Chadwick Models owner Martin Walsh reflects on successful career
Martin Walsh has helped launch many of Australia’s best known faces on to the world stage, but as his model agency chalks up 45 years in the notoriously fickle fashion industry, some of his proudest moments have been achieved away from the cameras.
Lifestyle
Don't miss out on the headlines from Lifestyle. Followed categories will be added to My News.
The name Chadwick is synonymous with Australia’s beautiful people. So too is that of Martin Walsh, the man who has been steering the world famous model agency since 2007.
But the story of Chadwick Models and Walsh’s role in its enduring success goes back a lot further than that.
Founded in 1976 when Peter Chadwick took over Griffin Models with business partner Stuart Cameron, the agency has launched, built and sustained the careers of many of Australia’s best known models.
Next Tuesday it celebrates its 45th anniversary with a party at the new Shell House Sky Bar.
There’s been Megan Gale, Rachel Hunter, Elle Macpherson, Travis Fimmel and Toneya Bird. And that’s just for starters, with one of majority owner and CEO Walsh’s proudest achievements coming more recently.
But more of that later.
The 45th anniversary is not a milestone Walsh, 62, who grew up in Castle Hill looking after animals and working on his cars, ever imagined he would see.
Modelling wasn’t on his radar until the fresh-faced boy next door with the brilliant smile needed money at age 20.
“I was travelling through Adelaide after deferring from uni and decided to stay a while,” Walsh says.
“A friend started modelling and I would give him grief about it, but after being talked into doing one job because I needed the money I got more jobs and realised it could be a legitimate career that had potential.
“I treated modelling like being a salesman which I continue to believe is the best approach.”
In 1981 he signed with the agency he would eventually head up.
He was so successful locally, Walsh packed his bag for New York where he stayed for 12 years with Ford Models agency.
Upon hitting his mid 30s, he wanted to challenge himself, so jetted home to Australia where he casually asked the question that would change his life.
“I would come back every Christmas and one night having dinner with Peter (Chadwick) I asked if he was going to get another partner as Stuart Cameron had moved to New York,” he says.
“I had no agenda for me, I was just interested. He replied ‘No, not unless it was you Marty’ which I thought was a joke.
“A few days later I thought it’s probably not a bad idea so next time I saw him I asked if he was serious about what he had said. We spent the next 12 months nutting out the deal and I returned in November 1994 as a one-third shareholding partner of the business and (with) a big learning curve ahead of me.”
THE TURNING POINT
Walsh’s next big break came in the late ’90s when he began working with a young unknown from Perth named Megan Gale.
As Chadwicks’ head booker and manager at the time he was instrumental in securing Gale a gig with Italian telecommunications company Omnitel in 1999, a deal which catapulted both to heady new heights.
The Omnitel ad which made Gale a superstar in Italy, came just as she was preparing to retire from modelling.
“At the beginning of 1999, I had gone to Martin expressing an interest in focusing predominantly on TV commercials as I thought it was going to be my final year modelling. I didn’t see much of a future ahead at the ripe old age of 23 and thought any huge success was going to be scarce based on my current scale of work and my age,” says Gale of that turning point.
“I knew TV commercials paid well and I wanted to start securing some savings. Martin agreed it would be a good strategy and began to set me up with several TV commercial auditions. I booked two, back to back and then I attended the casting call for Omnitel.”
After three call backs, it came down to Gale and another model and the rest is history.
Neither Gale nor Walsh could have predicted Italy’s response.
“It changed my career and impacted Martin’s as well I think,” Gale says.
“We were both thrown in the deep end! I went from working here and there to becoming inundated with offers. From that point on, Martin managed me full time in Australia and we both ended up being pretty busy with a huge influx of work from that one commercial.”
That rich vein of endorsement deals included a record breaking 12-year contract with David Jones which prompted Myer to sign 2004 Miss Universe Jennifer Hawkins and ignite the department “Store Wars”.
Gale believes the fact Walsh, who she describes as jovial and pretty relaxed, worked as a model is what sets him apart from the rest.
“With him having been on the flip side of things as a model for so many years, he didn’t take the industry too seriously which I liked. He had an insight into the model’s perspective on things which I think contributed to him being a good booker and then eventually a great manager,” she says.
“Overall, Martin was really fun to work with and being such a dedicated husband and family man he really understood how important it was to not just work hard but to make the time to have fun and enjoy life as well and not take it all too seriously. I really rate that about him.”
A MODEL HUSBAND
A fixture on Sydney’s social scene over the past few decades, Walsh shares two teenage daughters with former top model Michelle Walsh, despite promising himself he would never date or marry a fellow model.
After signing on at 18, Michelle modelled in Milan, Paris, Vienna, Madrid and South Africa and, after retiring, worked on Channel 9 travel show Escape With ET alongside former NRL star Andrew Ettingshausen.
