RAFW develops a Diet Coke habit

patricia field for diet coke/the budget fashionista

Well we know Karl Lagerfeld is a Diet Coke addict. According to sources now Alex Perry and nine of “Australia’s best designers” may be about to make a DC hookup as well. In further developments to the RAFW SS0910 schedule – which frockwriter has been tracking ahead of its official April 15 release – it emerges that a big bucks sponsor-driven show is in the pipeline for the event, at this stage mooted for a Tuesday night time slot (UPDATE 02/04: now confirmed for Tuesday 28th April @ 8.00pm). Contracts are still being locked in, but frockwriter hears that 10 big Australian fashion names have been approached to create three little black dresses apiece for the show, inspired by the Diet Coke bottle.

For anyone who finds the concept bizarre, just a reminder that this is the type of sponsor-driven show which is often seen at New York’s Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week – which, like RAFW, is also operated by IMG.

The most recent incarnations of these sponsor shows include the Barbie 50th anniversary celebration show, sponsored by Mattel and The Heart Truth’s Red Dress Collection, sponsored by Diet Coke - both staged at the FW0910 event in February.

America’s biggest fashion names participated in both shows and the Red Dress Collection was later auctioned for charity.

Diet Coke has also been heavily involving itself with the cream of the fashion business, having commissioned special bottle designs from names such as Patricia Field (pictured above) and Roberto Cavalli:


roberto cavalli for diet coke/catwalkqueen.tv

The Diet Coke show is one of no less than four projects via which Perry is expected to be hands-on at RAFW's SS0910 event – in spite of the fact that, as frockwriter already reported, he is not doing his own standalone runway show for the first time in AFW’s 14-year history.

Perry already presented his SS0910 show on February 26th aboard the Queen Mary, when the luxury superliner berthed in Sydney:


alex perry SS0910/getty via daylife

What else will Perry be doing at RAFW?

Filming Australia’s Next Top Model Cycle 5 girls at five RAFW shows according to Perry: Ginger & Smart, Wayne Cooper, Anna & Boy, Nicola Finetti and a New Generation show.

ANTM Cycle 5 kicks off on April 28th on Fox 8, with Sarah 'Face of Bonds' Murdoch in the host driver’s seat, following the 2008 exit, in disgrace, of incumbent host Jodhi Meares.

Filming is underway and Perry reports that the show is currently down to the last three girls.

For those who have not yet seen the campy ANTM Cycle 5 trailer, in which Murdoch flies a lippie-shaped space craft, watch it in highres on the ANTM site.

Perry will also be filming for Nine’s nightly prime time current affairs show A Current Affair.

Perry recently slipped into the role of ACA’s defacto fashion reporter, filing two stories during the Melbourne Fashion Festival and one earlier story on the David Jones 2009 collections launch.

Perry is also likely to be involved in a fourth project at the event. Yes, it does involve a show – just not a show featuring his clothes specifically.

Of the lack of a more traditional Alex Perry runway presence at the event, the designer told frockwriter:

“Look, it [Fashion Week] is what it is – do you spend $100,000 doing that or do you do other things throughout the year that are sales-driven?. If we hadn’t sold [the SS0910 collection] then we would have done it. I feel OK about it because I’m going to be doing stuff down there, it’s not like I won’t have a presence at the event. Hats off to people that are actually doing it. I’m fortunate that I don’t need to at the moment and I can sail through”.

As for Perry’s little black Diet Coke dresses, apparently we can expect at least one of them to rival the designer's infamous pubis-grazing micromini of SS0708 – which, via this journalist's second-last blog at smh.com.au, earned the nickname of "The Toukley Skirt".

Quipped Perry, “It might well be a reprise of The Toukley Skirt - more brazen than ever before”.