Abbey Lee on fashion’s ‘ugly side’ and working with George Miller
ONE of Australia’s most successful models, Abbey Lee, has revealed the ugly side of the international fashion scene describing it, at its worst, as “inhumane.”
Fiona Byrne
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ONE of Australia’s most successful models, Abbey Lee, has revealed the ugly side of the international fashion scene describing it, at its worst, as “inhumane.”
Melbourne-born Lee, who has worked for some of the world’s top luxury brands including Chanel, Gucci, Balmain, Versace, Dolce & Gabbana, Hugo Boss and YSL, is now focusing on an acting career and said a lack of rules within the international industry often led to models being treated as objects, not people and that more protection was required for young women entering the business.
“Without trashing modelling too much, because it has given me really exceptional opportunities, I have travelled the world, I am financially very stable in a way most people my age aren’t and I am very aware of how lucky I am in that regard, but it is a really tough job,” said Lee, who was a guest of Stella Artois at the recent Portsea Polo.
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“For me, it was emotionally demanding as much as it was physically and there is not enough protection for models.
“Anyone of their own free will can treat you how they please. In so many ways it is close to being inhumane and I did not feel happy in that environment anymore.
“You are looking girls as young as 14 who are being thrown into an industry that is being predominantly run by adults.
“As a model you are put in a room with 20 adults who forget you are only 15 a lot of the time.
“There is not enough protection, not enough respect, not enough care. Even as an older model your body is treated any which way somebody may please and because they are not unionised there are no rules as to how they can handle you physically, they are not required to pay you, they are not required to feed you, there are no ending times.
“I have been on shoots where I am there until 4am in the morning and I have a 6am call time.
“During (the international fashion) show season you can be waiting for a fitting and there are girls sleeping in a stairway because they have not slept for three days.
“It is no joke, it is very hard work and it is not regulated. We see the end result, the pictures, but that is not all that goes on.”
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While film is now her passion, Lee has not completely left modelling behind.
“I am in a really great position where I can dip in and out of modelling as I choose and when something floats my way I can decide if I want to do it for my own reasons, not as a career choice,” she said.
“When I was modelling full-time everything is a career choice and it is not that way anymore. I can just do prestigious, good paying, nice jobs.
“But there is one thing I do miss about modelling, and I will always miss, and that is the 25 seconds you are on a runway.
“Fashion week (the international show season) is out of control. If you are a successful model and you are doing the amount of show I was doing across six weeks in four cities, it is insane, the work is insane, but that 25 to 40 seconds on a runway, I loved.”
Lee’s desire to act was ignited after she landed a role in George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road.
“It came at a time when I was really frustrated with modelling, and I had been for a while, and I was trying to find things that were satisfying my urge to expand and create,” she said.
“I was dabbling in music and art but nothing kind of sat right and it was just at that peak moment when I wasn’t sure what I was doing and then I got asked to audition for Mad Max.
“Everything sort of made sense from that moment.”
She described Miller as a genius.
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“There is actually only one other man I have met quite like George and that is Karl Lagerfeld, they are very similar in the way that their brains work,” she said.
Lee said she was not daunted at moving from top of one field to building a career in another.
“I am in that in between moment in an actor’s life when you really just want to get a job and you are auditioning, and you are coming really close, and some just don’t land,” she said.
“But it is how it is. I am working really hard on auditions and waiting for the right one to land.”
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