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!

Jez Smith is on the road (again) with America's Next Top Model

ANTM via the CW

Sydney-based Brit fashion photographer Jez Smith might have quit his role as a judge on Australia’s Next Top Model last year citing work commitments and the fact that he "struggles" with the reality tv format, but he has just wrapped a shoot with America’s Next Top Model – in fact his second gig with the NTM mother ship.

Elliot Ward-Fear's bottom line

Elliot Ward-Fear’s profile is completely disproportionate to the size of his business. In fact the 22 year-old Sydneysider has yet to snag a single stockist. Given that he only graduated from TAFE NSW last year, that’s not so hard to grasp. But that hasn’t stopped pieces from his spectacular 'Beauty In Exile' debut collection, which was unveiled at Rosemount Australian Fashion Week in May, finding their way into two episodes of Australia’s Next Top Model, this month's ARIA awards and even an audience with Miuccia Prada. When your stocks-in-trade are 18cm microsuede booties and gargantuan, stalactite-like Lucite jewellery, people tend to notice you. Having a publicist doesn’t hurt of course - and he's had one of those since June. Next week Ward-Fear is going to be flat chat. First up, he will unveil his Autumn/Winter 2011 ‘Spirit of Clothing’ collection at press showings in Sydney. Here is an exclusive preview of that collection, which includes some quite beautiful dresses, such as this pretty, deconstructed tennis dress in fondant pink and white and the intricately-seamed caramel wool bodycon dress, above and below, which boasts a curious cutaway panel at the derrière. The latter is designed to be worn, we are told, with a full, flesh-coloured brief - as white hot new Australian model Codie Young will discover later next week when the Vogue Australia September covergirl shoots Ward-Fear's first lookbook in Brisbane with Thom Kerr. 

Bloggers on the runway at New York Fashion Week?

juicystar007 (T) allthatglitrs21

Well they made it to the front row, where else is there for the fashion media’s new celebrities to go but the runway and advertising campaigns? Bryanboy is currently at New York Fashion Week and recently hinted that he just signed his first advertising campaign. No word yet on what that is. But one might easily speculate that Marc Jacobs seems an obvious (and yes, perhaps far too obvious) fit, given that over the past two years Bryanboy has become an unofficial online ambassador for the brand. Frockwriter was fascinated to just learn via The Imagist (aka models.com’s editorial director Wayne Sterling) that Marc Jacobs may be using an element of street casting for Monday’s show. Then came word from Wikifashion co-founder Madeline Veenstra, an Australian covering Chictopia10, the Fashion 2.0 conference that’s on right now in New York (by proxy), that two YouTube beauty bloggers are due to walk in an as yet unnamed New York Fashion Week show.

On closer inspection they are sisters Blair (top) and Elle Fowler. According to a video update just posted by 21 year-old Elle, the two are indeed due to walk in one show and her 16 year-old sister Blair was the youngest makeup artist to have ever worked as makeup director at a New York Fashion Week show: Minnie Mortimer. The latter being one of a score of low profile labels that show at New York Fashion Week which is yes, a leviathan event.

Bloggers who appear either on runways or in ad campaigns are unlikely to win favour with the fashion media establishment, which has accused bloggers of becoming the butt boys and girls of fashion advertisers.

The fash blogosphere’s riposte: those in graft houses shouldn’t throw stones.

Lady Melbourne fronts Peppermint

Yes bloggers are so hot right now. You only have to check out Bryanboy’s new rabbit-in-headlights masthead pic taken at the SS10 Dolce e Gabbana show – for which he, The Sartorialist, Garance Doré and Tommy Ton were plonked frow alongside fash industry stalwarts Suzy Menkes, Anna Wintour and co, complete with laptops. Blogger collab windows kicked off with The Sartorialist and Saks Fifth Avenue back in October 2006, but reached critical mass this year, with Holt Renfrew hooking up with BB and others and Brisbane’s own Jean Brown dedicating an entire installation to Imelda. Well frockwriter can reveal that in the recent SM tradition of hot net babes who are rucking up not only traffic, but modeling tie-ins (eg Julia Frakes and Fashiontoast's Rumi Neely now repped by NY's Next Models), Phoebe Montague, aka Lady Melbourne, is due to appear on the cover of Oz eco magazine Peppermint. If some (if not many) fash mag slags are picking up content from the blogosphere, good to see a little credit finally being given where credit's due.

