I'm sitting on a private ferry en route to the Hallican Boodie show.
We are apparently en route to a private, harbourside residence in Woolwich and this ferry has been deemed the most efficient means of transporting us there. I'm having a bit of a deja vu moment because the last time I was on a fashion week boat, the Azimut yacht this time last year, Sydney restaurateur Dave Evans was doing the catering and was rudely bailed up by my good self on the Elle Macpherson subject in one of the cabins. Well Evans just strode past me en route to the rear deck. There is no catering on this boat I hasten to add, which is a damned shame as most of us have not eaten in hours. As the vessel approaches its destination, a voice over the PA system announces that return ferries will leave at 10.45pm and 11.45pm. Given that it is now 10.16pm, I'd say the chances of us getting out of this before midnight are remote.
We get out of the boat and are ushered along a narrow jetty towards some stairs which lead to the venue. Just to clarify, rather a lot of stairs, which wind up the escarpment to what appears in the distance to be a multi-level luxury mansion. We proceed to climb up the stairs, and up, and up, and our little obstacle course then takes us past a kidney-shaped pool, over some stepping stones and through quite a lot of greenery, including one area in which sprinklers are working for some absurd reason. I thank my lucky stars that I have on a pair of wedge heel Mary Janes and not the patent purple pumps with nail-thin green stiletto heels that I was wearing yesterday although that said, as I climbed the last set of stairs before the pool, I did hear a seam rip in my pencil skirt.
"How unglamorous" sniffs one woman as she scrambles past the sprinklers.
We are now on some open lawn area behind the house, possibly a tennis court. It's quite a large runway setup, complete with scaffolding towers for the lights, a raised runway and surrounding murals painted with images of Tikis and lush, tropical greenery. Some giant wooden Tikis are also scattered around the area and there is a Chinese lantern-decorated bar. It's a kind of Survivor-meets-Gilligan's Island look and it is in fact quite impressive. Some serious money has been spent on this launch (I later hear in the vicinity of 100K).
"It's like a Tiki party" volunteers Kiwi journo Carolyn Enting, before some 70s disco music starts up and she feels the need to qualify her previous statement.
"Actually it's like a Tiki party crossed with Miami Vice" she says.
I cross my fingers that this means there is a possibility Colin Farrell could emerge from behind one of the giant Tikis at any moment. For now, we have to make do with Miro - Simon Lock's glamorous Eastern block replacement for (the much-missed) seat Nazi John Flower who doubles as a personal trainer. Many at Fashion Week have grown accustomed to Miro's very hands-on approach to seating as he guides you to your allocated pew.
Miro gets up onto the stage in front of a band setup and takes the microphone.
"Could we please have the international buyers and media in the front two rows, thanks" he says, as some soft music starts up behind him.
Miro moves off the stage and after a short time, some new music starts - a cover of Que Sera Sera. A model emerges in a dramatically-cut black maillot and wearing some showgirl feathers on her head. She walks around deliberately - we assume - dazed and confused, as if she's not sure exactly what she's supposed to be doing up there - or has a case of early onset Alzheimers. Then other similarly-garbed models emerge doing precisely the same thing. It's always interesting when designers, from Sydney to Milan, ask their models to not just walk in fashion shows, but act. It's usually not a good look.
But enough of the runway 'theatre', as for the swimwear it's pure Hallican Boodie sass. Signature cutout maillots and intricately-cut bikinis, some of the best in a zig-zag or animal print, with one knockout metallic snakeskin motif. There is also some great resortwear to go with - floor-length patio dresses and coverups. All up, and given the minor inconvenience of having to be ferried across the other side of the harbour, it's a pretty spectacular swimwear presentation. The show wraps, a Chinese kitchen opens up in one corner and everyone dives into it, desperate for sustenance. After milling around for a short while a number of us decide it's probably a good idea to head back down the obstacle course to head to the pier. As luck - or sense - had it, a luxury cruiser is standing by to ferry the ten of us who make it down first back to the CBD, ahead of the scheduled ferries. I walked in the door of my apartment at midnight.
It's been a day, nay a week, of spectacular swimwear productions. After last year's abomination of a group swimwear show at this event, it's an exciting development. Swimwear is a big focus of these spring/summer shows in Sydney and three brands really stepped up to the plate this season with their productions: Hallican Boodie, Anna & Boy and of course Azzollini, with its impressive Don Cameron video clip. Zimmermann is always a great show of course - but Zimmermann is most definitely fashion + swimwear, as opposed to standalone swimwear, which is a challenge to put up there by itself for an entire, dedicated runway show.
