STANDING STRONG
Three years after stepping away from modelling to focus on her health, Catherine McNeil is ready for a triumphant return to the runway. This time, things will be different, because she’s sober, engaged to be married and has found her true identity outside of fashion.
It’s September 2019, and Catherine McNeil is backstage at Burberry’s spring/summer ’20 show, one of the most anticipated events of the London fashion calendar. It not only marks creative director Riccardo Tisci’s third collection for the esteemed British fashion house, but McNeil’s, too. As one of the designer’s favourite faces, McNeil has walked in all three shows. The show caller waves her over, and she takes her place alongside Kendall Jenner, Irina Shayk, the Hadid sisters and noughties It-girl Agyness Deyn, who is making a much-anticipated return to the runway. Then it’s showtime. As the likes of Naomi Campbell, Dua Lipa and FKA Twigs look on from the star-studded front row, McNeil emerges onto the runway wearing a beige trench coat and sheer stockings that reveal her trademark tattoos, her brunette tresses bleached icy blonde. Now an industry veteran in her 16th year of modelling, the girl originally from Logan, Brisbane, carries herself with the poise of a seasoned professional. But on the inside, it’s a different story. Privately, she feels like she’s falling apart.
McNeil’s years at the top of the fashion world have brought her fame and success, but the cycle of travel and endless parties has begun to take its toll on her mental health and deep down, she knows she needs to get sober. The Burberry show is her first of that season, but it will also be her last.
In the weeks that follow, McNeil would return to New York City to pack up her life. She would put her furniture out on the street, get off social media and book a one-way flight back to Australia. “I’d had enough,” she says of the snap decision. After so many years being the face of some of the world’s biggest brands, it was finally time to focus on herself.
It’s almost three years later, and the day before her new Vogue Australia cover shoot. The 33-year-old has just flown into Sydney from the Sunshine Coast and even though she’s a seasoned professional, she admits to feeling apprehensive. “I always get a little bit nervous. I just want to do a good job and make
everyone happy,” she says with a self-deprecating smile. McNeil’s hair is back to her natural brown, and she’s recently had it lopped to the chin, which effectively makes her sky-high cheekbones appear even higher. You can hear the Queenslander in her accent and see it in her laid-back disposition. She’s just finished the final fitting – by all accounts, the blue Balenciaga gown is set to be a moment – and is slipping back into a black mini-skirt and button-up blouse.
“Right now I’m dressed up, but I’m still a tomboy,” she insists. “I’m pretty much always wearing jeans and a jacket with a crop top and sneakers.” McNeil refers to her departure from New York in oblique terms, like she’s processed the experience and is ready to move on. “I love New York … I have a love-hate relationship with it. I love it but I get so overwhelmed. And the city had become quite toxic. So I was just like, ‘I’m out,’” she recalls. She says no one tried to convince her otherwise. “My agency could tell I needed a break. And when I need to take a break, I take a break. And it’s a big break.”
The first time McNeil pressed pause on her career, she was 20. It was 2009, six years after she entered the Girlfriend magazine model search that famously launched her to international acclaim. McNeil knew nothing about fashion when her mum and grandmother encouraged her to enter – she was just a motorbike-obsessed teenager from the outer suburbs of Brisbane – and wasn’t sold on the idea of modelling. “I tried to blend in with the wall as much as I could. I was just like, ‘Please don’t see me,’” she remembers. But McNeil is impossible to miss.
She won the search, and with it, a ticket to New York.
On the global stage, her enigmatic beauty translated just as powerfully on the runway as it did in front of the camera, making her one of the most in-demand faces of the era. She walked for Dior, Chanel, Hermès and Alexander McQueen and even opened for Givenchy in her debut season, scoring a coveted spot on the now-defunct fashion bible Style.com’s list of top 10 new faces for 2007. Soon after, McNeil appeared on the front covers of Vogue Paris and V Magazine and fronted a campaign for Hugo Boss, the first of many. She went on to become the face of Jean Paul Gaultier and Narciso Rodriguez, and later took over from Nicole Kidman on Jimmy Choo. In 2008, she added the ultimate mark of mid-00s supermodel stardom to her CV: a starring role in the Pirelli Calendar.
But even though she was young, the pace of everything was taking its toll. “I still look back today and there are photo shoots where I’m like, ‘I don’t even remember that …’ because I was just working so much,” recalls McNeil. “It felt like I couldn’t keep track of what was going on – I was going over here, then going over there, I was invited to this party – I’m a very private person, so it’s a lot to handle.” So, she dropped everything and moved to London to live like a regular twentysomething.
