Frockwriter Live at MBFWA...and Frockwriter heads to Fellt

backstage at christopher esber SS1213/MBFWA

It’s that time of the year when we gather around the campfire that is Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia and celebrate – or eviscerate – fashion design from the land down under. Since this journalist’s blogging career kicked off with live coverage of the event back in 2006 at smh.com.au and we have experimented with a number of different live coverage formats in the interim (e.g. last year's Fashion Week Uncut live blog, in tandem with Emma Ashton), it’s also the time of year when we usually try to come up with a fresh format for real-time coverage. Because that's just how we roll. This year it’s a newlook Frockwriter Live, the site we launched back in 2010 through the Posterous microblogging platform. Since Posterous is due to close at the end of April (sad face), we needed to find an alternative and this is it – for the moment. The newlook Frockwriter Live was developed with Johan Bergström and Daniel Kjellsson, aka Sydney Stockholm. Which brings me to the bigger picture Frockwriter news here: yes, we are hooking up with the Swedish house mafia. 

Nicole Warne signs with IMG as the MBFWA Insider

via gary pepper vintage

Last year Nicole 'Gary Pepper Vintage' Warne became the first Australian blogger to walk the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia runways – modelling for the Talulah brand. As MBFWA dramatically ramps up its social media program for the Spring/Summer 2013/2014 event, which commences on Monday at the new Carriageworks venue, the twentysomething Japanese-Korean-Australian beauty is about to add a couple of other blogger firsts to her resumé.

Merry Christmas from Frockwriter

melise williams, charlie brown AW13 backstage, auckland, september 2012 

Just a quick one to say Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of frockwriter's readers. It's been a bit of a watershed year for this blog – one during which, as many know, we took the controversial step of introducing a metered paywall. Oops. Unable to support ourselves through advertising alone and disinclined to accept potentially lucrative brand ambassadorships, sponsored posts and a raft of other commercial tie-ins from the industry on which we report - because of ethics considerations and genuine conflicts of interest - we assumed readers who value the blog for its independence would support it. Some have and a massive shoutout to our subscribers. Your support is truly appreciated - especially considering how flipping easy it has been for all those pesky freehadists (yes there's a term for you now) to defeat the paywall. In their thousands. I now have access to frockwriter's subscriber list and have been overwhelmed to learn just who these supporters are. So thank you!

Catherine McNeil is a Kiwi

timo weiland's twitter

Catherine McNeil is one of Australia's best-known modelling exports. The winner of the 2003 Girlfriend Model Search, at age 14, McNeil debuted on models.com's prestigious Top 50 Women list at number 26 in early 2007, the year her international career was springboarded via covers of both Vogue Paris and the American V Magazine. But who knew McNeil also had New Zealand citizenship? Apparently not even some in her Australian mother agency, Chic Management, until frockwriter's phone call this afternoon enquiring about an image of McNeil that was just taken by New York-based designer Timo Weiland and published on Twitter. In the rather unflattering shot, a cigarette dangling from her lips, McNeil is holding what looks to be a bottle of Corona beer in one hand and a New Zealand passport in the other. The Brisbane suburb of Coopers Plains is clearly stated as her place of birth, which would give McNeil automatic Australian citizenship by birthright - although that said, due to changes to Australia's citizenship legislation in 1986, only if one parent was an Australian citizen or had permanent residency. According to Chic Management, McNeil's maternal grandmother is a Kiwi and McNeil's mother spent many years living in New Zealand. We await further information.  

Zanita Whittington shoots a Puma

It’s a trend that is, increasingly, bound to get up the noses of some professional photographers: self-taught snappers with blogs nabbing lucrative commercial contracts that might have gone elsewhere. Notable examples include Scott ‘The Sartorialist’ Schuman shooting for Burberry, among others and Jak & Jil’s Tommy Ton shooting for Sergio Rossi and Lane Crawford. In Australia, joining a list that already includes Hayley Hughes’ Windsor Smith advertorial and Matt Jordan’s campaign for Orri Henrisson, comes model-turned-photoblogger Zanita Whittington’s new e-lookbook for Puma Australia. Starring Tania Pozzebom, it features product that is exclusive to Puma’s concept stores in Sydney and Melbourne, including Alexander McQueen for Puma, Puma by Hussein Chalayan, Rudolf Dassler Shufabrik and Mihara Yasuhiro. Here is a first look. The Puma gig follows twelve months after Whittington was tapped as a face of US sportswear giant American Apparel, the news of which unleashed a mini storm of controversy over AA’s claim that it only ever uses non professional models.