Earlier in the evening Anna & Boy dazzled with a Milan-worthy production: LED panel at the runway entrance, mirrored runway, a giant "A&B" logo and flashing neon tube lights installed around the parameters of the tent. Great to see this fledgling brand looking so confident in the space of just one year. Also good to see resortwear added to the range - the pintucked shirt-dresses and logo singlet dress looked good and provided a great counterpoint to the charming retro florals and tartans of Anna & Boy's bikinis and one-pieces, which are gradually finding their feet not just on the editorial front (it helps to have connections at Vogue), but at the international retail level as well.
Original post and comments.
Showing posts with label fashion season. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fashion season. Show all posts
Friday, May 4, 2007
Thursday, May 3, 2007
The Goot, the crap and the ugly: Fashion Week's polemics hit home
Sitting waiting for the Josh Goot show to start in the Redfern Carriageworks, a cavernous, industrial space on the fringe of the CBD that was once home to Sydney's locomotive workshops.
It has a very similar vibe to The Tunnel, the abandoned railway station down on New York's 11th Avenue where Goot staged his February show. It's a big space with two rows of seating arranged around three walls and at least 100 people are standing at the back of the seats. Dita Von Teese is here, ditto Jennifer Hawkins and on the other side of the room, my great friends from Ksubi, George Gorrow and Dan Single, with their US model mate Erin Wasson.
We could be anywhere in the world but in fact we are here in Sydney to see Goot's fourth runway presentation in twelve months. I know Goot is completely buggered - he sounded like it when I spoke to him last week about the Target project and this fatigue is reflected in every interview he's done in the leadup. There is considerable risk of course that that fatigue could translate into the clothes on offer today.
As the first outfit comes out - a white draped viscose skirt and top - I breathe in sharply in and think, 'Oops'. It's not a strong opening statement. But then the second emerges, a pair of fluid track pants and singlet in a superfine grey marle and then comes a flash of acid yellow in a microdress with batwing sleeves and the show is off and rocking.
Inspired by 'future Roman sport' the collection features a series of fine, chainmail-look polyamide/acrylic leggings and singlets, in both silver and gold, the singlets boasting Goot's signature racerbacks. There are also some very chic, minimalist cocktail dresses in sleek, fluid stretch acrylics, one in bright fuschia, another in vibrant ultraviolet, both with matching capes - picking up from Goot's Gotham girl look just shown for the northern winter.
The colour-blocked, psychedelic leggings with in-built 'swirl' seamwork - for both men and women - were sensational, even if the articulated pattern looked alarmingly, for a fleeting moment, like the Target logo (it wasn't). Some of the body-hugging dresses with clever, intricate, contoured seamwork - an extension of an idea that Goot showed in New York in September - looked awkward to my eye. And when Goot is no longer suffering from sleep deprivation, I'm sure he'll look at those old lady shirts towards the end of the show - and kick himself for not yanking them. But the American retailers that I spoke to loved everything. Henri Bendel will order yet more Goot and, having kept an eye on Josh Goot for two years to see how it developed, American Rag said they hoped to now pick the brand up.
Goot knows only too well that you can't spread yourself too thin - or risk losing focus.
"I don't want to have to do four collections a year, I want to do two a year and show two a year" said Goot afterwards. "I got home on the 15th of March, what is it now, six weeks? That's craziness, to put it together in six weeks".
Yet more future sport at Alice McCall, another Australian who is currently showing on the international runways (three consecutive seasons in London). Some fresh florals aside, there were less of McCall's signature prints in this collection, a move away from her hippie signature vibe and towards fashion's current urban sport moment, a trajectory that was perhaps not always entirely successful.
McCall has a knack for picking a hot accessory however I'm not convinced that her hologram corset belt will be one of them. Sporty grey marle appeared in babydoll and shift dresses, with flashes of this week's ultra popular acid lime green. There were plenty of McCall's popular - in fact, cult-ish - dresses to keep her customers happy, some of the prettiest in pinstriped cotton with acid lime inset crochet panels. The stripe story was cute - longline tops, cardigans and one intriguing hooded singlet dress with cutout panels - as were the denim overalls.
It's a good feeling to front up to two consecutive standout AFW shows from local brands that got their starts in Sydney just three years ago but which are now both becoming international runway regulars. Fashion Week's focus has changed since it first launched in May 1996 and there are plenty of designers who showed then who have zero chance of cracking the OS market.
And look, while I thoroughly appreciate the need to have a series of entry-level AFW parades, for new designers to enter at a low cost and then, or so the idea goes, rise up through the parade ranks towards solo status, perhaps it is now time for a rethink about what these group shows offer AFW. Akira Isogawa and more recently Gail Sorronda are both Ready-to-Wear refugees - but both Goot and McCall catapulted straight onto AFW's solo runways at the get go.
