CAMILLA MÜLLER: A Natural Original

WORDS: Greg Pride PHOTOGRAPHY Cover Image- MARK-SULLIVAN-BRADLEY and supplied

From Coastal Italy to Byron Bay—The Serendipitous Rise of a Modern Muse

She has a name that’s tailor-made for modelling – Camilla. It would make a perfect mononym, in the style of top models Gisele or Iman, whose surnames were superfluous gracing the world’s catwalks and magazine covers.

But for now, she is  proudly Camilla Müller. Besides, it was her naturally beautiful face – not her made-for-modelling moniker – that first made a statement when she was spotted by a talent scout at Byron Bay’s Falls Festival in 2019.

“I’d just finished school and it was the first time I had gone to this festival,” she tells Ocean Road over coffee at Byron Bay’s hip Top Shop cafe on a sun-soaked Friday morning.

“I didn’t do the whole festival thing growing up and I was there and this lady just came running up to me. I was super-confused – I’d just come out of the pool, I was dripping went and had my silly little cap going on.

Photography: Mark Sullivan-Bradley

“She just asked me if I’d ever considered modelling before. I was like, what? You hear about it (modelling scouts coming up to random people) but I never really thought it was a thing.”

Camilla was duly signed up by the Gold Coast-based agency which is now known as Que Models.

It was the latest chapter in her enchanting life story which began in coastal Genoa, capital of Italy’s Liguria region, almost 25 years ago,

“We lived in a beautiful place called Quinto (al Mare), in a small apartment on the beach, just above Portofino,” she recalls.

Photo: Rhythm Swim

“I remember a beautiful childhood growing up by the beach but I also remember moving to Australia. My one thought on the plane was that we were moving to Ayer’s Rock (Uluru). I didn’t really know what to expect.”

Camilla says it was a major decision by her parents to uproot her and twin sister Emi, when they were aged about five or six, and move from their European homeland across the other side of the world to Australia.

“It was mainly for our schooling – Italy has a lot more of a structured harsh school system. It’s a little bit old-fashioned,” she explains.

Photography: Kate Rosenberg

“So my parents wanted to move to this, let’s say, “new” country and be able to have all the opportunities that it has and be able to live so close with nature, and enjoy life the way it’s meant to be.

“It was hard at the start, especially for us leaving our grandparents and cousins back in Italy. My mum moved here when she was 45, so you can imagine living your entire life in a country and then moving to the other side of the world and having to learn the language. But my parents are crazy, too.”

After initially moving to Sydney, the family settled in Sawtell near Coffs Harbour where Camilla and her sister went to school.

Photography: Kate Rosenberg

“Our life was very much by the ocean,” she says.

“I would spend almost every summer north of Coffs. I would spend every single second outside of school there.”

Growing up on the coast, Camilla says her one big regret is not getting into surfing (especially as her boyfriend is Byron Bay professional surfer Jhamil Coorey). Instead, she and Emi became accomplished gymnasts.

“My sister and I were also always very sporty and we tried a few things like dance, but gymnastics was always the one for us,” she says.

“We did it growing up when we first got to Australia and then we stopped and started up again in Year 6 or seven. That’s when we did it competitively, and it was our sole sport, and we loved it. We did it almost every day after school and went to nationals, which was an incredible experience.”

Photo: Kate Rosenberg

After graduating from St John Paul College at Coffs, Camilla enrolled in an education degree at Griffith University, only for Covid to rock the world. After the pandemic, like many people who had been locked down, she and her partner headed overseas to fulfil some pent-up wanderlust, stopping firstly in Mexico where Jhamil indulged his love of big waves. Then it was on to Europe where she caught up with family back in Italy.

“We travelled for about six months all up, some of the time with my sister and two girlfriends of ours, and my partner and I ended up staying in Barcelona for two months,” she says.

Camilla was working two hospitality jobs in Sawtell when she was scouted by the modelling agency – a fish and chip shop by day and a restaurant two doors down by night.

“I was waitressing in the restaurant but sometimes I’d wash dishes there too,” she says.

“My parents sort of instilled that in me. My father’s the hardest working man I’ve ever encountered in my life. Working isn’t always a chore, it can be a pleasure. I love it.”

But Camilla’s striking looks have allowed her to give away the order pad and scrubbing brush for a somewhat more glamorous and better-paid career as a full-time model.

Photography: Kate Rosenberg

“Don’t get me wrong, I actually love waitressing,” she says.

“I started modelling as a hobby, a side hustle. But then my side hustle became a little too big and it became my main hustle.

“I worked with some amazing photographers on that trip to Europe, working on the Mediterranean coast. I was (being photographed) on this massive white rock face in Sicily in my homeland, and I was just like ‘wow, this is one of my dreams’.”

Camilla has been modelling full-time now for close to three years, working with numerous brands.

“Because of my height, I’m kind of forced to work more in the commercial world (as opposed to catwalk) but I love it,” she says.

“Working in a more commercial side of the industry allows me to explore all avenues. And there’s so much more flexibility for me to do what I truly want to do and the jobs I want to do as well.

Photography: Ben Adams

“I do a lot of shoots in and around Byron and it’s one of my favourite aspects of the job – being able to work in a beautiful place that’s so closely intertwined with nature. It’s something that’s often hard to accomplish in places like Europe or in cities.”

Asked her style icon/inspiration, Camilla unhesitatingly nominates her nonna.

Photography: Mark Sullivan-Bradley

“I think deep down in my core, I am still an Italian lady and growing up, I had so much love for my nonna – she is, if not my favourite person, then one of my favourite people in the whole entire world,” she says.

“I’ve always been so drawn to fashion and the way in which, growing up, she would just get ready for the day in her beautiful dresses and ear-rings.

Photography: Elizabeth Maleevsky

“Mum is more of a nature, beach baby. But in Italy, there is a (social) class that is the centre of my nonna’s being. My mum was and is a free spirit. She went out and lived in the country when she was 19 or 20 and didn’t really care much about society, which is such a big thing in Italy.”

Photography: Ned Simes

Between modelling assignments and enjoying Byron’s idyllic lifestyle, Camilla is studying ayurveda – the traditional Indian medicine system that views health as a balance between mind, body and spirit.

“I originally started wanting to study Chinese medicine but then I came across all these books and podcasts on ayurveda, and became fascinated by it,” she says.

“With the job that I do, I wasn’t able to study Chinese medicine and I’m actually super-grateful for that because it led me to ayurveda, which is the mother of all health care systems.”

Exactly what’s on the horizon for Camilla in 2026 is still floating diaphanously on the Byron sea breeze.

Photography: Elizabeth Maleevsky

“In the modelling industry, you just never know what’s around the corner,” she says.

“I love working, and if I work every single day of the year, I’m happy. I don’t want to do anything that I don’t find pleasure in. My first goal is to be happy.”

You can book Camilla for your next modelling assignment – https://www.quemodels.com