Her return to modelling two years later was celebrated, quite literally, on the November 2012 cover of Vogue Australia. ‘Catherine McNeil is back’, read the bold text on the front of the magazine. The years that followed were characterised by more career highs. McNeil was booking job after job; she became a favourite of Piergiorgio Del Moro, one of the world’s top casting directors, who put her on Vogue Italia’s iconic December 2017 Mert and Marcus cover, alongside fellow supers Anja Rubik, Jamie Bochert and Joan Smalls.
“Cat has proved time and again to possess the best qualities of a model,” says Del Moro. “She chooses to reinvent herself often and with each change, she manifests a unique and special moment.” Rarely do models change their look so fearlessly, he notes. “The ability to do so is very unique and special.”
In 2014, McNeil appeared on her sixth Vogue Australia cover – a special collector’s edition in collaboration with legendary French designer Jean Paul Gaultier and the National Gallery of Victoria, to announce an international exhibition in Melbourne. Gaultier nominated McNeil specially for the cover and she was shot by Gilles Bensimon wearing a sculptural silver corset from the designer’s archives. In an interview, Gaultier raved about her charisma. “Catherine has a beauty that is both classical and modern. She could be a Hollywood movie star from the 1930s and yet she’s the girl of today.”
But McNeil was also moving in the coolest circles. This was before model wellbeing became an industry priority, and the nightclub scene in Downtown New York was heaving with members of the international fashion crowd. McNeil was never far from the action. She was regularly spotted gallivanting around the city with fellow supers like Binx Walton, Hanne Gaby Odiele and Lexi Boling, as well as Australian model Jordan Barrett.
Was she partying too much? It was difficult to say. Back then, models leaving clubs at dawn with their hair dishevelled and eyeliner smudged was considered perfectly normal behaviour. If anything, it was all part of the modern supermodel allure. But as the years wore on, behind McNeil’s green eyes, a familiar sensation was beginning to set in. Only this time, the model knew things were more serious, and that she needed professional help.
“I got really depressed through the first part of Covid. And my mental health is really important to me, so I went to this place called the Health Retreat on the Sunshine Coast,” says McNeil. She swallows, and glances down at the takeaway coffee cup she’s still cradling from her fitting. “And, um, I got my sobriety back. And I’ve just become like … Now I’m learning who I am as a person, and I think that’s great in my 30s.” A tear tumbles down her cheek and she pauses to wipe it off. “Sorry, I’m going to start crying now,” she half-laughs, half-cries.
Given just how raw these revelations are, McNeil’s ability to laugh is not only remarkable, but a symbol of her enduring strength. She gathers herself, and then continues.
“It’s just amazing to actually find out the things I do love, and who I am, and that fashion isn’t my identity. It’s my job.” During her time off, she discovered a love of gardening and the therapeutic power of mowing lawns. She also found the time and space to ride motorbikes again. “I’ve realised there’s more to me than my job, but it takes a while to figure that out. And for the longest time, I was like, if I don’t have modelling, then who am I?”
It’s a daunting question. Especially today, when so much of our self-worth is tangled up in our profession. As McNeil
“I’ve realised there’s more to me than my job, but it takes a while to figure that out. And for the longest time, I was like, if I don’t have modelling, then who am I?”
discovered, it’s not until work stops that we’re forced to really get to know ourselves. “It wasn’t easy at all,” she acknowledges. “But it needed to be done. And I wasn’t doing it because I was even planning on going back to work. I was just doing it for myself.”
She might’ve been doing it for herself, but a small army of friends, family and colleagues were cheering her on from the sidelines. In late 2019, shortly before she left New York City, McNeil began dating ex-NBA player Miles Plumlee. She’d met the 2.11-metre-tall American through mutual friends a couple of years prior, but the timing wasn’t right. Two years later, the stars aligned. “I think we moved in [together] within like a week. He was trying to keep me there,” she says, chuckling. Shortly after, Plumlee signed with NBL team the Perth Wildcats for a year, and the pair flew back to Australia together. In June this year, they got engaged.
Previously, McNeil has preferred not to address her private life in interviews – she’s been engaged twice before, to Australian actress Ruby Rose in 2010 and British model Miles Langford in 2013. But when it comes to Plumlee, she’s only too happy to elaborate.
“He is just the most loving, gentle soul. Like, he’s a big gentle giant. He’s so caring. I mean, I could go on for hours about how much I love him, but …” she smiles, “I’ll keep it at that.” Like McNeil, Plumlee loves the Queensland lifestyle. Right now, the pair is renovating the house they bought on the Sunshine Coast and they recently added a 129-hectare farm in Gympie to their small property portfolio.