While it's possible to unearth talent in group shows, they nevertheless continue to be Fashion Week's energy vampires - sucking the buzz out of the schedule with their all-too-frequent blandness and 'equal opportunity' ambiance. There is nothing 'equal' about the fashion business - if you don't have a point of difference, or a strategy, you're out of business. The poor brands - and there are a lot of them - unfortunately drag down the stronger ones. I gather this may be one of the reasons why there were so many solo shows from newcomers this year. Gail Sorronda could not have afforded to risk her image by taking part in another RTW show - and she shone last night on her own. Ditto Arabella Ramsay, with a pert, pretty collection of cool girl chic that proved one of my personal highlights of the week. Jessie Hill's was another extremely confident solo debut this season.
The 'blah' factor of the RTW shows is one reason why organisers have so much trouble getting high profile delegates to attend them - which must prove embarrassing, when RTW show participants pay to be part of the schedule and expect some kind of turnup. Apparently New Zealand's Annah Stretton was mortified that AFW organisers refused to accord her a solo show today. But having witnessed Stretton's (very) shabby chic efforts in machine-washable, distressed tulle first-hand at New Zealand Fashion Week, not to mention her styling prowess that has embraced such accessories as a wild boar's head and dead parrots, that can presumably only be a good thing.
The 'blah' factor was also very much in evidence at the One Fell Swoop show today. One Fell Swoop may well have won the Perth chapter of one of the recent Mercedes Startup competition, but all it could come up with for its big runway photo op today was a series of badly-made, black georgette dresses with taffeta cummerbunds. That's not fashion - it's market stall merchandise.
Original post and comments.
It has a very similar vibe to The Tunnel, the abandoned railway station down on New York's 11th Avenue where Goot staged his February show. It's a big space with two rows of seating arranged around three walls and at least 100 people are standing at the back of the seats. Dita Von Teese is here, ditto Jennifer Hawkins and on the other side of the room, my great friends from Ksubi, George Gorrow and Dan Single, with their US model mate Erin Wasson.
We could be anywhere in the world but in fact we are here in Sydney to see Goot's fourth runway presentation in twelve months. I know Goot is completely buggered - he sounded like it when I spoke to him last week about the Target project and this fatigue is reflected in every interview he's done in the leadup. There is considerable risk of course that that fatigue could translate into the clothes on offer today.
As the first outfit comes out - a white draped viscose skirt and top - I breathe in sharply in and think, 'Oops'. It's not a strong opening statement. But then the second emerges, a pair of fluid track pants and singlet in a superfine grey marle and then comes a flash of acid yellow in a microdress with batwing sleeves and the show is off and rocking.
Inspired by 'future Roman sport' the collection features a series of fine, chainmail-look polyamide/acrylic leggings and singlets, in both silver and gold, the singlets boasting Goot's signature racerbacks. There are also some very chic, minimalist cocktail dresses in sleek, fluid stretch acrylics, one in bright fuschia, another in vibrant ultraviolet, both with matching capes - picking up from Goot's Gotham girl look just shown for the northern winter.
The colour-blocked, psychedelic leggings with in-built 'swirl' seamwork - for both men and women - were sensational, even if the articulated pattern looked alarmingly, for a fleeting moment, like the Target logo (it wasn't). Some of the body-hugging dresses with clever, intricate, contoured seamwork - an extension of an idea that Goot showed in New York in September - looked awkward to my eye. And when Goot is no longer suffering from sleep deprivation, I'm sure he'll look at those old lady shirts towards the end of the show - and kick himself for not yanking them. But the American retailers that I spoke to loved everything. Henri Bendel will order yet more Goot and, having kept an eye on Josh Goot for two years to see how it developed, American Rag said they hoped to now pick the brand up.
Goot knows only too well that you can't spread yourself too thin - or risk losing focus.
"I don't want to have to do four collections a year, I want to do two a year and show two a year" said Goot afterwards. "I got home on the 15th of March, what is it now, six weeks? That's craziness, to put it together in six weeks".
Yet more future sport at Alice McCall, another Australian who is currently showing on the international runways (three consecutive seasons in London). Some fresh florals aside, there were less of McCall's signature prints in this collection, a move away from her hippie signature vibe and towards fashion's current urban sport moment, a trajectory that was perhaps not always entirely successful.
McCall has a knack for picking a hot accessory however I'm not convinced that her hologram corset belt will be one of them. Sporty grey marle appeared in babydoll and shift dresses, with flashes of this week's ultra popular acid lime green. There were plenty of McCall's popular - in fact, cult-ish - dresses to keep her customers happy, some of the prettiest in pinstriped cotton with acid lime inset crochet panels. The stripe story was cute - longline tops, cardigans and one intriguing hooded singlet dress with cutout panels - as were the denim overalls.
It's a good feeling to front up to two consecutive standout AFW shows from local brands that got their starts in Sydney just three years ago but which are now both becoming international runway regulars. Fashion Week's focus has changed since it first launched in May 1996 and there are plenty of designers who showed then who have zero chance of cracking the OS market.
