It is a truth universally acknowledged (since 2004), that a catwalk featuring Jennifer Hawkins is a catwalk you want to be on.
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Which explains why Bondi Junction in Sydney was inundated with models all walking, posing and pouting through an audition process on Wednesday for Myer's upcoming two-part spring collections launch.
More than 150 of Sydney's up-and-coming models turned out to be critiqued and cast by designers Alex Perry and We Are Kindred duo Lizzie and Georgie Renkert.
The turn out, like last week's David Jones casting call, featured a great number of men and women from diverse backgrounds.
"We are looking for diversity. It was so great seeing so many different-looking girls and great looking men," Perry told Fairfax Media.
The judges now have to whittle down the group of hopefuls to a pool of 30 or 40 who will go on to walk in the two events Myer has planned for its new season launch in Sydney next month.
As well as media attention, the Myer runway is, according to Perry and the retailer's top brass, something that moves stock.
"What Jen wears, sells," Myer's deputy chief Daniel Bracken said.
Perry has similar experiences.
"We definitely see an uptick in sales following the show," Perry said.
"When Jen [Jennifer Hawkins] wears it, you see it move as Australian women relate to Jennifer Hawkins, not international models.
"Australian women relate to Jen and Megan [Gale] and Miranda [Kerr], not Karlie Kloss," he said, taking a swipe at rival David Jones who recruited Kloss, a former Victoria's Secret Angel, for a rumoured fee of $1.5 million earlier this year to be the face of its winter 2017 advertising campaign.
"Don't ramp up someone else when you've got great talent here," Perry said.
Last year Myer flew in New York-based Australian model Shanina Shaik to walk alongside Hawkins in an intimate collections launch event held at Barangaroo.
