Frockwriter loves the male model scouting stories that are coming out of Australia at the moment.
Spotted at Coles Kings Cross. A Chapel Street 7/11. A Collaroy bus stop. Not to mention numerous Facebook sightings.
Here's a new one: scouted while on a Greenpeace recruitment drive.
Meet 20 year-old, 6'2" Novocastrian James Phillips, a full-time staffer for Greenpeace Australia who works on the organisation's fundraising team (as confirmed by Greenpeace). According to the Sydney agency that signed him a month and a half ago, London Management, he's also a Greenpeace activist.
Spotted just prior to that, reports the agency, by Sydney-based photographer Pat Supsiri while Phillips was in Taylor Square working for Greenpeace, he has also just been signed to London's big buzz Storm Models and VNY Model Management in New York.
Phillips' first and only modelling job thus far was for the eighth edition of Australian menswear magazine Manuscript - a 22-page all-leather spread shot by Liz Ham, with the Soundgarden tribute title of 'Black Hole Sun'.
The issue hits newsstands on Thursday. Here is a list of stockists.
Many thanks to Manuscript publishers Mitchell Oakley-Smith and Jolyon Mason for this exclusive first look at the shoot. Oakley-Smith predicts Phillips "is going to be a superstar".
Phillips certainly has all the hallmarks - the face, the physique, the height - of a promising new male modelling star.
Frockwriter has to wonder, however, if his Greenpeace affiliations could limit his fashion work options?
A number of models have become activists for various causes, including PETA's long-running anti-fur campaign.
Greenpeace is currently running a fashion industry-targetted "Detox" campaign. Launched in July 2011, the campaign aims to raise awareness about the need to reduce toxic chemicals in the fashion supply line.
In October this year, the organisation unveiled its "Detox Catwalk": an update on how the dialogue was progressing with a plethora of major apparel companies. The companies have been sorted into three groups: "Leaders", "Greenwashers" and "Laggards".
In Greenpeace's goodbooks on the detox fashion front are Valentino, H&M, Levi's and Zara parent Inditex.
In the organisation's bad books are Adidas, Nike, Armani, Diesel and Vicktor & Rolf parent Only The Brave, Gap and PVH, the parent company of, among others, Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger.
That's a lot of potentially lucrative modelling gigs.
ALL IMAGES: SUPPLIED EXCLUSIVELY TO FROCKWRITER BY MANUSCRIPT MAGAZINE
PHOTOGRAPHY: LIZ HAM
STYLING: JOLYON MASON
GROOMING: SASHA NILSSON
MODEL: JAMES PHILLIPS/LONDON MANAGEMENT
CLOTHING CREDITS (BELOW)