And look, while I thoroughly appreciate the need to have a series of entry-level AFW parades, for new designers to enter at a low cost and then, or so the idea goes, rise up through the parade ranks towards solo status, perhaps it is now time for a rethink about what these group shows offer AFW. Akira Isogawa and more recently Gail Sorronda are both Ready-to-Wear refugees - but both Goot and McCall catapulted straight onto AFW's solo runways at the get go.
While it's possible to unearth talent in group shows, they nevertheless continue to be Fashion Week's energy vampires - sucking the buzz out of the schedule with their all-too-frequent blandness and 'equal opportunity' ambiance. There is nothing 'equal' about the fashion business - if you don't have a point of difference, or a strategy, you're out of business. The poor brands - and there are a lot of them - unfortunately drag down the stronger ones. I gather this may be one of the reasons why there were so many solo shows from newcomers this year. Gail Sorronda could not have afforded to risk her image by taking part in another RTW show - and she shone last night on her own. Ditto Arabella Ramsay, with a pert, pretty collection of cool girl chic that proved one of my personal highlights of the week. Jessie Hill's was another extremely confident solo debut this season.
The 'blah' factor of the RTW shows is one reason why organisers have so much trouble getting high profile delegates to attend them - which must prove embarrassing, when RTW show participants pay to be part of the schedule and expect some kind of turnup. Apparently New Zealand's Annah Stretton was mortified that AFW organisers refused to accord her a solo show today. But having witnessed Stretton's (very) shabby chic efforts in machine-washable, distressed tulle first-hand at New Zealand Fashion Week, not to mention her styling prowess that has embraced such accessories as a wild boar's head and dead parrots, that can presumably only be a good thing.
The 'blah' factor was also very much in evidence at the One Fell Swoop show today. One Fell Swoop may well have won the Perth chapter of one of the recent Mercedes Startup competition, but all it could come up with for its big runway photo op today was a series of badly-made, black georgette dresses with taffeta cummerbunds. That's not fashion - it's market stall merchandise.
Original post and comments.
Table manners: Gail Sorronda's pretty maids all in a row
I am sitting in the Ocean Room restaurant at the Overseas Passenger Terminal, waiting for the Gail Sorronda show to start. This is the 10th show of the day and some amazing kid with long blonde emo hair whose voice hasn't broken is on a podium singing his heart out.
Given that it is currently 9.30pm and there is still no sign of the show, it's just as well that they have started handing around platters of Thai fish cakes or else I might be obliged to commence nibbling on my neoprene Mac cover sleeve. It's only because designer Gail Reid is so good that people are sticking around for so long. I later learnt that the name of the singer is Tom Jordan and that he is just 13. At first I seriously thought he was a girl. He's pretty damned good.
The audience is seated at a series of tables down either side of a wide "runway" space that leads from the street flank of the restaurant to the Harbour exit out back. The models emerge one by one and step up onto a line of small, white, translucent pedestals/stools directly in front of the tables. The pedestals light up from within as the models stand on them - with a spotlight positioned directly over each pedestal. With the rest of the room in darkness, it's pretty hard to see the clothes in any enormous detail, but it is a cute concept nonetheless.
The entire collection is in Reid's signature magpie palette of black and white: a series of terribly pretty, and mostly terribly short, puff-skirted, puff-sleeved cocktail dresses and ensembles in silk taffeta and sheer silk georgette, several versions of which boast either crisp man-style white shirts with exaggerated collars, or little aprons and bibs with plisse edges. There's a definite Fifi the French maid look to a number of these outfits. There are also some longer, more sharply-tailored dresses and one solitary pair of high-waisted, full-legged black trousers topped with a white cotton smock blouse.
In what has emerged as a signature hair look for this Sydney season - taking its cues from recent European shows such as Lanvin - all the models have their hair pulled severely upwards into tight chignons at the top of the head. They're also wearing quirky little head adornments such as silver cat ears and headbands festooned with crystals.
A number of the models appear to be Asian/Eurasian and this is somewhat unusual for Sydney. In spite of the number of Asians who actually reside in this country, their numbers do not appear to be well represented on this city's runways. Twenty five-year-old Reid, originally from Brisbane, is both Eurasian and a professional model herself. Suffice it to say that tonight's presentation looks a little like an army of glamorous Gail Reid clones.
This is Reid's solo runway debut at AFW and it has been interesting to follow her rapid development. On a tip from retailer Belinda Seper, I recall first speaking to her backstage at the 2005 event after Reid appeared in one of the group "New Generation" parades following her Queensland finals win of the 2004 Mercedes-Benz Startup new talent competition. This time last year, Reid outshone every other designer in her group Ready-to-Wear show - with her brand name stretched across the back of the runway proscenium as if she owned the room.
In September I saw her at the London Fashion Week trade fair, with a book full of clippings and a rack full of clothes. Two months later I saw her at the Melbourne Cup, taking out a place in the pro-designer category of the Fashions on the Field competition.
