Most of Sydney’s socialites and power players want to be seen. I mean, that’s the point, isn’t it?
That’s why they will turn up to the opening of an envelope and spend hours curating their Instagram feeds, tagging every designer outfit and wannabe hanger-on.
But there’s a new breed of mover and shaker in town. You just haven’t heard about them… yet.
Because these up-and-comers, while every bit as genetically blessed and talented as their A-list counterparts, are flying under the radar, achieving quietly and exercising discretion when it comes to their growing wealth and status.
They don’t come from famous families, nor have they married into wealth or inherited fortunes.
Instead, these so-called invisible elites share one defining trait…
Samantha Appel has built Australia’s fastest growing skin clinic, The Skin Bar, in just four years
Samantha Appel
In just four years, Samantha Appel’s skin-needling business The Skin Bar has become one of Australia’s fastest-growing skin clinics.
Unlike other beauty spaces, The Skin Bar is dedicated entirely to skin needling, a natural alternative to injectables. The popular treatment involves pricking the skin with a series of very fine needles, resulting in rapid healing and regeneration to the area.
She first opened clinics in Cronulla but quickly expanded into Victoria and Queensland. She has a long list of celebrity clients including Jesinta Franklin, Natalie Roser and more recently British comedian Jack Whitehall.
Quietly, Samantha also offers complimentary facials to women going through or recovering from cancer treatment.
The ambitious mother-of-two is not one to boast; she’s too busy expanding her empire. She’s currently getting ready to open her tenth clinic with another ten set to open in the coming year.
After that? Expansion into the American market in 2026. Impressive.
She’s not a typical Ascham mum either – you won’t catch her in a drab beige two-piece. Samantha is known to often wear her signature colour green, which matches the branding for her clinic.
Dr Kelly Thornbury is disrupting the male-dominated cosmetic surgery industry
Dr Kelly Thornbury
She may live and work in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, but Dr Kelly Thornbury grew up in country NSW, and has spent more than 20 years studying to become a specialist plastic, reconstructive and cosmetic surgeon.
With a team of talented staff and a suite in Double Bay, she’s fast becoming the go-to breast doctor in the east, causing disruption in the male-dominated industry.
She has a wait list of six to 12 months, but that doesn’t stop clients from Dubai and the U.S. flying in for her superior treatment.
With daughters at Kambala in Rose Bay, Kelly isn’t caught up in the private school parent trap. You won’t catch her in the ‘mummy wine’ scene either; she doesn’t drink.
Alongside her surgical excellence, she has teamed up with the aforementioned Samantha Appel to create their own successful skincare brand, Bottao.
Alexa McGrath
Alexa McGrath has both beauty and brains – but she certainly hasn’t relied on her good looks to get ahead in business.
She is best known for her work as a high-end interior designer, focusing on residential and aircraft design, but in recent years she has ventured into the beauty market.
In 2020, she launched The Skincare Tools, a range of skincare devices using the latest advancements in technology and design. The range sold out three times on TVSN in just 24 hours.
Alexa McGrath is the beauty and brains behind her eponymous interior design business, as well as the popular beauty brand The Skincare Tools
Best friends Roxy Jacenko (left) and nurse Sam Brescia (right) celebrated International Women’s Day together recently
Dr Van Park is the go-to skin injector in for Sydney’s elite
Samantha Appel (left) and Dr Kelly Thornbury (right), both successful in their own right, have teamed up to create their own skincare brand, Bottao
A mother of two girls and Kambala alumnus, McGrath is married to property developer Ghassy Bayni.
She is known to have an extensive and enviable collection of Hermès handbags and, while picky when it comes to her social calendar, never misses an event hosted by the luxury French fashion house.
Sam Brescia
She may be the wife of furniture and property tycoon Moreno Brescia, but Sam Brescia is no trophy wife.
She is best known as an in-demand specialist theatre nurse focusing on heart and lungs at St Vincent’s Hospital.
The former Sutherland Shire girl is known to be ultra private – unlike her besties Roxy Jacenko and fashion designer Tamara Ralph.
With her famous classic car collection, she’s the envy of other parents at the Scots College school gates.
She keeps her clique close and appears to have little interest in rubbing shoulders with social climbers, which makes her all the more fascinating.
Dr Van Park
Leading Sydney-based aesthetic injector, Dr Van Park, known as the Queen of Fillers, has become the go-to for Sydney’s elite due to her ‘discreet’ work.
She’s so in demand that her books are currently ‘closed’.
If you’re hoping to walk into her clinic, good luck finding it. She’s so private that her clinic sits inside a Victorian Woollahra terrace with zero signage so it doesn’t draw any attention to her A-list clientele coming and going.
In case you haven’t noticed a theme here, it seems the medical and cosmetic field is where it’s at if you want to make serious bucks and climb the ranks of Sydney’s elite.
So if you want to fit in, you’d better don some scrubs and leave your Birkin at home.
Leave a Reply