The fur is flying in Melbourne, but where the hell is PETA?

Within one hour of touching down in Melbourne for this week's Marc Jacobs on Film festival, fashblogger Bryanboy told me he was approached by two animal rights protestors on Bourke Street over a fox fur collar he was sporting. One of two fur collars he brought to Melbourne. In the interim, the animal rights lobby has been asleep at the vegan leather-covered wheel. In spite of having been targeted by PETA last year back in his home town of Manila, a recent blog blowup about the origin of these particular furs - China - and furthermore, having repeatedly advertised his Melbourne location, not a peep out of PETA. And that's not for a lack of opportunities.

On Tuesday, frockwriter was down in Melbourne to moderate another FGI Fashion Flash industry seminar, this time at the Fashion Exposed trade show.

Spent the rest of the afternoon out and about town with Bryanboy and a blog posse that included Matt 'Imelda' Jordan, Helen 'Sassybella' Lee, Hayley Hughes and celebrity stylist Philip Boon.

Bryanboy was wearing the silver fox and frockwriter couldn't resist doing a little impromptu styling:




In case there is any doubt that that is, or at least was, a fox, here's a closeup of its face:



I did not manage to get a shot, but FYI the mouth opens and closes.

After we both tweeted the shots, I was a little concerned that Bryanboy might be on the receiving end of a bucket of red paint. And that I might inadvertently cop a little PETA "fur scum" rage by way of proximity:


imelda

But nada.

And as if Bryanboy needed any encouragement on the fur front, moreover, Boon appears to be even more of a fur-ophile.

Here's a shot from Boon's iPhone that was recently taken during a trip to the Victorian Alps:



This afternoon, Boon took Bryanboy on a Melbourne shopping tour, which swung by numerous shops selling vintage fur.



bryanboy

And apparently Bryanboy did not walk away empty-handed. Here he is back at the hotel:


bryanboy

Shots and shop locations were tweeted by both Bryanboy and Boon all afternoon.

But still, no reaction.

So there you have it.

In spite of recent protests outside the boutique of Melbourne designer Alannah Hill (and an email death threat which PETA denied had anything to do with them), PETA has lost the battle against fur in Melbourne - where a fur coat would no doubt come in very handy during the chilly southern winter.

Too busy busy pumping energy into the mulesing saga downunder?

Charlotte Dawson was a Marc Jacobs muse?

Well, for fifteen minutes at least. Here is a series of screen caps from an episode of Andy Warhol's 1980s MTV series Fifteen Minutes, filmed in January 1987 and which features the former Ford New York model, now Australia's Next Top Model judge, modelling one of Jacobs' earliest collections. The underwear-as-outwear-themed collection includes the Freudian Slip Dress, emblazoned with a Sigmund Freud caricature. Dawson was one of three models cast for the show. Twenty three year-old Jacobs conducts the interview astride a ladder. And if you find the photo shoot antics of the ANTM contestants amusing, Dawson and co are required to climb the ladder after him. It's one of three episodes of the MTV series that will be screened by the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) next week under the umbrella title Marc Jacobs' New York, as part of ACMI's week-long Marc Jacobs on Film festival during Melbourne Spring Fashion Week.

Yes, that's right, an entire week of films - six in total - dedicated to Jacobs' work.

Frockwriter buddy Bryanboy, in whose honour the ostrich skin 'BB' bag from Jacobs' FW0809 collection was named, has been flown down by ACMI to open the festival on Saturday night.

