Kirstie Clements' Vogue Factor

vogue australia september 2011 - via fashionmodeldirectory.com

Judging by the response to Frockwriter’s Salute to Kirstie Clements tribute last May – one of our top 10 posts of 2012 – there is a huge amount of interest in, and goodwill towards, the former Vogue Australia editor. Her shock axing last year, followed by the dismantling of pretty much the entire Vogue Australia team she worked with, had the Australian fashion industry abuzz. But Clements fell on her feet quickly, snapped up by Melbourne University Press to pen an autobiography about her 25 year career – nearly all of it spent at Vogue, starting as a receptionist in the 1980s. The book, called The Vogue Factor, is due out February 28th (you can pre-order it here). We caught up with Clements to learn a little more about her fashion “tell-all” and what she’s up to. Incidentally, you’ll never guess who she was about to put on the cover at the time of her departure.

Lanvin's Lucas Ossendrijver covers the launch issue of Manuscript

Sydney-based freelance fashion journo Mitchell Oakley-Smith isn’t one for resting on his laurels. Already the author of one coffee table book through Thames & Hudson Australia – Fashion: Australian and New Zealand designers – T&H Australia has just released a second collection of his designer vignettes, Interiors: Australian and New Zealand designers. And he’s just signed a third contract, this time with the Thames & Hudson mothership in London for another, slightly more complex tome that is due for release in late 2013 and is to be co-authored with Australian art curator and writer Alison Kubler. All under the age of 25. But that’s not all. Behold a preview of the first cover of a new menswear magazine called Manuscript, Oakley-Smith’s first effort as a publisher, which is out on Friday. Lensed by London-based Australian Paul Scala at the Lanvin headquarters in Paris, it stars Lanvin’s menswear director Lucas Ossendrijver, an extensive profile of whom features inside the issue. 

Booked: Museyon's 'City Style' taps Sydney as a global fashion capital

Mitchell Oakley Smith isn’t the only Australian getting published by an international imprint. Paul Bui, former editor of Australia's longest-surviving indie fashion magazine, Oyster, now working as a freelance stylist and writer, has penned the Sydney chapter of the upcoming City Style: A Field Guide to Global Fashion Capitals. The book is being published in October by New York-based Museyon Guides, which commissioned hipsters in eight cities to write about their local haunts, hotspots and fashion creatives. Bui joins Tokyo-based Brit Dan Bailey from the Tokyo Dandy blog and New York-based Laia Garcia from Geometric Sleep and writers in Milan, London, Paris, LA and Stockholm. Designers profiled include Rad Hourani, Danielle Scutt and Australia’s Kit Willow. Interesting to see Sydney make the global fashion cities cut yet again, after popping up in the top 10 Fashion Capitals list published by Texas-based Global Language Monitor in both 2008 and 2009 (with the launch of the 2010 list imminent). 

Booked: FASHION by Mitchell Oakley Smith

Books on Australian fashion are few and far between. In fact Alexandra Joel’s Parade and Elina Mackay's The Great Aussie Fashion, both published in 1984 (with Parade reprinted in 1998) and David Meagher's 2008 Fashion Speak (in which Australasians account for half of Meagher's 14 designer profiles) are the sum total to date if frockwriter is not mistaken. Well now we can add Mitchell Oakley Smith’s first literary effort to this very slim list: FASHION, a 352-page book on Australian – and New Zealand – designers, published by no less than Thames & Hudson Australia, the local arm of one of the world’s most prestigious fashion and art publishers (to be sold internationally as well). Here is an exclusive preview of the cover: a Georges Antoni shot of Anthea Page in Toni Maticevski’s silk cotton voile and triacetate ballgown. According to the notes, the dress is from the Autumn/Winter 2006 collection and according to Oakley Smith, the shot was first published in Oyster.

The dress bears a strong resemblance to the "doona" dresses that were later presented by Maticevski in New York in February 2007 for the Fall/Winter 0708 season. And no, apparently that's no Photoshop job - the model is actually carrying an eski bag emblazoned with an Australian flag.

Sydney-based Oakley Smith is associate editor of GQ Australia and has been writing about fashion for four years, for publications including BELLE, Myer Emporium and The Australian.

Accompanying a fantastic selection of imagery (see below) are 50,000 words profiling 70 designers, including Akira Isogawa, Josh Goot, Zimmermann, Karen Walker, Kate Sylvester, Nom*D, World, Birthday Suit, Romance Was Born and Arnsdorf.

The book took Oakley Smith two years and he approached five different publishers before hooking up with T&H.

Available from August 1 ($79.95).








All images supplied by Thames & Hudson
(Top to bottom)
Toni Maticevski by Georges Antoni.
Ksubi
RM Williams
Fernando Frisoni
Chronicles of Never
Marnie Skillings