Gemma Ward’s agent has announced that Gemma has no plans to return to her modeling career.

She’s up pretty early for a morning off. Can’t say I’m a fan of 7am Starbucks runs, but I’m glad to know Gemma Ward likes good music.

LINK LOVE: Gemma Ward’s Twitter

We might always relate models like Helena Christensen, Angelina Jolie, Naomi Campbell to the definition of “beauty”, tall, skinny, long hair and angelic conditions.

You can definitely find pretty girls anywhere in town, from Bondi Beach to small alleys of Paris, but only a few in the world resemble real beauty, which is often as its best removed from glamour and adornment.

Beauty is more than just one type and that it comes in different shapes and sizes as well. “Many might find pretty is the same as beauty” quoted by Alexandra Shulman, Editor of British Vogue who recently wrote in ‘Beauty British Now”, “but actually their enemies, as the blandness and acceptability of pretty cancels out the greatness of beauty.”.

Emma Pei

Most people will define Chinese top-model Du Juan’s round face, creamy flawless skin, and gorgeous bone structure as the “real” beauty of China, less would look at rising star Emma Pei’s alien-like quality and immediately comes to mind that she is strikingly beautiful.

What majority thinks is beautiful is always the right answer, which is wrong! Embracing individuality is the real beauty as people like Kate Moss have challenged and created a whole new beauty aesthetic. She was the very few in the early 1990’s who were different, oppose to Linda, Christy and Naomi who had the bodies and polished stance.

Kate defined a new type of beauty that is recognized and accepted now in this generation. She defines beauty, as beauty demands a kind of originality that makes you pause and admire. Beauty is not being perfect, as the strange and peculiar quality makes beauties what they are.

Since then, there have been models who have epitomised a moment, like Lily Cole who almost didn’t make the list, as bookers find her over dolly. Models and people like her depict a more fragile, bizarre, unusual specimen of beauty, the technical term – ‘Alien Beauty’.

Sudanese goddess Alek Wek immediately broke the Western beauty standards and blew the fashion industry away, as she dominates the runway from Galliano to Calvin Klein. Polley Fey is an icon in defining Alien Beauty, as she conquers the fashion stage without sacrificing a bit of her individuality. In the 90’s Fey was one of the biggest models in the fetish scene, as she appears frequently on Torture Garden fliers.

Sasha Vs Gemma

The fashion industry have mistaken model Sasha Pivovarova as Australian gem Gemma Ward. Sasha started off in the industry with just negative feedback, no one liked her. She is more than just a Gemma-clone; the fact that the crowd sees them alike is so ironic.

I have found indie model/music agency label very interesting to interview, as they only represent 20 models and a couple fellow musicians oppose to larger agencies who casts more commercial girls who could earn the cash for the company. As I interviewed their Model Manager, Lance Labreche, we both discuss about how the fashion industry have adapt the notion of ‘beauty’ in the last years. As he comments that “The standards of beauty tend to swing back-and-forth like a pendulum along a certain amount of seemingly already agreed upon parameters”.

Part of Lance’s job as a model manager is to balance what consumer wants and how to introduce new forms of beauty that as he says “can increase a particular demographics size and scope for the fashion entertainment and scope we service”.

Away from the fashion industry and yet, in general women and even men still gage themselves against an image of impossible perfection. Nothing is really going to change unless people accept that “flaws make you beautiful”, and that there is more than one type of beauty in the world.

Not being blonde and blue eyed, five foot tall, slender with perfect silky skin would not put you in the category of being ugly. ‘Ugly’ is a terminology used for those who don’t accept diversity. Some people might be more beautiful than others, but no one is truly ugly. Brutality, cruelness and war is real ugly.

Our eyes have always blindfolded our hearts, as we always look at the physical beauty but not necessarily see the beauty quality of a person through their personality or accept another kind of beauty.

True beauty should be more widely recognized by those shallow people out there who just go for looks, former top model Cheryl Tiegs also recognises that “true beauty really does have to do with an inner light that does shine”. Even though looks might play an important part of where you stand in the community, without a positive and genuine personality, a person will not go far.

Even though I may not be a fan of Cate Blanchett , I admire her message ‘you don’t need plastic surgery even though you are 39 years old that starts to gain wrinkles’. Cate does not intend to alter her natural beauty, as she felt that “one could not run away from the passing of time, which leaves its marks inevitably, even if one’s skin or one’s mind”.

