherine McNeil, left, and Freja Beha Erichsen.
ON THE pop culture radar
celesbians - girls who like girls almost as much as they like headlines - are the new "black". It was only a matter of time before an Aussie was leading the charge and taking her new gal pal with her, causing rumours and mirth backstage at the world's major fashion shows.
The Australian supermodel
Catherine McNeil has been getting cosy with a fellow clothes horse, the Danish-born beauty
Freja Beha Erichsen, over the past few months. And yes, they make a very pretty couple though they are yet to confirm it - well, publicly at least.
Nonetheless, in an era where celebrity couples, even the same-sex ones, are tagged with cheeky hybrid nicknames (Hollywood starlet
Lindsay Lohan and
DJ Samantha Ronson are known as Lesbohan, while newlyweds
Ellen DeGeneres and
Portia de Rossi got De Generossi) McNeil and her new gal pal have already been labelled McBeha.
McNeil's Sydney representatives at the modelling agency Chic declined to comment. McNeil's manager,
Kathy Ward, would only say that McNeil was "in a very happy place right now".
As for her mystery absence from the catwalks of the recent Milan and Paris shows, PS understands it was ill health that kept the genetically blessed Queenslander away, not "personal issues" as reported elsewhere.
Fashion bloggers have been having a field day. The Sydney-based Frockwriter site has been abuzz with chatter about McNeil's supposed new relationship, gleefully pointing out what a lovely coincidence it was that McNeil was gracing the cover of the November Australian
Vogue while her supposed girlfriend was on the cover of
Vogue Nippon.
McNeil has shot to the top of the international modelling scene over the past year. She has far more pressing matters to address than gossip about her personal life, such as landing what would be her biggest career coup yet: the cover of US
Vogue.
McNeil spent last week in Los Angeles shooting a 12-page spread with the photographer
Mario Testino, featuring the hot US actor
Jon Hamm. The shoot will be in the December issue of US
Vogue and McNeil is shaping up as a major contender to grace the cover.