One international retailer present tonight said the collection wasn't her cup of tea, but no matter - Reid already has 20 stockists in Australia, New Zealand, the US, UK, London, Greece, Denmark and Hong Kong. The Melbourne fashion chain, Cactus Jam, looks to be the next to join her burgeoning Australian stockists list.
"We've been following it for a few seasons and for us it's all about dropping a label into the store at the right time and this season would be the right time for us," said the owner of Cactus Jam, Fiona Petty. "I like the fact that it's clever, it's interesting and it's somebody who's actually designing clothes, as opposed to just translating what's happening everywhere else in the world."
After the show I walked to the back of the restaurant to congratulate Reid, and am directed to a small photoshoot that is taking place on the edge of the wharf.
Reid sits on a bollard, flanked by two models, with the sails of the Opera House lit dramatically in the distance behind the black-and-white tableau.
It's a full moon fashion moment all right.
We have a quick chat before I leave her to the photographers:
The collection was called Bird of Prey?
Gail Reid: I liked the idea of asking the question, who was the bird and who was the prey?
The models were the birds?
Well - were they? They could have been. It's all about the male and female gaze, and the spectator's versus the model's gaze.
Is it difficult juggling modelling and designing?
Well no because I do more designing than modelling.
I couldn't help thinking that all the models looked a lot like you.
Yes well it's kind of Mini Me. It's very introverted and very ...
Narcissistic?
It is very narcissistic! I'm happy to admit that. But you know what, it's my little empire and I can do whatever I want.
Original post and comments.
Given that it is currently 9.30pm and there is still no sign of the show, it's just as well that they have started handing around platters of Thai fish cakes or else I might be obliged to commence nibbling on my neoprene Mac cover sleeve. It's only because designer Gail Reid is so good that people are sticking around for so long. I later learnt that the name of the singer is Tom Jordan and that he is just 13. At first I seriously thought he was a girl. He's pretty damned good.
The audience is seated at a series of tables down either side of a wide "runway" space that leads from the street flank of the restaurant to the Harbour exit out back. The models emerge one by one and step up onto a line of small, white, translucent pedestals/stools directly in front of the tables. The pedestals light up from within as the models stand on them - with a spotlight positioned directly over each pedestal. With the rest of the room in darkness, it's pretty hard to see the clothes in any enormous detail, but it is a cute concept nonetheless.
The entire collection is in Reid's signature magpie palette of black and white: a series of terribly pretty, and mostly terribly short, puff-skirted, puff-sleeved cocktail dresses and ensembles in silk taffeta and sheer silk georgette, several versions of which boast either crisp man-style white shirts with exaggerated collars, or little aprons and bibs with plisse edges. There's a definite Fifi the French maid look to a number of these outfits. There are also some longer, more sharply-tailored dresses and one solitary pair of high-waisted, full-legged black trousers topped with a white cotton smock blouse.
In what has emerged as a signature hair look for this Sydney season - taking its cues from recent European shows such as Lanvin - all the models have their hair pulled severely upwards into tight chignons at the top of the head. They're also wearing quirky little head adornments such as silver cat ears and headbands festooned with crystals.
A number of the models appear to be Asian/Eurasian and this is somewhat unusual for Sydney. In spite of the number of Asians who actually reside in this country, their numbers do not appear to be well represented on this city's runways. Twenty five-year-old Reid, originally from Brisbane, is both Eurasian and a professional model herself. Suffice it to say that tonight's presentation looks a little like an army of glamorous Gail Reid clones.
This is Reid's solo runway debut at AFW and it has been interesting to follow her rapid development. On a tip from retailer Belinda Seper, I recall first speaking to her backstage at the 2005 event after Reid appeared in one of the group "New Generation" parades following her Queensland finals win of the 2004 Mercedes-Benz Startup new talent competition. This time last year, Reid outshone every other designer in her group Ready-to-Wear show - with her brand name stretched across the back of the runway proscenium as if she owned the room.
In September I saw her at the London Fashion Week trade fair, with a book full of clippings and a rack full of clothes. Two months later I saw her at the Melbourne Cup, taking out a place in the pro-designer category of the Fashions on the Field competition.
One international retailer present tonight said the collection wasn't her cup of tea, but no matter - Reid already has 20 stockists in Australia, New Zealand, the US, UK, London, Greece, Denmark and Hong Kong. The Melbourne fashion chain, Cactus Jam, looks to be the next to join her burgeoning Australian stockists list.
"We've been following it for a few seasons and for us it's all about dropping a label into the store at the right time and this season would be the right time for us," said the owner of Cactus Jam, Fiona Petty. "I like the fact that it's clever, it's interesting and it's somebody who's actually designing clothes, as opposed to just translating what's happening everywhere else in the world."
After the show I walked to the back of the restaurant to congratulate Reid, and am directed to a small photoshoot that is taking place on the edge of the wharf.
