Spring sprung! Fashion gets fully loaded on NEWS.com.au

Well hello. You’re looking at the first post in the first day of the life of Fully Chic.

Does the world need another fashion blog, I hear you ask? Good question. We’re about to find out, I imagine. To the many of you who don’t know me from a bar of soap, I’m a Sydney-based fashion journalist (and the Australasian correspondent for Women’s Wear Daily in the US) and I was first inducted into the blogging ranks last year. Greetings to all of you, both serious fashion watchers and fashion dabblers.

Everyone’s opinion counts so please, don’t be shy. Feel free to make comments and sink your teeth into the topics. Many of these comments will no doubt inspire future discussions. To those of you who do know me, nice to see you again. I look forward to hearing all of your views and comments. I can’t promise that the fashion industry is going to be thrilled with everything that goes on in here. But I can guarantee they will be checking in - and that we’re going to have fun.

This is a great time, in fact, to be kicking off a new fashion blog. For Australian readers tonight marks the kickoff of a veritable spring/summer odyssey. Yes I know we first saw the Australian/New Zealand spring/summer 07/08 collections at Australian Fashion Week in Sydney in May. But with buyers having picked the eyes out of those and other ranges, from tonight we’re going to see what trends the big retailers actually backed. I’m talking of course about Australian department stores. Thanks to Sydney’s hilarious, and clearly neverending, “store wars”, the David Jones and Myer parades over the next few nights will give us a peek at what’s going to be in store.

Most of which merchandise both stores of course dearly wish you’ll rush in to grab at full price. But some of which realistically - global warming and Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie and Lindsay Lohan’s prolific, highly influential wardrobe malfunctions notwithstanding - is going to be marked down on those sale racks faster than you can say: “They weren’t my jeans officer”.

September 4 of course, just four weeks away, sees the launch of the northern hemisphere’s spring/summer 2008 shows. The madness! The egos! The wheeled-out, and occasionally also clapped-out, celebrities! Oh yes, and of course, the fashion. Starting in New York, the season then rolls on to London, Milan and Paris. Will we be there? Just try and keep us away.

Fully Chic has already had two test runs of the unabridged northern hemisphere shows circuit and we’re addicted. Stand by for your ringside seats at the world’s greatest fashion circus.

Then for the first time and in a move that’s going to surely test the mettle of anyone who is covering the Paris shows sur place, our very own fashion week supremo (IMG Asia Pacific managing director) Simon Lock, has decided to repatriate his “Transseasonal” Australian Fashion Week showcase from its five-year base of Melbourne – where, let’s face it, the younger, originally autumn/winter-branded AFW barely had a pulse - to Sydney, the birthplace of the event’s now 11-year-old, bursting-at-the-seams spring/summer showcase.

Yes we all know the real reason is because the Victorian Government decided not to renew its five-year contract with IMG. That’s hardly surprising - Melbourne already has enough fashion events.

But the big questions now of course are, does the industry need a second collections showcase? Will more people participate if this event is held in Sydney? And will those who stayed for the last – and traditionally, biggest – day of the Paris shows, October 7th, be able to keep their eyes open once AFW’s three-day, newly-rebranded “Transseasonal” showcase commences two days later at Sydney’s Overseas Passenger Terminal? The good news is of course that for once, Australians will be able to blame any show nod-offs on chronic jet lag.

Gladiators and gladiatrixes of the fashion blogosphere, I welcome and salute you. Let the shenanigans begin…


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