‘The industry is fickle and you don’t know when it’s going to fade away’: Megan Gale on the realities of modelling
Australian supermodel Megan Gale has opened up about the secret to her longevity in fashion, and she reveals her next big move.
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She is an enduring presence in the Australian fashion industry, but Megan Gale scoffs at the notion she should be considered a supermodel. Coined in the ’90s to describe the likes of Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford – models turned moguls who ruled the runways and landed lucrative brand deals – the term is also used to describe fashionistas who are known as much for their personalities as they are for their looks.
“I certainly don’t feel like [supermodel] pertains to me, even though I have seen it linked to my name,” Gale tells Stellar.
“When I think of a ‘supermodel’ [I think of] those women, and what they achieved as trailblazers in the industry. They were pioneers of turning a model into a brand and business.
“They took it from the brands being king into them being the ones with a lot of power and say.”
With a laugh she adds, “I’m living proof that it gets bandied about too much – and too casually.”
But the case for Gale’s supermodel status stands. Across a career spanning three decades, the Perth-born 48-year-old has served as the “face” of David Jones for 15 years, launched businesses (in swimwear as well as skincare), hosted Project Runway Australia and Australia’s Next Top Model and even made the move into acting (most notably in 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road and The Water Diviner in 2014).
Along the way, she evolved from model to brand in her own right.
“At the time, I didn’t really know it – I was just taking opportunities and making the most out of them,” Gale insists. Speaking to Stellar from the Melbourne home she shares with her fiance, former AFL player turned reality TV star Shaun Hampson, 35, and the couple’s two children, River, 9, and Rosie, 6, she continues: “This industry is fickle and you don’t know when it’s going to fade away.”
As if assessing her appeal from the outside, Gale jokingly speculates, “‘Yeah, we’re done with Megan now …’ And then I have to move on to something else.
“I knew I wanted to work as much as I could, have kids later, and maybe semi-retire. Because I assumed the work wouldn’t be there, maybe. I can’t stay still for too long. I like to stay busy and even though I took time off, I could still come out the [other side] of it and go back into this career. Maybe if I hadn’t done all of those things, in that way, I wouldn’t have been able to keep going [with modelling].”
Appearing on the final Stellar cover for 2023 is a family affair for Gale – as well as a reflective opportunity. She and Hampson recently came together with their children to front the Christmas campaign for Melbourne retail mecca Chadstone, which Gale says is her family’s local shopping centre. While Hampson admits modelling isn’t something that comes naturally to him, Gale says River and Rosie took to Stellar’s photo shoot quite easily.
“Rosie changed her outfit a tonne of times before she got there and she was on,” Gale says. “She was jumping all over the couches; she’s just got that energy about her, little firecracker that she is.”
But all things in moderation, of course. “I don’t want them to get any sense of self-importance or entitlement,” says Gale, who is happy to include her children in appropriate professional opportunities but, like a growing number of celebrities, prefers to keep their faces obscured.
“I try to find a delicate balance of letting them do it but not letting them be overly recognisable, so they have a bit of privacy around it while still experiencing it. They have seen their pictures up at Chadstone and got quite a kick out of it. Christmas is such a special time. To celebrate it with Chadstone, it was an honour to be asked.”
And to do so as a family? Even better. Gale and Hampson have been a couple since 2011 and engaged since 2017, though a wedding date has yet to be set. In their 12 years together, the pair has experienced highs, like the births of their children, and crushing lows, such as the loss of loved ones, including Gale’s older brother Jason.
With both defined by high-profile careers characterised by sudden expiry dates, there was every chance the stress of unpredictability could have impacted their relationship but, as their social media attests, they’re as playful as ever, particularly when one pranks the other.
“We just have a bit of a laugh,” confirms Gale. “He’s very grounded and always keeps things very real. He makes me laugh a lot. We’re still having fun, all these years later.”
Date nights keep their relationship fresh and instinct governs when one or the other might need a little more support. “We’re very good at picking up the slack for one another. We’re good at give and take,” she says.
By his own admission a “reluctant celebrity”, Hampson happily watches Gale in her element. After retiring from the AFL in 2018 following a career spanning nearly 100 games for Carlton and Richmond, he’s since appeared as a contestant on two seasons of Australian Survivor, in 2019 and earlier this year for the Heroes versus Villains season.