Reid sits on a bollard, flanked by two models, with the sails of the Opera House lit dramatically in the distance behind the black-and-white tableau.
It's a full moon fashion moment all right.
We have a quick chat before I leave her to the photographers:
The collection was called Bird of Prey?
Gail Reid: I liked the idea of asking the question, who was the bird and who was the prey?
The models were the birds?
Well - were they? They could have been. It's all about the male and female gaze, and the spectator's versus the model's gaze.
Is it difficult juggling modelling and designing?
Well no because I do more designing than modelling.
I couldn't help thinking that all the models looked a lot like you.
Yes well it's kind of Mini Me. It's very introverted and very ...
Narcissistic?
It is very narcissistic! I'm happy to admit that. But you know what, it's my little empire and I can do whatever I want.
Original post and comments.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Frock of ages: fashion's (apparently) never-ending dress code
Frocks rule. Had he been as passionate a fashion writer as he was a conservationist - and exhibitionist - Steve Irwin might have said that.
As evidenced by pretty much every collection on Sydney's runways this week, the dress continues to be one of, if not the, biggest contemporary fashion story. And while to the ears of the uninitiated, it might sound absurd to say that dresses are currently a major fashion statement - as if they ever went away as a sartorial option for women - fact is, their popularity has waxed and waned over the decades. For the past couple of years however, the dress has been creeping back into collections with a vengeance.
Most major retailers with whom I have spoken over the past three seasons have all echoed the same sentiment - that the dress continues to power ahead on their sales floors. There are dress-specialist labels, dress-dedicated departments now in some department stores and even, it seems, some dress-specialist stores.
Take the Austique boutique over in London. Austique is operated by expat Australian Lindy Lopes and specialises in Australian labels - with 100% of what retailers refer to as "sellthrough" on dress-specialist label Alice McCall, reports Lopes, which means that essentially all the McCall stock that Lopes buys basically walks out the door. Lopes told me that, apart from a few jeans, Austique has only been stocking dresses for the past two years.
I was sitting next to Lopes at last night's Stephanie Conley show. Extremely well-connected (engaged to Brit/Australian fashion photographer Ben Watts, Conley is the soon-to-be sister-in-law of Australian actor Naomi Watts) Conley also happens to do a great dress, a pretty daffodil yellow example of which was famously pictured on Lauren Bush at the US Open a year or so ago. Conley's fresh-as-a-daisy solo AFW runway debut was jam-packed with some of the prettiest dresses on offer so far this week: from sweet floral cotton sundresses to some knockout cocktail dresses in buttercup yellow silk cinched with wide, clear PVC belts.
Almost every collection this week has been groaning with dresses. From the ubiquitous, trapeze-line, waistless shift and sack dresses - some of them perilously short - to pert sundresses, pinafore dresses, a few resilient bubble dresses from last season, and also the far newer, masculine-nosed shirt-dress or shirtwaister, which has been omnipresent. A good case in point, Ginger & Smart's pintucked white tuxedo shirtdress this morning.
Tina Kalivas' spectacular, colour-blocked show yesterday, while at times a little reminiscent of London's Marios Schwab, featured some terrific dresses as well - notably one spectacular black ballerina dress with intricate cutout bodice. This afternoon Fleur Wood showed an ultra feminine collection of dresses, some of the prettiest festooned with delicate lace, with layers of nude-coloured tulle cascading from Empire bustlines.
"Dresses are rocketing" Wood told me straight after the show. "[In] wholesale orders and retail sales... our dresses sold an extra I think 400percent on the year before, dresses to skirts, last summer to this summer. Phenomenal".
"It's the biggest category right now" said Ruthie Miller, womenswear buyer for the three-unit Californian fashion chain American Rag which already carries 17 Australasian brands and by this afternoon was looking to add at least two more - Anna Thomas and Zambesi, both of which collections showed, you guessed it, great dresses.
Added Miller, "I saw the change for myself, as a buyer watching trends.... [that] women didn't realise how easy it was to put on a dress. They were always putting on jeans with a blouse and top, belts and this and that. But it was just so easy to get up in the morning and just put on that dress and look fabulous and not have to think about what shoes go with which shirt".
Noted Mark Werts, American Rag founder who travels to Australia twice a year with Miller, "For us it started in vintage clothing about three or four years ago, when every girl was wearing jeans. The more fashion-forward girls were wearing dresses right in the middle of the jeans boom".
Another expat Australian who is carving out an Australasian-nosed fashion retail niche is Elizabeth Charles, who operates one eponymous boutique in New York and a week ago opened her second in San Francisco.
"The dress is by far my biggest selling item - it's about 90percent of my inventory" Charles told Fashion Season. "Once the dress bubble ever bursts, I hope I'm ready. If it swings around to pants, I think you don't want to be stuck with a heap of frocks".
Original post and comments.