Onya Anja

solve sundsbo for muse magazine fall 2010/touch puppet

Where didn’t frockwriter's interview with world number 3 Anja Rubik go last week? From New York Magazine’s The Cut to The Huffington Post to Vogue UK, Grazia UK and Elle US...not counting a score of other blogs, we lost track in the end (and thanks to Next Management's Stephen Lee for the hookup). Not surprisingly, everyone seized on Rubik’s revelation that she turned down Terry Richardson’s 2010 Pirelli calendar because she was uncomfortable with his aesthetic – which in her own words, borders on “vulgar”. It was a great kickoff to the New Year for this blog, as it rapidly approaches the one million visitor mark. On Monday 3rd January, we were extremely honoured to be featured on the website of hot New York-based Nepalese designer Prabal Gurung, as part of his blogger series (which has previously profiled The Cut’s Amy Odell, Fashion Toast’s Rumi Neely, Nylon’s Faran Krentcil, Fashionista’s Lauren Sherman and Papermag’s Alyssa Vingan). Then on Friday, frockwriter was blog of the week on new UK online magazine Motilo. Many thanks for thinking of us. Rubik, FYI, capped off a week's work in the outback with Vogue Australia with a big bucks shoot for a Polish jewellery brand up at Sydney's Palm Beach over the weekend our sources report. 

Stella McCartney for Target redux - two weeks in, already marked down

As reported by frockwriter on October 1st, the second Stella McCartney for Target Australia collection was due to launch in 102 stores on October 29th. Last Thursday, Target told Ragtrader that 20percent of the stock had sold out on its first day and that the company was “extremely pleased” with the reaction. Five stores were singled out for special mention, where the 42-unit range had reportedly performed the best. Adelaide's Target Rundle Street, slap bang in that city's busiest shopping precinct, clearly was not one of them however. Because when frockwriter was in town last week for the Adelaide Fashion Festival and checked the store on November 9th, it looked to have almost the entire collection still hanging - and noone looking at it. Five days later, at Westfield Bondi Junction in Sydney – one of the stores flagged by Target as having experienced the highest demand – we couldn’t help but notice this 20percent off banner, top, in the middle of McCartney’s section. And this is what the Stella McCartney section looks like today in Target Rundle Street (below) - after the entire McCartney promotion was moved away from the front of the store to join the rest of the womenswear offer, reports our SA fashionista-on-the-ground, Selena Battersby.

Boutiques.com: Downunder's biggest fashion blogger buddies up with Google

gala darling

The countdown is on to tonight’s unveiling of Google’s new Boutiques.com fashion portal. After revealing the name and details of the site’s looks-matching technology, frockwriter thought we would hone in on one last, local, element: New York-based Kiwi Gala Darling. Frequently cited as one of the world’s most influential fashion/personal style bloggers - who calls her blog "The playgirl's guide to radical self love” and claims it boasts close to a million individual page views per month - Darling is one of a dozen fashion bloggers invited by Google to curate their own virtual fashion boutiques. Update 18/11: Now launched. Click (here) to check out her boutique and see who else is involved. Not bad for a magenta haired, tutu-rocking, tatt-emblazoned self-help dilettante, who launched into the blogosphere in December 2006 with a post entitled “Fashion help for recovering Goths”. Those in her native Wellington might know her better as Amy Paape. Reportedly a graduate of that city’s Chilton St James and Samuel Marsden Collegiate Schools, she moved to Melbourne in 2006, legally changed her name that year, then decamped to New York in 2008. Retail, as it happens, runs in the Paape family. Darling’s mother, Janet Paape, operates a Lower Hutt fashion boutique called She Designer Excitement, while her Porsche-racing uncle, Digby Paape, sells highend audio equipment at Bose Wellington. 

More Boutiques.com: You can also shop their looks for less

 
Yesterday frockwriter revealed the name of Google’s new fashion e-tail venture Boutiques.com, which is launching tomorrow in New York. It was in fact a world scoop........by about 40 minutes (WWD had a page one story in yesterday’s edition). Today we can add some more info. The site, we understand, is moving very rapidly towards the unveil and its offer now embraces boutiques curated either by - or around - 76 celebrities, 27 retailers, 55 designers and 12 bloggers. But the list of designers simply reflects those names who have thus far, apparently, agreed to participate in the venture. A designer directory lists over 200 designer names (including Australians Bassike, Willow, Thurley, sass & bide, Lover and Ksubi). But even that doesn’t embrace the full scope of the Boutiques.com offer, because products from a raft other brands and outlets that are not, it seems, officially involved, are also featured. They include US-based fast fashion chain Forever 21, the bête noir of the US fashion industry, which has been the target of numerous trademark/copyright infringement lawsuits initiated by US designers - including participating Boutiques.com designers Diane von Furstenberg and Anna Sui. 