“Michelle was a model with the agency and I would run into her out and about in Bondi and realised we shared the same sense of humour, and soon we would kayak around the harbour on just about every weekend,” Walsh recalls.
Love quickly followed.
“After three months I realised I didn’t want to spend time with anyone else. A month later she moved in. I had a toaster and a penknife and some borrowed couches in my Tamarama apartment and five years later we were married. We’ve been together for the past 26 years, now with two teenage girls.
“I tell people I picked the best model in the agency at the very beginning and have adored her ever since. I do feel being with Michelle was a large part of my success as I never had eyes for anyone else and that allowed me to do my job with no temptations.”
DEMANDING DIVERSITY
Walsh took over control of the agency from Peter Chadwick in 2007, with Melbourne-based Matthew Anderson also on board as a co-director and part share holder.
The Noughties were a time of monumental change – from the way agents do business to the type of models working in front of the camera. From the “living mannequins” of the 1980s to 1990s “heroin chic” era to today’s Insta-famous faces, Walsh has seen it all.
“Agencies essentially respond to the industry, advertiser or designer and we take on models that they want. We don’t dictate, it’s the industry that dictates what type of models we should be signing,” Walsh says.
“While the heroin chic look of the mid-nineties did surface in Australia it was relatively short lived and didn’t get any real ongoing traction. I believe models sell clothes by consumers seeing an image and thinking, ‘I want to look like that’.
“Whether that’s on a subconscious level or an immediate thought, the Australian consumer didn’t respond well to the sickly, skinny models who looked like they needed a burger, a shower and a good night’s sleep. We’ve always sought out and promoted wide-ranging diversity in our models. We remain proud to have represented Elaine George as the first Indigenous model to feature on the cover of Vogue in 1993.
“Chadwick has been proud to lead the Australian industry in recognising and developing a wide range of culturally diverse models, both male and female, long before it became a recognised and commercially supported aspect of Australian advertising which is a relatively recent development.”
Walsh agrees that in the past decade, we’ve seen a sharp shift in the way the industry operates and how it is perceived.
“Considering the huge diversity represented in Australia’s population I was always perplexed (why) it took so long for advertisers to engage and represent that diversity in its advertising,” he says.
“It’s interesting now the frequency of clients seeking out ‘diverse’ models.
“I’m also encouraged by the increased representation of so-called plus-size models, again as they are well represented in the population. Our models range in size from 8-14 and all are in great demand.
“A few years back we made the decision not to publish model measurements on cards or the website as we felt it created undue pressure on our models and an unrealistic standard for young girls that may be following us. This was a world first among agencies across the globe and received a very positive response.”
One of Walsh’s charges now reaping the rewards of a more diverse industry is South Sudanese-Australian model Adut Akech.
Akech was six when she arrived in Australia with her family as a refugee from South Sudan. In just five years of modelling she has appeared on covers of American, British, French, Italian and Australian Vogue, shot campaigns for luxury brands Fendi, Givenchy, Saint Laurent, Chanel, Isabel Marant and Hugo Boss, walked every major runway and recently signed multimillion-dollar contracts with Victoria’s Secret and Estee Lauder.
Walsh sees her success as one of his greatest achievements.
“Certainly seeing Adut reach such recognition and accomplishment in such a short time, buying her family houses and investing in properties all over the world is extremely gratifying,” he says.
“Especially when she first started attracting big international demand while completing her exams in Adelaide – as she promised her mother – and turned down a Vogue cover because she wanted to attend her school formal with her friends.”
LASTING LEGACY
Walsh believes his success in the notoriously picky, ever-changing and often controversial fashion model industry comes down to passion for the job.
“Firstly, you have to love the model industry,” he says.
“Then it’s a matter of eye for detail, patience, thoroughness, planning skills, computer skills and just about any other skill you can think of for that matter.
“It does take a very special kind of person to be an effective and successful agent.”
But it is not a job that is getting any easier.
Since selling Chadwick Models, agency founder Peter Chadwick, now 84, has worked as a volunteer at St Vincent’s Hospital and at the Mater. While he doesn’t buy fashion magazines any more he knows what’s going on and that the agency he founded is celebrating 45 years is a matter of quiet pride.
“I was late to the game, I didn’t start the agency until I was 38. It was great while I had it then it has kept going on after I left,” he says.
“The name was there and the management is still doing really well which is so great. When I first started there was a pie and there were about three slices out of that pie. Now that pie is cut into 20 slices. It is much harder now.”
Got a news or entertainment tip? Email weekendtele@news.com.au
Great-grandmother, 93, shocks with unbelievable act
A great grandmother of 12 has shocked onlookers with a heart-pumping birthday present.
How to bring wellness into any space
Make your house feel like a home