No offence but Mrs. Playboy a.k.a. Pamela Anderson used to be beautiful and had striking features before she had plastic surgery. Her cheeks are bulbous, her lips are insanely puffy and her skin waxen and shiny. We should not blame her actions, as this world can be quite crucial to you. But people should consider and try to be who they are. They should not change because of other people, even though if someone told you that you look disgusting, if you find yourself beautiful, that’s the most important.

Not long time ago, I was the kid who read fairytales. Most of the books describe heroes who were handsome and heroines who were beautiful. Since then, I believed that one of the qualifications to be a great person is to be “beautiful”. Time to time, as a teenager, I will look at the mirror, comparing myself to the models from Fashion TV and say “why am I so fat?” or “why am I ugly and they aren’t?”

Labreche reckons that “Ugliness tends to come from the same thought process as beauty”, as I question him if he feels ugly or not and when? He responds with a big yes, “I would have to say, yes, there are times when I feel ugly. I would even go a step further and admit that there are times when ugliness becomes an active choice or impulse”.

At 17 and half years old, writing this article right now, I am fully confident to tell everyone that I have realized outer beauty was not so important to make someone good. Though I somehow understand why people could be so materialistic and depthless. Shouldn’t we accept who we are as an individual, isn’t our natural “beauty” enough to fulfill ourselves?

If others can be confident, why can’t you. The beauty looked at with the eyes doesn’t last forever. Or should I say, you should now try to accept the new generation of beauty.

Nine Daughters and a Stereo are created by Eva Gödel the Art Director of the model agency, and Kira Bunse prominent freelance fashion photographer who runs the company together. Agency named after a David Bowie/Iggy Pop song lyric and originally conceived as a thesis project, now becomes one of the most interesting and successful agency based in Germany. They’re casting methods are different than other fellow competitors, they don’t walk around shopping malls and find the next “it” girl, but they target to a niche of poor, young and pale youngster, mainly guys who dwell the streets of Germany.

From my own observations and from the response of Bunse and Gödel, we discovered that Europe in particular embraces diversity. Diversity of humans, got more open, both of them said that “There is a bigger variety of looks and styles and personality got more important”. Girls don’t find macho jocks in high school that attractive anymore; ever since Adam Brody introduced Nerd Chic and made girls go crazy about their nerdy boyfriends.

Gödel have made a really simple yet powerful statement that “Beauty is relative. It is a subjective experience – Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. Time changed and passed and like Europe and other parts of the world we should embrace who we are and openness guarantees a long term beauty.

SOURCE: Ugly Beauty (our perspective in 09)

Gemma Ward and Kim Noorda played in a butterfly house for Craig McDean and W back in March ‘05. I love Gemma so much, I had to show this again. See the rest on Cult

SOURCE: The Fashion Spot

I must admit, the fashion world just isn’t the same without the blonde haired, blue eyed porcelain doll, Gemma Ward. Taking a modeling hiatus to appear in The Strangers and star in Jimmy Jack’s The Black Balloon, Ward certainly packed on a few pounds, but rumors circled that Ward was going to set her acting career on the back-burner, slim down and dive back into modeling. I hate to break it to you, but it looks like Ward just isn’t biting the model line as Jimmy Jack is courting her for a leading role in his romantic zombie film, Zombie: Sex, Brains and Rock n’ Roll. Hmm..sounds like a crappy version of Twilight to me. Um, Gemma…your ego called, it wants its lucrative career back. 

Thanks Modelinia!

Funny short video of a PETA rep being pushed off the runway during the Dior show, model looks like Gemma Ward…

I really don’t understand the psyche of multifaceted celebrities. Lindsay Lohan started out modeling and then dove into acting, then singing, back to acting, and now back to modeling. Kate Moss took a similar route, starting her career as a model and experimenting with screen acting and singing. Even Gemma Ward left a bitter taste in my mouth after putting modeling on hold to test the waters of the silver screen, an experiment which subsequently caused her to gain weight and will probably end her modeling career altogether. Now, it seems all that is pure and wholesome is taking a turn for the non-existent, multi-talent worse as Chanel Iman has her acting debut on tonight’s Gossip Girl. 

I listened to a YouTube spoiler (don’t worry, i’m not going to say a word) and it failed to mention anything about Iman’s appearance. Maybe her role is very brief. Maybe it’s not a “role” at all and Iman is simply playing herself. Whatever the case may be, the runway is Chanel Iman’s domain. Leave the fake tears, staged drug use and ridiculous scenarios to Blake Lively. 