Click here for the full schedule and ticket details.
















all images: screen caps from 'marc jacobs' new york', courtesy ACMI

The trompe l'oeil necklace trend - it never ends!

lutefisk


On Sunday, sparked by Karen Walker’s reedition of the broken string of pearls print from her own archive for her FW0910 show, frockwriter showed a trompe l'oeil necklace trend chronology, showing which big fashion names picked up the look after Walker first showed it for Resort 2000. Well apparently Givenchy has also hopped on board. Because here is Bryanboy, just snapped outside - and also backstage - at Marc by Marc Jacobs in a Givenchy T-shirt – part of what he reports was a limited edition run done for the luxury e-tailer Luisa Via Roma and based on the heavy multi-chain necklaces from Givenchy’s FW0809 show. Click here to see the Marc by Marc Jacobs collection on wwd.com - the show featured two Australian models, newcomer Bridget Malcolm (look #21, contrary to reports, Malcolm did not walk in Monday's Marc Jacobs main line show) and Myf Shepherd (#40). How’s Bryanboy doing in New York BTW?

As revealed by WWD, Bryanboy is in New York filming a 25-minute documentary on Marc Jacobs' FW0910 season for the Japanese market.

Commissioned by Marc Jacobs Japan (with Stephen Schible, co-producer of Lost In Translation producing), Bryanboy has been filming at both the Marc Jacobs and Marc by Marc Jacobs shows.

Head to Bryanboy's blog to see two of the fashion world’s best-known figures, Paris Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld and US Vogue's Hamish Bowles, in uncharacteristically goofy happy snaps with BB.

Then there is Marc Jacobs himself, who named a handbag from his FW0809 collection after Bryanboy following a series of video/photo/email exchanges.

Here's Sonny Vandevelde's backstage shot of the pair shortly after they finally met in person backstage on Monday night:


bryanboy

Bryanboy told frockwriter:

“The only word to describe my experience here – it’s been magical. I’ve met so many people. And I’m really enjoying my time. It’s just a blogger’s dream come true. I saw Myf. I met Jeanne Beker [host of Canada's Fashion Television], I met Carine again and Anna Della Russo [Vogue Nippon]. But I was so scared to meet Anna Wintour. I was too scared to go up to her. She has this invisible force field around her. I wouldn’t dare”.

Prêt-à-Twitter

Bryancam

bryanboy

Guys, our buddy Bryanboy is winging his way to New York Fashion Week as I type on the next leg of the "surreal" Marc Jacobs journey on which he's found himself over the past 12 months. Above is a self-portrait taken at Manila airport in the wee hours of Sunday morning. WWD got the scoop on precisely what he's going to be doing in the Big Apple. Check the story out here.

A new media day dawns @ NYFW

the daily via bryanboy

Here is the daffodil yellow, hope-imbued cover of The Daily's first New York Fashion Week handout edition, which was distributed at the Bryant Park tents on Friday. Of course The Daily is owned by IMG, which also operates the central Mercedes Benz Fashion Week tented show event at Bryant Park - and which has been affected by show cancellations and other industry budget cuts due the current economic crisis. But life, business and fashion do go on. And as Anna Sui told The New York Times on Thursday, “It’s survival of the fittest at this point”. Sui talked about the costs of putting on a big show – US$50,000 to rent space and US$100,000 in production costs, not including models – and asks “Is it worth the investment”? Sui obviously thinks so because her show will go ahead. And Sui makes a very good point: the strongest and/or best-adapted to the changing environment, have the best chance of survival. While certainly some very good new-ish designers have closed up shop recently, it is no surprise to learn that the plug has been pulled on Australian brand Morrissey. Founding designer Peter Morrissey was long gone, all that remained was a name – and lacklustre merchandise which consumers could find at numerous other cheaper retail locations. But designers and retailers are not the only ones having a wakeup call at the moment. A media shift is afoot.

Those who are currently paid to report on fashion are having their budgets, retainers, word rates - and also, jobs - slashed by mainstream media outlets whose adstreams are evaporating. Over the next month it is going to be interesting to see just how many media reps front up to the shows.

Interestingly, this first FW0910 edition of The Daily devotes one entire page to four exponents of the new fashion media guard: the blogosphere.