James Varley shoots Trimapee

trimapee AW11 lookbook shoot/jamie wdziekonski 

Frockwriter predicted it wouldn’t be long until new Chadwick glamour boy James Varley added to his newbie model portfolio. How does a full page feature in Melbourne’s Age newspaper sound? That’s what Varley scored on Friday, in Jan Breen Burn’s great piece entitled Beautiful Boys. Most of the story was about Australia’s latest supermodel-on-the-cusp – androgynous Melburnite Andrej Pejic – but Varley was quoted in the story and prominently featured photographically, epitomising what Chadwick Melbourne director Matthew Anderson coined as the new “femiman” look. Well Varley is about to further add to his book. This morning, in Melbourne, he is shooting the Autumn/Winter 2011 lookbook for Trimapee, the four year-old label from Mario-Luca Carlucci and Peter Strateas. Lensed by Christian Blanchard, the lookbook also features new girl Kate Clements from Giant. Here is a sneak peek at the preps – and some of Trimapee’s new season leather. Follow Trimapee’s new marketing dude, blogger Jamie Wdziekonski, on Twitter for real-time updates throughout the shoot.

Boutiques.com: Now you can shop their look............. on Google

On Friday, an anonymous New York fashion PR who calls him/herself No bullshit (actual Twitter handle @NoBtotheS) Tweeted “Breaking news: google is launching an ecommerce site with shop in shops by major designers #google #theyrgonnabepissed #geturshopon”. The Tweet prompted a flurry of coverage, with the penny apparently then dropping on all those who had received invites to Google’s “High Tech Fuses with High Fashion” party this coming Wednesday in SoHo, that the launch revolved around fashion e-tail. In fact, it had already been reported that Google planned to upgrade its shopping services to better compete in the US$140billion e-commerce market by deploying the image-recognition technology of recent acquisition Like.com to enable consumers to do comparison shopping. “We are hosting an exclusive fashion party to celebrate our partners” is all Google would tell WWD on Friday re the launch (see invitation below). Well frockwriter can fill in a few blanks. Our sources say that the new Google fashion initiative is called Boutiques.com and boasts not only online boutiques selling merchandise offered by various designers and retailers, but a large number of curated "boutiques" selling the looks worn by celebrities and other influencers.

Cash for comments: The fashion blogosphere's liquid bonanza

stella mccartney for target australia launch, sydney, october 1st/little black book

They are literally throwing money at bloggers at the moment in Australia. Not in the traditional advertising sense, whereby a marketer pays to take out clearly-delineated advertising space in your publication. In fact it’s almost impossible to find many, if any, bloggers who are earning a living out of legitimate display advertising. No, affiliate marketing (pay per click or pay per buy) and sponsored, advertorial posts are the way of the world right now (although not on frockwriter, just to clarify once again). Westfield is currently recruiting a blogger for a 12-month, $100,000 contract. One of the finalists is 19 years old. That’s an extraordinary salary for a teenager. We mentioned the recent Target Stella McCartney launch for which six bloggers (pictured above, details below) were flown to Sydney and paid to write approved copy. 

Stella McCartney for Target redux

You've had three years to recover from the first Stella McCartney for Target Australia hysteria. Gird your loins for SMFT Mark II. In what could best be described as a Target-ed launch tonight, the Australian discount department store invited six local bloggers to the Altona mansion in harbourside Point Piper, to unveil the fruits of its second Stella McCartney capsule collection. The interstate bloggers were flown in and put up overnight at a 5 star. Noted one invitee, Sam Winter aka Sassi Sam, "we were treated like rock stars". Frockwriter wasn't there, but we can confirm that the fashion editors of at least three major Australian newspapers not only were not invited, they were given zero information by Target about the launch. Nevertheless Grazia Australia broke the news on Twitter and has a story next week (update 02/10: vogue.com.au and The Sydney Morning Herald both have the story today - although info for the SMH story was not provided by Target). The bloggers report they are being paid to write posts and must submit copy for approval. While they're busy doing that, here is a first look at the 42-piece collection (which is already on Target's website), to be sold in 102 Target stores and online from October 29. It ranges from $20 for a headband up to $299 for a silk dress and includes some kickass cropped cigarette pants, blazers, skinny jeans, tulip skirts, lace and satin blouses and some quite beautiful dresses, including one French blue lace cocktail dress with sweetheart neckline and a heavily-embellished shift. 