“We’ve got our cows up there, and it’s only an hour away from the Sunshine Coast so we can drive up there to go motocross riding. I’m living out my childhood dreams,” says McNeil. Her obsession with motorbikes is common knowledge among the fashion industry. In fact, had it not been for the casual sexism of one Queensland motor mechanic, McNeil might never have stepped foot on a runway. “When I was a teenager, I went in for an interview and the guy just looked at me and said, ‘You don’t look like a mechanic,’” she says with a laugh. “I guess that happened for a reason, it pushed me into this other career.” She’s currently cutting around the farm on a Yamaha TT-R230. “But I want to upgrade to a 250. It’s bigger and it weighs a lot more as well.”
McNeil’s grandmother Sandra has been another bottomless well of support. “She’s still my most major role model to this day. She is my best friend.” She also counts models Hanne Gaby, Binx and Lexi among her closest friends, and McNeil’s US-based agent of 10 years, George Speros, is another of her biggest advocates. “I am so proud of the hard work Cat has put in to get sober,” Speros tells Vogue over email. “And I’m so happy to see her in a great place in her life. I love seeing her happy and at peace with herself.”
Inside Vogue’s Sydney office, we can see what Speros means – McNeil does appear genuinely at ease with herself. But it’s getting late, and she’s got a big day of shooting ahead of her tomorrow.
By the time this interview goes to print, McNeil will have made her return to the fashion week circuit. Rumours of a possible comeback have been circulating for months, but the model and her team are trying to keep the weight of expectation off. “I actually haven’t told anyone I’m coming back yet,” says McNeil as she prepares to head back to her hotel. “But I do miss the industry. I am excited to get back to New York and see everyone.”
On a rooftop car park in Sydney the following day, McNeil is changing into a voluminous white blouse that’s flecked with small black feathers for the cover look of her Vogue shoot. The shirt is from Schiaparelli’s autumn/winter ’22/’23 collection, and McNeil looks as if she was born to wear it. Then again, she looks like that in everything. When she emerges wearing a blue Balenciaga gown – the same dress a certain influencer and businesswoman wore to the 2022 Oscar’s Vanity Fair Party – the crew lets out a collective ‘Wow’.
The energy on set is high, despite the cool persistence of the midAugust wind. “This is the dream,” says photographer Jake Terrey as he reviews a set of frames on the monitor. Next up, McNeil returns wearing a dramatic black ensemble with a Rochas hat. The hat’s tulle sash flaps dramatically in the breeze around her, and within a couple of clicks, she’s nailed the shot. “She’s such a professional,” adds the photographer. “She really knows what she’s doing.”
It’s true. In front of the camera, McNeil has always known exactly what to do and what character to portray. But as she picks up where she left off in 2019, the difference is that this time around, she knows who she is away from the camera, too.
“I didn’t know what I liked outside of modelling. But this is the thing with finding yourself. I have a goal now. We’re getting married, I want to have a family, I want to make money for my future family,” says McNeil. If she’s harbouring any anxiety around what a return to modelling could look like, she doesn’t show it. “I’m not worried at all. It’s who you surround yourself with and what you choose to immerse yourself in.”
The fashion industry has also become a more positive and inclusive space. Today, it’s on every brand, casting director and magazine editor to advocate for greater diversity, and the length of a model’s career is no longer determined by age. Right now, models in their 30s, 40s and 50s are among some of the world’s most in demand.
One change McNeil is still getting used to, however, is the pressure to be on social media. “Back then, it was much easier to keep to yourself and be private, but now you don’t have that luxury because you have to keep up a following with your fans. And I’m still learning to do that. When I post something that has nothing to do with fashion, like me driving a tractor, I lose a bunch of followers,” she says with a laugh. Then she lowers her voice to a whisper. “At the end of the day, I don’t really care.”
Right about now, we could say that Cat is back. And indeed she is making a grand return to the runway, but as she has learned, that’s just her job. It’s who she is on the inside that matters most and that girl was there all along.
“I feel like a completely different person to who I was three years ago. I’ve grown up a lot and having my sobriety – that’s changed things in leaps and bounds. I’m always pushing myself and I think that’s what’s kept my career going for 20 years, and hopefully it will still be going in 30, 40 years,” resolves the model.
“I love myself again. And that’s a big, important thing.”
“It’s just amazing to actually find out the things I do love, and who I am, and that fashion isn’t my identity. It’s my job”