“I’m pretty shy and reserved and introverted in nature,” he admits to Stellar. “Megan is very humble. She has a huge profile. A lot of my [fame] is sort of splashback from that. When we first started seeing each other, she didn’t warn me, ‘Hey, this [attention] can be a bit full on!’ I’ve grown to accept it over time. Celebrity is nothing that I’m chasing – I guess it’s just a by-product of being with somebody like Megan.”
Even his stints on Australian Survivor were more about fulfilling a childhood dream than matching Megan’s career or seeking stardom. “Reality telly is nothing I’d really been interested in, but I loved Survivor since I was a kid,” he says.
Just as Gale prepared herself for a life after modelling, Hampson has set himself up for his post-footy career almost since the day he played his first game for Carlton in 2007.
“As a player, it’s always in the back of your mind,” he explains. “When you get to a club, you’ve barely touched the ground before you have a meeting with a development manager and they’re saying, ‘Right, what do you want to do after footy?’
“When [retirement] comes, it’s like, ‘Wow, that came around quick …’ One of the hardest things about finishing footy is that your identity is tied up with being a footballer. You’ve really got to work hard at keeping that in check.
“I’m Shaun the person first and football comes second, so when that does get taken away from you, you’re still OK. I’ve seen a lot of guys go through the transition and really struggle because their whole identity was tied up in it.”
Hampson’s career has come full circle with him now a coach for Richmond’s AFLW and the club’s men’s VFL.
“I was in the last year of my contract; my back was bad enough that I couldn’t really play to the highest level any more,” he recalls of hanging up his boots five years ago.
“I did have a lot of injuries, but my brain held me back from being the best footballer I could be. Later in my career, I conquered that but it was my body that gave out. Any footballer will tell you the hardest part is the mental side of the game.”
When it comes to Gale’s career longevity, a wave of nostalgia swept through Melbourne Fashion Festival in March when she walked the runway for David Jones for the first time in 15 years to celebrate the department store’s 185th anniversary.
“I always loved catwalk modelling – I’d missed it,” Gale recalls. “Walking down that runway and having people happy to see me felt like a homecoming. Would I do it again? Never say never. I wouldn’t just start rolling myself out for the sake of it. It’s got to make sense. I definitely say no to things more than I say yes.”
Gale is at the forefront of a new willingness to embrace age diversity in fashion but she also represents an era when retail giants waged against each other in the so-called “store wars”, that saw Gale – who signed as the brand ambassador to David Jones in 2001 – pitted against Jennifer Hawkins, the face of rival Myer.
Years on, she admits it was a different approach. “The whole retail fashion landscape has changed, especially when you start touching on the store wars and David Jones versus Myer,” she says. “There are just not those big contracts anymore, those big shows.
“I worked for DJs for a long time – we’d do the big shows, the big trips overseas. Brands and companies don’t really work like that anymore.”
This year marks 30 years since she began modelling at 18 and she welcomes greater inclusiveness. “The fact that I’m still around and managing to work, I consider it a blessing – and certainly an unexpected one. I know how unpredictable this industry can be.
“When I started, you had to be a certain height and weight. When I returned to the catwalk for David Jones, I saw so many models of different ages and heights, that stuck out for me as pivotal, significant changes.”
After an eventful 2023, the family plan to celebrate Christmas at their newly renovated Melbourne home.
“We try to alternate Christmas between Western Australia and Victoria,” Gale says. “My mum is coming over [from Perth]. Shaun’s mum is here. It’s been quite a big year for both of us. We’re on the home stretch now.”
And the couple has a lot to be grateful for as they look ahead to the new year. “Shaun and I often say, ‘How good are our kids?’” Gale enthuses.
“Riv loves skateboarding and he’s learning magic. He was doing magic tricks on [the Stellar] set. Rosie loves dancing and gymnastics. It’s busy and it’s a juggle, but it’s not lost on me how lucky I am.”
Read the full interview with Megan Gale and Shaun Hampson inside The Sunday Telegraph (NSW), Sunday Herald Sun (VIC), The Sunday Mail (QLD) and Sunday Mail (SA).
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