The Daily ran four mini profiles of Bryanboy, Rumi Neely (Fashion Toast), Tina Chen Craig and Kelly Cook (BagSnob) and Natalie Hormilla & Britt Aboutaleb (Fashionista).

Dubbing these fashion bloggers “The Excitables!”, here is the intro to the spread:

“They love shoes. They love bags. They love Pre-Fall and resort. Their resilient passion for fashion will chase your disillusionment away”.

The Daily also calculates an “excitabality” ranking for each blog, with each excitability point represented by a graphic of a shopping bag-laden fashionista.

Bryanboy receives five excitability points and here’s what The Daily has to say about him:

“Manila-based blogger Bryanboy was an Aliona Doletskaya early-adopter; he described the discovery of Lanvin resort and Spring 009 T-shirts available for pre-order online as “STUNNING”; says watching old Dior shows on YouTube gives him “chills every time”; selected Clemaris, Iris Blue, Mouse and African Violet as his favorite Hermes ostrich-leather colorations; considers Marc Jacobs naming the Sunburst BB Shoulderbag after him “the best thing that has ever happened to me”; introduced the now-classic phrase, “Male fans of Pierre Hardy, rejoice”.”

The fashion industry has traditionally viewed fashion reporters as cheerleaders: mouthpieces via which to talk up its products. Hungry for advertising revenue, the fashion media has traditionally bent over backwards to provide positive coverage.

As such, it is interesting that the blogosphere continues to be so overlooked in this regard.

Although bloggers have generated quite some coverage from the mainstream media, the fashion PR sector continues by and large to look down its nose at bloggers, irrespective of their individual expertise, as second class fashion reporters.

As The New York Observer’s Irina Aleksander noted on February 4, while speculating about the potential impact of the Michelle Obama factor on attendance at Jason Wu’s upcoming show:

“Mr. Wu’s September show, held at the same venue, did have some prominent names; it was attended by Vogue editor Anna Wintour, for one. But it also had some fashion bloggers and mid-level reporters, who are typically deported to the second, third and fourth rows at the more high-profile shows, sharing the front row with Ms. Wintour. Now Mr. Wu’s dedicated attendees are probably wondering if their seats will be bumped back a bit”.

With the current economic crisis, it is going to be interesting to see which way the tide turns.

A very high percentage fashion gossip and news is now broken on fashion blogs, not the virtually moribund fashion news columns of newspapers, which, more often than not, contain news already reported online.

To be sure, there is a huge volume of low-profile fashion blogs which are more personal diaries than traditional reportage. Let's call it citizen fashion journalism.

Some of these personal diaries have, however, emerged as absolute must-reads - and their diarists, as media brands in their own right.

How many of The Daily's four featured fashion blogs are actually at the NYFW shows? Just one so far apparently, Fashionista.

But there are other fashion bloggers at the tents.

Now in its second year, Inside The Tents is an interesting portal of independent blog coverage of NYFW, offering an aggregation of multiplatform reportage via accredited blogs, Twitter, Flickr and video streaming.

Frockwriter understands the organisers may have had some difficulties with IMG. Judging from the sheer volume of coverage on the site however, this does not appear to have been a major issue. At the end of the day, individual designers decide who gets into their shows.


melissa hribar/the new york observer

One breakout ITT star so far is a new media specialist by the name of Yuli Ziv (pictured above).

Featured in a story in The Observer this week, Ziv is a co-founder and editor-in-chief of both the user-generated fashion/trend magazine MyItThings.com and a new organisation called Style Coalition.

A sponsor of Inside The Tents, Style Coalition aims to be a new "guild" for indie fashion bloggers.

According to Style Coalition's mission statement:

“We are a coalition of independent online publishers in the fashion and lifestyle vertical committed to building a bottom-up, content-driven alliance whose mission is to both advance professional standards in content creation and increase the effectiveness of advertising messages within this realm."

The Observer story noted that fashion companies exclude fashion bloggers because they are concerned about "inflammatory reviews" devised to drive "cheap Web traffic".