As evidenced by pretty much every collection on Sydney's runways this week, the dress continues to be one of, if not the, biggest contemporary fashion story. And while to the ears of the uninitiated, it might sound absurd to say that dresses are currently a major fashion statement - as if they ever went away as a sartorial option for women - fact is, their popularity has waxed and waned over the decades. For the past couple of years however, the dress has been creeping back into collections with a vengeance.
Most major retailers with whom I have spoken over the past three seasons have all echoed the same sentiment - that the dress continues to power ahead on their sales floors. There are dress-specialist labels, dress-dedicated departments now in some department stores and even, it seems, some dress-specialist stores.
Take the Austique boutique over in London. Austique is operated by expat Australian Lindy Lopes and specialises in Australian labels - with 100% of what retailers refer to as "sellthrough" on dress-specialist label Alice McCall, reports Lopes, which means that essentially all the McCall stock that Lopes buys basically walks out the door. Lopes told me that, apart from a few jeans, Austique has only been stocking dresses for the past two years.
I was sitting next to Lopes at last night's Stephanie Conley show. Extremely well-connected (engaged to Brit/Australian fashion photographer Ben Watts, Conley is the soon-to-be sister-in-law of Australian actor Naomi Watts) Conley also happens to do a great dress, a pretty daffodil yellow example of which was famously pictured on Lauren Bush at the US Open a year or so ago. Conley's fresh-as-a-daisy solo AFW runway debut was jam-packed with some of the prettiest dresses on offer so far this week: from sweet floral cotton sundresses to some knockout cocktail dresses in buttercup yellow silk cinched with wide, clear PVC belts.
Almost every collection this week has been groaning with dresses. From the ubiquitous, trapeze-line, waistless shift and sack dresses - some of them perilously short - to pert sundresses, pinafore dresses, a few resilient bubble dresses from last season, and also the far newer, masculine-nosed shirt-dress or shirtwaister, which has been omnipresent. A good case in point, Ginger & Smart's pintucked white tuxedo shirtdress this morning.
Tina Kalivas' spectacular, colour-blocked show yesterday, while at times a little reminiscent of London's Marios Schwab, featured some terrific dresses as well - notably one spectacular black ballerina dress with intricate cutout bodice. This afternoon Fleur Wood showed an ultra feminine collection of dresses, some of the prettiest festooned with delicate lace, with layers of nude-coloured tulle cascading from Empire bustlines.
"Dresses are rocketing" Wood told me straight after the show. "[In] wholesale orders and retail sales... our dresses sold an extra I think 400percent on the year before, dresses to skirts, last summer to this summer. Phenomenal".
"It's the biggest category right now" said Ruthie Miller, womenswear buyer for the three-unit Californian fashion chain American Rag which already carries 17 Australasian brands and by this afternoon was looking to add at least two more - Anna Thomas and Zambesi, both of which collections showed, you guessed it, great dresses.
Added Miller, "I saw the change for myself, as a buyer watching trends.... [that] women didn't realise how easy it was to put on a dress. They were always putting on jeans with a blouse and top, belts and this and that. But it was just so easy to get up in the morning and just put on that dress and look fabulous and not have to think about what shoes go with which shirt".
Noted Mark Werts, American Rag founder who travels to Australia twice a year with Miller, "For us it started in vintage clothing about three or four years ago, when every girl was wearing jeans. The more fashion-forward girls were wearing dresses right in the middle of the jeans boom".
Another expat Australian who is carving out an Australasian-nosed fashion retail niche is Elizabeth Charles, who operates one eponymous boutique in New York and a week ago opened her second in San Francisco.
"The dress is by far my biggest selling item - it's about 90percent of my inventory" Charles told Fashion Season. "Once the dress bubble ever bursts, I hope I'm ready. If it swings around to pants, I think you don't want to be stuck with a heap of frocks".
Original post and comments.
A design career punctuated by photo ops: Where to now for Ksubi?
I've just returned from the Ksubi press conference. As per usual it was one great big photo op for Ksubi co-founders Dan Single and George Gorrow: a meet-and-greet with their supposed bestie, international runway walker Erin Wasson.
As already reported, Wasson was recently sent a text message by the Ksubi lads to ask if she'd like to come on down to grace their show tomorrow. She jumped at the opportunity, Wasson told today's mini media scrum.
"So are you doing it for free?" asked someone from the media pack.
"Yeah" said Wasson, a little awkwardly.
For the record, Wasson happens to be an IMG model, and according to an IMG spokesperson, she is contracted and is being paid. As was Lily Cole, last year's international runway ringin at the event. IMG of course owns Australian Fashion Week and it has an interest in promoting its own talent. That's not to say that Wasson doesn't like and wear Ksubi's jeans or that she doesn't know and like Single and Gorrow. But it's worth pointing out this connection, just to keep some perspective.
