Friday, April 2, 2010

Today Tonight goes backstage at Calvin Klein



This story went to air on tonight's show. With Calvin Klein Collection womenswear director Francisco Costa and executive vice president global communications Malcolm Carfrae both due to speak at last month's L'Oréal Melbourne Fashion Festival, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to show both in context in New York. After quite some negotiation, a freelance New York crew was booked and they shot at the February 18th shows (Calvin Klein has two, back-to-back - one for press, the other buyers). New York Fashion Week regulars would be aware that although the backstage areas at many shows are often crawling with camera crews, a couple of shows tend to be like Fort Knox. Calvin Klein arguably at the top of that list. I did the master interviews in Melbourne, just prior to the LMFF launch. Sadly the story did not get to run in the LMFF leadup.

I had no idea that Julia Nobis was even in the show until after it finished, otherwise I would have asked the crew to talk to her. And FYI "Yag-a-chiak" is the correct pronunciation of Jac's surname. I checked with Australia's Polish Chamber of Commerce.

I produced/wrote the story. Sally Obermeder reported and Damian Moncrieff edited.

Just a word on the intro and plasma screen graphics.

Producers are required to provide a sample intro for the anchor to read prior to each story, which is often tweaked further up the line.

Mine did mention all the Australian connections, ie in PR, the models and also the celebrities (Naomi Watts and Isobel Lucas were in the front row at the first show, with Melissa George turning up at the afterparty). Somehow, by the time the intro got to air, it had managed to morph into "Australian chiefs" being the "driving force" behind the company.

Unless Calvin Klein Inc president Tom Murry happens to have some antipodian ancestry, this will of course be news to Phillips Van Heusen.

But look, any more Australians on board and there could be a takeover.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I worship your work Patty, but this
package left me feeling more scattered than enriched. It had so many random, rambling tangents!

Patty Huntington said...

i know, there was a lot crammed into 4.16 minutes. beyond the australian angles (which included obviously jac, who is calvin klein's new face) i was trying to give the calvin klein back story for TT's mainstream audience. most viewers probably don't know anything about it. this was obviously bookended with the FW1011 show footage in the present.

it would have breathed far more easily if it had run at the original script length of 6+ minutes. however i was given a length of 4.15 for the good friday show (pre-recorded on thursday) and over two minutes had to be cut. there was more of malcolm in the original and much longer quotes from francisco. but these are the constraints of the 6.30pm time slot unfortunately. certainly for most fashion stories anyway.

dw070 said...

Go Patty! I lovelovelove that you are bringing a fashion slant to TT! Keep it up, please.

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