When Robyn Kemp did her first fashion shoot for The Australian Women’s Weekly back in 1968, she never imagined she’d still be modelling for us over 50 years later. Far less that she’d be joined by her daughter, Lucy Kemp for her latest job with The Weekly!
Lucy – who also works as a psychologist – has long shared her mum’s passion. Having started out as a baby, she now has 32 years of modelling under her belt (Robyn has racked up an incredible 58). Like Robyn, she’s done numerous shoots with The Weekly. But this is only the second time she’s posed with her mum in front of our cameras.
As the two joined us for a Palm Royale inspired fashion shoot for our April 2026 issue, we sat down to get to know them a little better.
Robyn and Lucy Kemp, thanks for joining us. We’ll start by asking: Which women in fashion have inspired you both?
Robyn: Oh, that’s a good question. Locally, I’d have to say Maggie Tabberer.
Lucy: She is iconic in Australian fashion for sure.
Robyn: And years ago, I worked with her, worked with her quite a lot.
Lucy: Who’s inspired me? I love local brands actually. Like the girls from Bassike, Lucy Folk I love and my friend Camilla (of Camilla and Marc) who does beautiful stuff. There’s so many brilliant Australian fashion labels.
How do you think working in the fashion industry has shaped you both?
Robyn: Well, for me it’s been fantastic because travel has been one of the biggest things I’ve enjoyed in my career. Traveling all over the world, doing shoots here and there – all over the place. So that’s probably my highlight. Lucy lived in New York for 11 years or something. Paris, New York, London.
Lucy: Yes. It’s less so the travel for me, I think … just the work ethic. And being able to work with lots of different people in lots of different scenarios and lots of different countries, temperatures, you name it. Having to be professional, you learn a lot from that side of things.
Robyn: It’s a very varied career. You never do the same thing twice.
Lucy: No, you never do the same thing twice. There’s a lot of learning to be done each day that you’re on set as well.
What drew you both to fashion?
Lucy: What drew me to it, was my mum obviously was a model. We have lots of family members in the fashion industry. My uncle was a photographer and I used to go to lots of Mum’s jobs with her – fashion shows and stuff like that in the ‘80s.
Robyn: She’s been modelling since she was a baby.
Lucy: We’ve done lots of jobs together, which has been so nice and fun.
Robyn: I fell into it through a photographer (who I met) in Woolworths many, many years ago. Laurence Le Guay was a very famous photographer in Sydney.
Has your mum taught you any modelling tricks Lucy?
Lucy: Tricks! That’s really hard, there’s not really any tricks.
Robyn: You just do your thing. Everyone’s a bit individual, I guess.
Lucy: They are. And you can’t force it. So there’s no real hacks. It’s more just like, ‘You’ve just got to be yourself, be authentic. Genuinely smile, genuinely feel whatever it is that the client would like you to emanate.’ You sort of have to sort of put a different personality on for whatever’s required.
This photo shoot first appeared in the April 2026 issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly. Subscribe so you never miss an issue.
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