The last time we checked in with Australia’s Next Top Model runner-up and somewhat high maintenance individual Cassi Van Den Dungen, she was screaming at her ungrateful Instagram followers for only giving one of her posts a measly 14 likes.
This weekend, she’s making headlines again, by working with Alex Perry for the first time since her appearance on one of his catwalks in 2014 caused a stir on the subject of underweight models in the fashion industry.
Cassi Van Den Dungen @ MBFS, 2014 pic.twitter.com/JVvbsGwqWu
— Models&Moda (@FashionCIA) June 4, 2016
Photos of Van Den Dungen’s extremely thin frame in the show went viral and prompted an intense media backlash, much of it aimed at Perry, who later said that he’d shown “a serious lack of judgement” by putting her in the show.
At the time, he told Today:
“I got distracted … I chatted to Cassi. I’ve known her for a long time. I should have made that call. I was off the ball … It’s not an image I think is a good one to put forward, certainly not one I’ve presented my brand about. I don’t like it.”
Van Den Dungen spent the next few weeks laughing off the controversy and posting pictures of food on her Instagram, but it would be two years before the two worked together again.
This weekend, Perry has posted photos of Van Den Dungen in his Resort ’17 collection, and spoken about why he asked her back to his label, telling media:
“It was a conscious decision to do this because I think she is a really beautiful girl. We had a mishap a few years ago where the lighting was brutal and it just didn’t look good and she was slimmer then, but I didn’t want that to be the defining image of my work with Cassi. I am not going to be intimidated into not using a girl I think is beautiful. She looks fantastic, she has been going to the gym and really looking after herself. Her skin looks great, her hair is healthy. She is in the sample sizes all the other girls are wearing.”
One of the images is below, and Perry has since posted more on his Instagram:
Source: News Corp.
Photo: Stefan Gosatti / Getty.
