Abbey Lee

In 2007, Lee signed with Next Management and by March had moved to New York City.[18] On 11 December, Models.com named her the "Next Superstar".[19]

Lee made her debut in the 2008 New York Fashion Week, managing to walk a total of 29 shows for designers such as Oscar de la Renta, Halston, and notably closing for Rodarte.[20] For her first time in Milan Fashion Week, she was booked as a Gucci exclusive.[21] Later that year, in September, she fell in her high heels at the Rodarte show in New York.[22] Then, a month later in Paris, she fainted at the Alexander McQueen show from wearing a very tight leather corset.[23] These two incidents, however, did not prevent her from booking more runway shows.[22][23] Lee was one of new faces to appear on one of the fourteen covers of V magazine's Autumn issue.[24] On 15 November 2008, in Miami, she made her international TV appearance at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, modelling in the "Pink Planet" segment.[25]

Lee has starred in the fragrance ads for Gucci's new "Flora" scent since 2008.[26]

In November 2009, Fashion TV placed her first in their First Face Countdown for Spring/Summer 2010. Lee had to sit out the Autumn 2009 shows due to a knee injury: she had torn ligaments and could barely walk.[16] She was featured in the explicit shoot for the French magazine Purple Fashion published Autumn/Winter 2009.[27] The infamous spread, shot by photographer Terry Richardson, caused outrage in the blogosphere, where Richardson was accused of cajoling the girls for his own sexual satisfaction. In his defense, Lee said, "Terry doesn't force girls to do anything they don't want to. He puts you in a G-string in a pile of mud because you want to do it. You touch yourself because you want to. For me, that shoot was the truth about how things were between us both, and I felt good doing it. I'm not ashamed of it—why should I be?"[12] After skipping the Autumn 2009 season owing to a knee injury, she reappeared in Milan Fashion Week, opening D&G to having the first and last looks at Fendi and Versace, prompting New York magazine to name her "Milan's Top Model".[28] On 1 December 2009, for the second time, she participated in the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, but this time she had three outfits, modelling in the "Star Trooper," "Pink Planet", and in the "Enchanted Forest" segment.[29]

Lee walking for Michael Kors in 2010

In 2010, Lee was heavily in demand for campaigns, shoots and shows.[12] She was featured in the 2010 Pirelli Calendar photographed by Terry Richardson,[30] and the 2011 edition photographed by Karl Lagerfeld. In March 2010, she was announced as the face of Chanel's Autumn/Winter 2010/2011 ready-to-wear ad campaign. This news came after she closed the Chanel Spring 2010 couture show, and opened the Chanel Autumn/Winter 2010/2011 ready-to-wear show.[31] In November, for the fourth time, she became the cover model of Australian Vogue (her previous covers of the same publication were in March 2010, March 2009, and September 2008).[32] The same year, Lee was also featured as the face of the Anna Sui FW 2010 campaign.[33] Abbey also appeared in the lookbook of the Versace x h&m collaboration collection.[34]

She took her own self-portrait for the new Rag & Bone Do-It-Yourself ad campaign spring 2011 along with models Sasha Pivovarova, Edita Vilkeviciute, Karolina Kurkova, Candice Swanepoel and Lily Aldridge.[35] She earned $100,000 as an exclusive for Chanel, walking for their spring-summer collection in Paris.[15] She skipped New York Fashion Week for London.[36] V magazine's "The Discovery Issue" crowned Lee as the new Supermodel.[4] The magazine called Lee "the biggest fashion export from Down Under since Elle Macpherson joined the ranks of Cindy Crawford, Claudia Schiffer, Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington."[37]

She was on the May 2011 cover of Numero, photographed by Tom Munro.[18]

Lee has been absent from the runway since the Fall 2012 shows where she walked only for Alexander Wang and Anna Sui. During 2012, she focused on acting and spent much of the year in Africa filming the post-apocalyptic film Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).

Although Lee was ranked 4th at the height of her career on the Top 50 Models Women list by models.com, as of June 2013 she was 12th on the list.[38]

Lee appeared in the Fall/Winter 2013–14 campaign for Gucci alongside male model Adrien Sahores, shot by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott.

In May 2014, Lee once again appeared on the cover of Vogue Australia and starred in two editorials on the same issue, in which was celebrate her debut into acting career. In August 2014 Models.com moved Abbey to the Industry Icon list considering her still going presence in fashion with big fragrances contracts as Flora By Gucci and Versace's Yellow Diamond, although she was absent from runways and editorials to film Mad Max and Gods of Egypt.

Lee had a supporting role in the 2015 film Mad Max: Fury Road. In 2016, she had major roles in the films Gods of Egypt, alongside Gerard Butler,[39] and the Nicolas Winding Refn-directed thriller The Neon Demon, with Elle Fanning.[40][41][42] Lee stated that her history of martial arts training got her the role in Gods of Egypt.[11]

In 2017, Lee played Tirana in the film The Dark Tower.[43] The following year, she played the main character in Elizabeth Harvest, directed by Sebastian Gutierrez.

In 2020, she played the troubled Christina Braithwhite in HBO's drama horror Lovecraft Country.[44] She told Harper's Bazaar that she was the last one cast for the show and that she researched about growing up in a cult to understand the character.[45]

In 2021, she played Chrystal, a sufferer of hypocalcemia, in the film Old by M. Night Shyamalan.

In 2023, she played Delly West in the crime series Florida Man.