Noted Ziv in the story:

“It’s easy to be nasty. You can take the negative handle and you can survive for a while, but you’ll only get to a certain point. Eventually you have to change.”

On Wednesday, high profile New York media blog Gawker paid out on the Style Coalition, dubbing it as “Kiss-up Guild for Fashion Bloggers”.

Noted Gawker:

"The idea is to be as toothless and sold-out as fashion magazines.

If Ziv and her partners are so inspired that the internet allows a designer to "become very successful without any blessing from the big folks," they should go find those scrappy little designers, instead of clamoring to get in to events dominated by the major names. And they should think twice about trying to become one of the "big folks" handing out blessings.”

Gawker suggests that Ziv and co should take a leaf out of the book of The New York Times fashion critic Cathy Horyn. Horyn is widely respected as a fashion authority, in spite of the fact that she has been banned from numerous shows following her critical reviews.

Frockwriter cannot help thinking that Gawker - and Ziv - may be missing two key points here.

First up, although Cathy Horyn has certainly devoted some effort to establishing her online voice at the NYT, she is not an independent fashion blogger. Cathy Horyn works for one of the world's best-known newspapers.

Should Horyn ever leave the NYT to launch her own independent website, it remains to be seen precisely what access she would be accorded.

Secondly, on Ziv's personal website, she describes herself as a:

"Web 2.0 Entrepreneur, Online Expert & Strategist with extensive Marketing, Creative and Publishing background"

According to Ziv's bio, her background is exclusively marketing-focussed.

That's fine and best of luck to Ziv and of course also to the plethora of fashion bloggers who do not have journalism backgrounds either. A journalism background is by no means compulsory for blogging.

Nor indeed does it appear to be among the compulsory selection criteria for fashion writers on most magazines, and even some newspapers. And provided that, for instance, Australian publications such as Vogue and The Sunday Telegraph don't mind winding up on Media Watch on repeated occasions over ethics issues (as both have), then that should not pose a problem for anyone really.

In the specific case of Yuli Ziv, however, with no journalism background, how can Ziv possibly promote herself as the professional standard bearer of the fashion blogosphere?

The Year of Living Bryanously

style magazine via bryanboy

If you build it... they will cast? That could turn out to be the motto of Filipino net sensation (and frockwriter buddy) Bryanboy, as he caps what in his own words has been a “surreal” 2008. Last week he made WWD’s 'Year In Fashion' supplement, as one of the ‘fashion moments’ of 2008. Overnight, he's been dubbed one of the Top 25 Faces of 2008 by high-profile model industry blog Confessions of a Casting Director, alongside some of the hottest new model names, including Australia's Abbey Lee Kershaw. Oh and Carla Bruni.

Bryanboy has been blogging for four years and was already on the media ascendant prior to 2008, not to mention the radar of the luxury industry – after model poses in a series of Fendi ads in 2006 bore a striking resemblance to his trademark Infamous Bryanboy Pose.

However his star rose in 2008 thanks to Marc Jacobs.

Bryanboy created an amusing video homage to Jacobs, following a spate of late 2007 media attacks on the designer over the tardiness of his fashion shows.

In appreciation, Jacobs thanked Bryanboy via email – and then in February this year, was photographed backstage at one of his Fall/Winter 08/09 shows in New York holding up an “I love Bryanboy” poster.

Then an email from Jacobs to Bryanboy, promising to call an ostrich skin handbag from the main collection after the blogger, was leaked via a Bryanboy friend and found itself all over the net.

After months of speculation, Jacobs made good on the promise, sending Bryanboy the actual handbag prototype from the show.

Confirmation that Jacobs had named the bag after Bryanboy resulted in a veritable avalanche of publicity.

Bryanboy made his first international Fashion Week foray at Australian Fashion Week - contrary to reports at the time, flying himself down (although, along with other international VIPs, he was put up at The Westin by organisers).

And while some of the event’s other international VIPs, notably reps from The Financial Times and Nylon, have complained about being accorded bad seats at AFW shows, Bryanboy found himself front row at almost every show.