London Fashion Week, New Zealand Fashion Week - and a sneak peek at World Autumn/Winter 2011

 

Another day, another Fashion Week. Yes, New York Fashion Week wraps today, giving the most gung-ho fashionistas/os the chance to hop the red eye to London for tomorrow’s kickoff of London Fashion Week, which runs September 17-22. Here is the British Fashion Council schedule, with some collections at Somerset House and others off-site. Here is the digital schedule of shows to be live streamed. And here is the On/Off schedule (an off-schedule event staged in Bloomsbury). Vis-à-vis Australians, jewellery designer Jordan Askill will present a film on Friday 17th at 15.00, with sass & bide showing at 17.45 that day and UK-based Richard Nicoll and Antipodium showing on Sunday 19th at 19.30 and Tuesday 21st at 09.30 respectively. While LFW is in full swing, New Zealand Fashion Week will kick off in Auckland (September 21-25). Frockwriter will be attending for the second time as the guest of the organisers. Click here for the NZFW schedule, which includes Zambesi, Nom*D, Karen Walker, Trelise Cooper and World, with New York’s Nicole Miller this year’s international ringin. What’s Miller doing downunder?

First look: The Style Tyrant snaps Ashley McConnell for Orri Henrisson Spring/Summer 2010/2011

We've had the first Australian fashion blogger make it onto the cover of a fashion magazine (Lady Melbourne on Peppermint). Now, if frockwriter is not mistaken, comes the first Australian fashion blogger tapped to photograph an ad campaign. Joining the ranks of American Scott Schuman, aka The Sartorialist, who has shot for Burberry and Australia's own SABA and Canada's Tommy Ton (Lane Crawford) is Sydney fashion blogger, photographer and fashion publicist Matt Jordan, aka Imelda: The Despotic Queen of Shoes and The Style Tyrant, who has just snapped the first campaign for Sydney menswear brand Orri Henrisson. Here is a preview. Jordan met Orri Henrisson designer Henry Ng while shooting him for The Style Tyrant, Jordan's year-old mens street style blog. The model is Ashley McConnell, bass player for Queensland pop outfit Operator Please (Perez Hilton's "favourite rocking teens"), styling is by James Dykes and graphics are courtesy new Sydney graphic design shop Lekkur Studio. Very cool little campaign. McConnell is no stranger to the camera. Repped by Chadwicks, his modelling debut was the Autumn/Winter 2009 campaign for Minty Meets Munt (one of Jordan's clients). FYI McConnell's hair isn't lilac, it's platinum blond - that's just the graphic overlay effect.

The bloggers of RAFW Part 4: Imelda's Matt Jordan

And finally, a quick chat with Matt Jordan, who blogs about shoes in character as Imelda Marcos on Imelda: The Despotic Queen of Shoes - recently adding a new mens street-style blog called The Style Tyrant. Would have loved to have done more blogger ivs at last week's RAFW, but in between coverage of the jam-packed schedule, there was only so much time. Hope to do more.

The bloggers of RAFW Part 3: Sassi Sam's Sam Winter

The third interview in frockwriter's bloggers of RAFW series: a chat with Sassi Sam’s Sam Winter. Sydney-based Winter established her Sassi Sam e-commerce site five years ago - and the Sassi Sam blog 18 months ago.

The bloggers of RAFW Part 2: An Australian Wintour's Megan Aney

As part of frockwriter's bloggers of RAFW series, here is a short interview with Gold Coast-based Megan Aney, from An Australian Wintour.

The bloggers of RAFW Part 1: Aych blog's Hannah McArdle

For those who followed my RAFW coverage on Twitter, this particular video will be a repeat: a quick chat with Auckland’s Hannah McArdle of Aych Blog. It was part of a short series of blogger interviews I shot at last week's event. Given that it only went on frockwriter’s Posterous feed (where it has nevertheless been viewed over 650 times), I wanted to blog the bloggers of RAFW series in order here, so voilà.

ABC Art Nation's story on Sonny Vandevelde

On the eve of RAFW, frockwriter mentioned that the ABC's hot new Art Nation show would be dedicating its entire May 2 edition to fashion. After sending the embed code for the fashion bloggers story, the producers kindly shot through deets for the standalone story on photographer Sonny Vandevelde that was also featured. It was shot during the L'Oréal Melbourne Fashion Festival in March, when Sonny had a solo exhibition of his backstage work at Mars Gallery. Great to see his editorial work also given some due attention.