Abbey Lee Kershaw: Hippy Model (With Million-Dollar Bank Account)

"An elite performer is always put under some sort of extreme pressure that the rest of society can argue and might not quite understand."

Dubbed as the "Hippy Model (with the million-dollar bank account)," rising fashion icon Abbey Lee Kershaw graces Australian television show Today Tonight and talks about the "crazy, fast life" she lives in and the controversies surrounding crazy shoes and being thin.

Now at 22, she is ranked at the top 10 models of the world, hitting the US catwalks and turning heads wherever she goes. The fashion industry loves her cool, fresh-girl image - "so laid-back, so relaxed but at the same time so fashion perfect."

"I don't know if I have a plan B. I'm just waiting for plan A to get bigger," Abbey Lee Kershaw says of her rising modeling career.

"It's crazy. It's a very fast life. I generally spent most of the time on planes, at airports, in studios, at shows - like all over the place. It's very fast. It's always something going on. You'll never really got the time to do your washing a little and... breathe."

But aside from her hippy image, Abbey Lee Kershaw's popularity has also been ironically boosted by catwalk disasters. She has tore a knee ligament when she fell in Rodarte's spring 2009 show because of the super-high heels. She has also fainted at the Alexander McQueen Spring/Summer 2009 Runway from the combination of the tight corset she wore and her high heels.

"Hopefully (the shoes are) going to come back down soon, because health and safety regulations have to come into play at some point," she says laughing.

Speaking of health, Abbey Lee Kershaw replies with an analogy when asked about what she feels of the pressures at the top of the industry for staying thin:

"That's like asking a bodybuilder how they feel about the pressures to be incredibly muscly. An elite performer is always put under some sort of extreme pressure that the rest of society can argue and might not quite understand."

Having her biggest season in barely two years, Abbey Lee Kershaw is seen as one those "really good models" in the industry that clients intend to keep for the long run.