Next off the bat was Hong Kong Luxury Week, followed by New Zealand and KL Fashion Weeks, all apparently attended as an invited media guest.


style magazine via bryanboy

Of the plethora of interviews done by Bryanboy in the wake of the Marc Jacobs story, the December 2008 edition of Singaporean fashion magazine Style represented a turning point.

Not only was Bryanboy interviewed for the magazine, but also styled and photographed, as a model would be, for a series of accompanying images – whilst wearing a mélange of mens' and womens' clothes.

It must have killed him to take off his trademark sunglasses – he usually never likes being photographed without them.

What emerged - to those who don't know him - was a beautiful face.

Put it down to the emerging power of the blogosphere, the Asian fashion explosion – not forgetting fashion’s androgynous moment - Bryanboy.com is a scathingly brilliant idea whose time has come.

Was the Marc Jacobs bag story a fortuitous happenstance, motivated by nothing more than genuine mutual admiration?

Or was Bryanboy the unwitting star of a very clever viral marketing campaign?

Either way, he is the only person on COACD’s list who is not a professional model.

Let’s see what 2009 brings...

Chow down with World

world AW09 muse tina chow/andy warhol

Although I missed the World show last week, I managed to play catchup with the World crew while in Auckland. And as if NZ's self-proclaimed "factory of ideas and experiments" wasn't camp enough, Bryanboy came along for the ride.

No limo for BB on this occasion however - he had to put up with the back of World co-founder Francis Hooper's delivery van. And look I did offer to swap, but Hooper was adamant.

"No - you're the girl" Hooper told me, even if many may well dispute this.

I don't recall hearing many complaints however.

Bryanboy's travelling companion was the dashing World menswear designer Benny Castles (below). Evidently Castles made quite an impression - BB told Kiwi blogger Isaac Hindin Miller that Castles was his "favourite" person he had met at the event.





First up was dinner on Sunday night at a cute Asian fusion resto concept called Chow down on the Viaduct Harbour (that's Hooper, centre ^).

Apparently there's more than one Chow in NZ and it was kind of apropos, given that World's There is no depression in New Zealand AW09 collection had in fact been inspired in large part by the late New York fashion icon Tina Chow.

After a four year hiatus from New Zealand Fashion Week, during which time the company focussed on its now eight-unit retail chain and showing at both the Tranoi menswear and womenswear trade shows in Paris, World opened the event last Tuesday.

By all accounts it was a spectacular opener, featuring the brand's trademark quirky take on English tailoring, electrically-hued menswear - and winding up with a showstopper of a Swarovski crystal-encrusted finale.

A significant component of every World show has always been the dedicated beauty concept created by long-time collaborator, the NZ-born, but now New York-based hair and makeup artist Brent Lawler - one of New Zealand's most successful style exports.




>
world AW09 runway shots/michael ng

Yesterday BB and I trekked over to the World headquarters, which is located inside a deconsecrated church on Pitt Street.

Looking through the collection at close range, I thought a couple of pieces were particularly strong.

I loved the black puff-sleeved power suit with tulip skirt that had been teamed with a crystal-encrusted 'octopus' top - the classic World net T-shirt with ridiculously long sleeves which scrunch up your arms.

For the show, the look had been styled with crystal-studded ankle boots, a crystal-studded disc hat and some pretty fabulous insect-look crystal-studded sunglasses:



Of equal note, the Kelly green cashmere cocktail sheath with extravagant pussybow neckline and fur-covered skirt which has editorial written all over it.

Made for the New Zealand market using faux fur ("We'd have our locks glued if we used real fur here" noted Hooper), pending interest from Europe, notably the brand's nascent Russian client base, the faux fur garments may be destined for an eventual luxe makeover:



According to Castles, both NZ's Te Papa museum and Australia's National Gallery of Victoria have expressed interest in acquiring some of the crystal pieces.

The accessories - and the crystal suit - are fantastically camp. Elvis Presley might be long gone, but there's always Elton John.

Not to mention Bryanboy.