If the shoe fits

andrej pejic models chris benz SS12 via sight management studio

We all talk – a great deal – about the sizes of the bodies of fashion models. The sizes of their feet, however, rarely come up for discussion. What an interesting topic of conversation it proved to be when we puffed this week's Anmari Botha post on both frockwriter’s and my personal Facebook pages, using one of Botha’s IMG Models showcards as an illustration – and her published shoe size, "7.5", sparked a raft of comments. “How does a 5’11” woman have such small feet?!” asked Sydney-based media trainer Shauna Stafford. Another noted, “Most women that size would have size nine or ten feet”. While a former magazine maven chimed in, “Your basic nightmare. Perfect” – referring, we assume, to the dearth of “unusual” shoe sizes in the fashion cupboard of a typical magazine.

Blowout at Buckingham Palace

antipodium's facebook

So Buckingham Palace's Australian reception is done and dusted. Three hundred and fifty guests descended on the palace last night for a special meet-and-greet with Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh, ahead of next week's royal visit downunder. So far there don't seem to be terribly many photos of Andrej Pejic. But Antipodium designer Geoffrey J Finch snapped these two shots of Pejic en route to the do in a rather demure black vintage Versace pencil skirt and charcoal grey Paul Smith blazer (and not Jean Paul Gaultier, a rack of whose clothes, we hear, had been sent to Pejic prior to the event). Teamed with, Pejic tells frockwriter, an Issey Miyake blouse, black tights, boots from Australian high street chain Tony Bianco and his mum's vintage gold belt from the 1980s, the most extravagant aspect of the outfit was his coiffure: dead straight blond hair extensions which reached to his waist - the antithesis of his Bellatrix L'Estrange-meets-Marie-Antoinette up do at Myer's recent relaunch party. In the absence so far of any photographic evidence, did Pejic actually get to meet the Queen or did he just mill about the reception rooms while a select few were run past Her Majesty? "All the guests who attended last night's reception were presented to The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh" a Buckingham Palace spokesperson told us.
 

Elle Macpherson closes Louis Vuitton

louis vuitton FW1011/getty via daylife


Well we can add Elle Macpherson to the list of Australian models walking in Fall/Winter 2010/2011. Returning to the runway after what frockwriter estimates could be a 20 year hiatus (the last time we recall seeing Macpherson on a catwalk was the Bicentennial Wool Collection in Sydney in 1988), she closed Louis Vuitton's 1950s-nosed collection yesterday in Paris. Although not technically the last show of the season - that was Miu Miu last night - it was a fascinating climax to a season marked by its interesting show casting. Much has been made of the "curvier" models on show alongside the stock standard teenage skeletors, even though the Victoria's Secret Angels who appeared at Prada and Balenciaga are still whippet thin. But the choice of 46 year-old Macpherson, after Calvin Klein cast fortysomethings Kristen McMenamy and Stella Tennant, alongside 33 year-old Kirsty Hume in New York, with McMenamy also showing up at Viktor & Rolf last weekend, seems more a victory for the older woman, than her curvier cousin.