It was very cool indeed to receive a media call sheet from fashion bible Harper’s Bazaar in my pigeonhole at the Sydney Opera House one morning. Not knowing what to expect, apart from instruction to bring flesh-coloured pointe shoes, and, for the gents, a jock strap, twelve of us dancers plus Li Cunxin were piled into cars and driven out to Scheyville National Park, about an hour north of the Sydney CBD.
We were to be shot for an exclusive pictorial spread, inspired by Disney fairy tales such as Snow White and Beauty and the Beast. The story we were to help realise was Cinderella (or Sin-derella, as it transpired), in which Li was our Prince Charming, as a prominent Australian was to feature in each fairy tale. A different fashion designer was assigned to create a look for each tale, and Kit Willow dressed the beautiful Danielle Rowe in an ethereal draped wisp of a dress, with outrageous knee-high platform boots covered in red glitter, as her vision of Cinderella. Li was dressed simply in a top and pants by Rick Owens. Us ladies were dressed in our white Suite en blanc tutus, with turbans in the same nude diaphanous fabric used for Danielle’s dress and bare legs, while the gentlemen … well, I’ll get to that in a minute.
I had a little chuckle when I was reading back through my notes about the shoot when writing this blog – frantic scribblings of “Lucifer the dancing black stallion’; ‘precarious red glittered knee-high platform boots’; ‘white tutu smeared with fake tan’; ‘boys in bandages’ – yes, we didn’t know what to expect, but we did not, to quote Monty Python, expect the Spanish Inquisition!
The concept was dreamt up by creative visionary and worldly eccentric Edward Coutts Davidson, who is possibly most famous for being Madonna’s interior designer. He met us with great enthusiasm, and was clearly an avid ballet follower. In his infectious Scottish accent, he entertained us with stories about his ideas for the other shoots for this spread, such as the next day’s shoot where they were dropping a famous Australian actress into the dugong tank at the Sydney Aquarium. It was in fact a wholly entertaining day, right from our arrival at a random family home on the outskirts of Scheyville National Park, where we were shooting, and finding the whole living room transformed into a buzzing make-up and hair department. It was there that the boys found out that they were being ‘bandaged up’. As us ladies had a ball being made up for a change (it was SO nice not having to do our make-up, which we do each night for the show), while the boys emerged from the ‘bandaging department’ (in reality, a family study) wearing little more than black bandages wrapped artfully around their limbs, and their jock straps. It was a peculiar sight, all of us standing there, the girls in our white tutus and turbans, the boys in their bandages, being fussed over by a make-up army as they hurriedly slathered us in fake tan, radiant spray and of course sunscreen. All in the middle of a suburban family living room!
We piled into cars in our tutus and bandages while trying awkwardly not to get fake tan and radiant spray all over the car seats, and were driven a few minutes to the site. We were met by Edward and another army of helpers (I could not believe how many people were involved in one photo shoot), as well as a gorgeous black Friesian Stallion named Lucifer, and a magnificent original 1860s horse carriage pulled by two horses. Without further ado, Edward ushered Li and the twelve of us into a makeshift horse arena, and we were very lucky to have David McAllister on site to arrange us into balletic poses – otherwise who knows what might have been asked of us, with three horses as potential pas de deux partners! In between shots and while we deliberated over different poses, the make-up army would step into the arena and there would ensue a general fuss of sunscreen, radiant spray and fake tan reapplication and water bottle distribution (it was a rather balmy day and it was 3 o’clock in the afternoon). I ended up being the ‘lifted girl’, and as such I had sunscreen/fake tan/radiant spray all over my white tutu to prove it (apologies to our wonderful wardrobe production department!).
I must say that seeing us all standing around in the living room of that very kind family’s home in our outfits, I found it difficult to imagine how the shoot was going to come together, but once we were placed on the horse carriage on this dry near-barren hill, with a dancing stallion and a smoke machine adding to the theatre of it all, I could see how this creative vision manifested so brilliantly. It’s a testament to a number of people’s passion and committed energy and it was really inspiring for me to work with a group of creatives in a different field to my own. And not only can I tell my grandkiddies one day that Grandma was once in Harper’s Bazaar, I can also tell them that Mr Davidson’s most famous client has the finished photo of us, as it appears in this month’s issue, hanging on her wall.
The April issue of Harper’s Bazaar, featuring The Australian Ballet, is on sale now
So much fun!…And Lucifer the dancing black stallion is rather handsome
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