The producers: Mark Vassallo - MBFWA SS 12/13

backstage at josh goot SS1112/sydney may 2011

Sydney-born, but now "globally"-based  (or so he says on his new website), Mark Vassallo has had a hand in some of Australian Fashion Week’s biggest fashion ‘moments’ of recent years. He has played the roles of independent publisher (Mark and Petit Mal), editor (Follow), fashion director (Harpers Bazaar Australia), creative director, casting director and stylist. He launched the career of Gemma Ward, among others. And he has helmed a number of memorable  runway presentations, for designers such as Josh Goot, Dion Lee and Romance Was Born. As part of frockwriter’s Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia SS1213 series, we thought we should give it up for - and pick the brains of - some of the hardest-working, least-visible players of the fashion week pack – the producers. First up: Vassallo. 

The butterfly effect: Why couldn't Toni Maticevski take over the reins at Christian Dior?

Frockwriter popped down to Melbourne last week for the last leg of the L’Oréal Melbourne Fashion Festival (as a guest of the organisers, once again). Among the shows we caught was Toni Maticevski’s 'Red Carpet Runway' on Thursday night, which closed the event with 50 looks from Maticevski’s archive of 2000 pieces, collected since he launched his demi-couture label in 1999. There were plenty of his signature, heavily-embellished ballgowns and shorter, artfully-deconstructed tailored pieces that have made their way to New York Fashion Week, The Grammys, the Cannes Film Festival and a raft of other events on the backs of celebrities such as Beyoncé, Scarlett Johannson, Leighton Meester, Christina Ricci, Abbie Cornish, Gemma Ward and Kim Kardashian. At 35, Maticevksi is exactly the same age as was John Galliano in 1996, when the latter was appointed as the creative director of the storied Parisian haute couture house of Christian Dior. With Galliano fired last year, there is a vacant position to fill. Suspend your disbelief for a moment that an Australian designer could ever be considered for the creative director’s role of a major Paris fashion house (Martin Grant FYI once turned down the Céline gig) and ponder the hypothetical question, why couldn’t Maticevski fill Galliano’s shoes?