Thanks Fashionista!

Gemma Ward’s  return to the runway in February might require the use of a forklift and a heavy duty runway. The waif has recently “Black Balloon’d”. Yeah, not my best reference, I know.

Ever since Gemma Ward took her leave of absence from the modeling world to pursue acting, it seems as if a very similar face has taken her place as model most wanted. Sasha Pivovarova, the 23 year-old Russian, Gemma Ward look-alike, signed with IMG in 2005 and snagged a Prada fragrance campaign in 2007, ironically when Ward began to disappear from runways, ads and editorials. The two models look frighteningly similar with their long blonde hair, pale skin, deer-like grey eyes, tall slender bodies, dainty lips and overall doll-ish appearance. Their careers are strangely similar as well, both working intensely with Prada and being deemed, at one point or another, top of the top by Models.com. Now, I have great respect for Pivovarova, Ward and IMG, but is it just me, or was Pivovarova the replacement for Ward? Not to say that Pivovarova wouldn’t have been an incredibly successful model if she were with a different agency (any way you look at it, she is unique and beautiful), but it seems to me that IMG didn’t want to let the doll-face model slip from their hands after Ward temporarily packed up her bags. Maybe I am completely wrong and IMG has plans to use both models in tandem, to launch the two in “twin” campaigns and editorials. Either way, I am very curious to see what is going to happen when Ward makes her grand re-appearance. Will she give Pivovarova a catwalk run for her money? Will the fashion industry be over her, sending her back to the acting world? Will bookers devour the dolls, making the both of them more successful than ever? Stay tuned for the next episode of “Whose Face Is It Anyway?”

Flip through any fashion magazine from 2008 and you’ll notice one key component missing…Gemma Ward! Now Ward lovers everywhere can rest easy, because hometown website Perth Now set the retire rumors aside and announced that Ward will return to the modeling world in 2009. The doll-faced, high demand model took a leave of absence from magazine covers, advertisements and runways in 2008 to pursue her acting career and  star in The Black Balloon and The Strangers. The big screen can definitely do without Ward, but the runway, now it just feels lost and lonely without her! Welcome back Gemma Ward! 

Thanks Sassybella!

What a relief! Gemma Ward’s modeling hiatus wasn’t for the typical drug or eating disorder rehabilitation! Oh no, Ward has spend the past several months filming the dramatic Australian film Black Balloon with co-stars Toni Collette, Rhys Wakefield, Luke Ford and Erik Thomson. The film tells the story of a boy named Thomas (Wakefield) who moves to a new home and is forced to take care of his autistic brother Charlie (Ford) while his mother (Collette) rests due to her pregnancy. Thomas faces adversity caring for his brother, which allows him to embark on an emotional journey. Along with the support of his girlfriend Jackie (Ward), Thomas is able to better understand and appreciate his brother.

It might sound a bit like a combination of Radio, The Waterboy and Simon Birch, but I was definitely the lame-o choking up while watching the trailer. My excuse is that i’m simply so glad to see Gemma Ward back in action! Black Balloon opens in select US theaters Friday!

Thanks Fashionista!

She might not have the eerie, ghostlike look of Tanya Dziahileva or the the deer-face of Gemma Ward, but Emma Maclaren, the blonde hair, blue eyed babe isn’t just any girl. For starters, this 17-year-old British model has more agencies than the typical top model. With bookers in London, New York, Paris and Milan, Maclaren’s career has skyrocketed, especially during 2008’s New York Fashion Week. Maclaren made her runway debut walking for designers like Marc Jacobs, Jill Sander and Givenchy and will be featured in November’s British Glamour and on the cover for December’s issue of L’Officiel. People might call her “generic-looking,” but this girl has got something that the other slender, blonde giants don’t have! 

Thanks NY Mag and The Fashion Spot!

M.I.A. from the runway for a year, cutie pie Gemma Ward finally made another cover — the October 2008 issue of Spanish Marie Claire.

Images from Fashionologie.

Gemma Ward Photographed by Nick Knight

Famed photographer Nick Knight is rounding up his formidable circle of fashion friends and having them spin records live on his Showstudio Web site. The project, dubbed Fashion Deejays, is in tandem with Swarovski and will see the likes of Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney, Naomi Campbell and Giles Deacon hitting the decks over three days starting July 9.

Click more to read Nick Knight’s bio.