On an unseasonably miserable day in late December, TheVine tagged along with a small crew to a blustery Bondi Beach to watch Catherine McNeil shoot her comeback campaign for local swimwear powerhouse Seafolly.
After a couple of years of shifted focus, the Australian model is ready to return to her career in front of the camera.
That day, despite an unpleasant combination of spitting rain and stirred up sand, McNeil was on fine form, with an iodine-dark tan and just-mussed, bandana bound hair-do. Poured into a bright orange one piece with pleated panels and a ruffle front detail, she cuddled close to the similarly sunkissed Jack Vanderhart, who 17 and shirtless, had every woman on the day feeling a little guilty for staring.
"It has Latino influences," Seafolly's head designer Genelle Walkom explained as we watched perplexed tourists turn their cameras away from the grey Bondi sky and towards the photoshoot, Beyonce blasting in the background. "You can see it in the little pleats and frills and bright, bright colour."
Even if she hadn't been in a witches hat onsie or rainbow bikini, McNeil would have stood out that day. Aside from a few surfers, she was one of the few people on the beach actually wearing swimmers at all. Rather than opt for Bondi's decidedly less than picturesque background shades, the shoot hugged close to the cream coloured wall that edges the beach, creating a 'could be anywhere' feeling.
"We wanted it a bit gangster, we wanted to take it off the beach, and make it more fashion," the shoot's stylist explained of the big gold hoops and abundance of bangles she piled onto McNeil's bronzed wrists.
When McNeil first booked Seafolly in 2008, the company's CEO Anthony Halas declared her the most significant face in Seafolly's 33-year history." This time around, he says he's "happy to support her modelling comeback."
The return of McNeil to Seafolly's fold is part of a broader story of retention for the still-family-owned brand, which is rapidly nearing its fortieth anniversary. "You either last three months at Seafolly, or you never leave," Halas laughs.
On the way back to the warmth of the shoot's black honey wagon, parked by the front of the Bondi pavilion, McNeil attracted considerable attention. One opportunistic, and definitely creepy onlooker, as shirtless as (though far less fit than) McNeil's co-model Vanderhart, trotted alongside her for several awkward paces, while most were just content to take some time out of their day to watch the star at work.
In the end, McNeil and the Seafolly team proved themselves to be of much sterner stuff than we were. Retiring back to our offices, they continued to face the rain all afternoon and in so doing lensed a campaign filled with a remarkable, tropical warmth.
Photography by Dan Moon.