As considered one of Australia’s unique influencers, Sarah Ellen made her title alongside vogue’s elite at worldwide runway reveals, whereas documenting her each transfer on social media.
She noticed and heard loads that impressed her alongside the way in which, however Sydney-based Ellen –
who additionally works as a mannequin, actor, content material creator and artist – says that one pinch-yourself second stands out. On her method into the Prada present at Milan Fashion Week, Ellen tells Stellar, “Wes Anderson was walking in behind us. I know that doesn’t sound like a crazy moment, but I’m the biggest Wes Anderson fan.”
Forget the fashions, the designers and the swath of actors swarming in alongside Ellen and her shut pal Margaret Zhang, a fellow influencer who’s now the editor of Vogue China.
For Ellen, the Hollywood movie director was the superstar sighting: “Margaret and I took a secret selfie with him in the background. We still laugh about it.”
At 26, Ellen is already a vogue business veteran. As a teen rising up in Sydney’s western suburbs, she launched her social media profession on the now-defunct video app Vine and has amassed a following of 780,000 on Instagram since then. She left college at 16 to review vogue business, the place she met Zhang. “She kind of took me under her wing, and that’s where it all began,” Ellen recollects.
Soon she had signed with IMG Models, and inside a 12 months, modelling and influencing had turn into her full-time profession. She and Zhang would go on to make the style week rounds in London, New York, Milan and Paris. Ellen defines that interval as a time when she developed her work ethic, and is candid about the way in which through which social media – then nonetheless
in its infancy – gave her a leg up. “[It] was such a different landscape back then. It was very new. I was a small-town girl who grew up in the western suburbs [of Sydney]. For
me to be sitting front row at Chanel and Fendi with some of the biggest stars in the world was … wow.”
Ellen has since labored with luxurious vogue homes reminiscent of Valentino, Celine and Tiffany & Co. Her newest collaboration pairs her with the Italian-born drinks model Peroni, as she prepares to be the particular visitor when it takes over Sydney’s Bondi Icebergs this Thursday, February 29, to launch its new beer Peroni Stile Capri with a celebration set in opposition to a backdrop impressed by La Fontelina seaside membership on the Italian island of Capri.
But whereas vogue, content material creation and influencer work are actually second nature to Ellen, they had been by no means her finish recreation. Instead, it was appearing. In 2016, she made her debut on Neighbours enjoying Madison Robinson, the daughter of Charlene and Scott – the characters made well-known by Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan within the Nineteen Eighties. “I had just left school and it was my first acting gig,” Ellen tells Stellar. “What a dream to be able to play Kylie Minogue’s daughter. And then I met her. I went up to her, she was lovely. We took a selfie.”
After urgent pause on her appearing profession, she’s planning her return. At the AACTA Awards earlier this month, Ellen seemed the half as she walked the identical crimson carpet as Margot Robbie and Cate Blanchett. “I have a couple of projects in the line,” she reveals.
“It’s safer for me not to say anything just yet. My last role, I was still a teenager. I’m excited to play some more mature characters.
“In modelling, a lot of acting goes inherently with that. [But] a lot of acting is about life experience. You have to understand what makes people tick, emotion, what it feels like to have your heart broken, what it feels like to really want something and not get it. I think that’s why I took a bit of a hiatus from acting, so I could get some life experience under my belt.”
Asked how she’s achieved longevity in social media, an business the place fame might be short-lived and attraction can show fickle, she replies: “I’ve always wondered why people like to follow my life. Margaret and I were some of the OG fashion bloggers, back in the day. We were both creating – not just photos to post on Instagram …
I think people enjoyed hearing about our experiences overseas. Everybody wanted that inside scoop. It wasn’t as accessible back then as it is now.”
With such a public profile comes scrutiny, and Ellen admits she “had to form thick skin from a young age.
People didn’t have the same internet etiquette as they do now. You’ll always find trolls online, whenever you’re in the public – you expect it. Back then, people were having field days in the comments. I don’t even want to repeat some of them. I grew up with it. The internet is a really weird place. I never thought of it as too real – it’s not like somebody is standing in front of you saying these things to your face. I always remind myself: these people don’t know who I am or know my heart.”
Ellen remains to be bowled over by the eye. Case in level: the stir she attributable to her chopping her lengthy hair right into a pixie lower final 12 months. “I highly recommend everybody, at one stage in their lives, cut their hair off,” she says, matter-of-factly. “It’s the most cathartic, liberating feeling to rebel against societal norms and actually not give a f*ck.
“I had this moment of, what the f*ck have I just done? And I know … it’s just hair, it grows back. As I was doing it, I knew I’d have nothing to hide behind. Now, having lived with not having anything to hide behind for the past five months, I can confidently say I’m a different person. I left a relationship I needed to get out of. The hair helped thrust me into a new version of myself. And there’s no going back.”
As summer time attracts to an in depth, Ellen says she plans to relocate to New York for a number of months to pursue appearing alternatives; she lately studied beneath Sydney-based appearing coach Les Chantery, whose previous college students embody Saltburn star Jacob Elordi. “I’ll be back and forth,” Ellen says. “I don’t think I could ever really leave Australia.”
And on Stellar’s coastal cowl shoot set, she savoured the previous few days of summer time with a bottle of Peroni Stile Capri (which is brewed with summery notes of lemon and olive leaf) in hand, and seemed forward to seeing the season out at this week’s celebration. “I’ve always thought Australia is missing a good European-style beach club,” Ellen says.
“So when Peroni told me they’re turning Bondi Icebergs into one, I thought that was the best idea. I grew up coming to the beach. Now that I live here,” she provides, “that itself is a dream come true.”
Experience the Peroni Capri Beach Club at Sydney’s Bondi Icebergs this Thursday. Free entry from 11am, courtesyof Peroni Nastro Azzurro. This cowl story was producedin partnership with Peroni.
Listen to the newest episode of Stellar’s podcast Something to Talk About beneath:
Originally revealed as Sarah Ellen: The Aussie ‘it’ woman taking up vogue’s entrance row
Source: www.news.com.au