After the "conference", during which not a great deal was said other than organiser Simon Lock recounting some of Ksubi's antics at AFW's past and some of their upcoming projects (a store in Tokyo, a book of photographs due out tomorrow) - and certainly nothing about yesterday's announcement of the sale of a chunk of Ksubi equity to Quiksilver Europe founder Harry Hodge - Gorrow, Single and Wasson squeezed in together for pics.
This is what Ksubi revels in: photo ops, back pats and prat fall pranks. Their fashion career, since they first launched themselves into publicity orbit in 2001, by sending 169 rats down the AFW runway, has been punctuated by one photo op after another. For the most part I do take my hat off to them: for the ability to keep on pulling publicity rabbits out of hats. I'm all for pushing the corners of the envelope and the label formerly known as Tsubi has certainly gone there many times.
From the models overboard show of 2003 (even Simon Lock at the time admitted he was nervous about the public liability issues of models coming to grief in Sydney Harbour after diving off the Tsubi boat) to the "fabulous nobodies" show of May 2005, you usually never know just what you're in for with a Tsubi show. Some ideas have been clever. Some have been offensive - a case in point, the "porno" calendar launch, for which models (including Michelle Leslie) posed in some very unflattering poses alongside cars and motorbikes. One line of accompanying 'graffiti' was so offensive that I wrote it down for posterity: "It is the code of the semen to f**** a golden prostitute".
And one idea apparently wasn't theirs at all: the famous "two minute" show of November 2004 - when, after making the audience wait for over an hour, models were sent out on a victory lap of the runway, clapping, as if it was the end of the show. London-based Swedish designer Ann-Sofie Back has, I am assured, been doing this very stunt since she first launched.
Ksubi has lapped up all the attention and publicity - and rucked up a A$20million sales turnover in the process, the greatest slice of which has of course come from their killer jeans. Perhaps it's no surprise to learn that they don't like bad publicity. I mean who does in fashion? This business runs on PR and publicists and designers love fashion writers who don't ask the hard questions best. Sydney is not the only town where fashion journos get banned and verbally attacked - Cathy Horyn of The New York Times is currently under a ban from several separate design houses, following negative reviews, including Dolce e Gabbana and Carolina Herrera. Ksubi is the only show this week that I haven't been invited to and there was the incident in New York last September where loudmouth New York publicist Kelly Cutrone - Ksubi's US PR rep - banned me from all her clients' shows forthwith.
I was interested to finally see the dark side of Dan Single on Saturday night at the Willow presentation. I'd heard a lot about it. Totally unprovoked - except save for a series of stories that I have written about the Tsubi/Tsubo trademark dispute which obliged Tsubi to change its name to Ksubi, and the Cutrone incident - Single approached me while I was talking to several other people and made a couple of nasty comments in a loud voice.
When I later attempted to clear the air, by asking just what Single's problem was, he told me - once again in full earshot of a number of people - that after I had made enquiries to some of Ksubi's suppliers approximately 18 months ago, some of the companies had been spooked and it wound up costing Ksubi a great deal of money. He didn't elaborate any further.
At the end of the Tsubi trademark story that I wrote this time last year, I alluded to a major cash crunch that Tsubi appeared to be having in late 2005. That's certainly when I first got wind of it - due solely to the fact that the ragtrade, from Sydney to Auckland, was abuzz with talk about the company.
Who knows what's really going on in Ksubi's world? Many fashion companies experience cashflow problems - and of course some unfortunately also go under. But while Single and Gorrow may have laughed off suggestions from branding specialists this time last year that the trademark changeover cost could potentially wind up in the seven figures, it's probably a safe bet to say that irrespective of the cost, it's an additional expense that they probably did not need at the time.
A Tsubo director told me that his company had been pursuing Tsubi for several years but claimed that Single and Gorrow just kept fobbing off the calls and emails. In the end, Single and Gorrow didn't have much choice - the case almost went to court, which could have cost the duo more money still. Had they nipped the matter in the bud, at a time when most people had never heard of Tsubi, presumably the entire exercise would not have been quite so expensive.
Good luck to Single and Gorrow. It will be interesting to see how this new partnership pans out and just where the Ksubi brand is heading. Hopefully it's onwards and upwards. I don't enjoy having to investigate/report that fashion companies may be experiencing financial problems however the ragtrade is a tough industry and at the end of the day, it's my job.
One thing's for sure however. As a number of fashion creatives have discovered after selling brand equity to investors - there's no such thing as a free lunch.
Original post and comments.
As already reported, Wasson was recently sent a text message by the Ksubi lads to ask if she'd like to come on down to grace their show tomorrow. She jumped at the opportunity, Wasson told today's mini media scrum.
"So are you doing it for free?" asked someone from the media pack.
"Yeah" said Wasson, a little awkwardly.
For the record, Wasson happens to be an IMG model, and according to an IMG spokesperson, she is contracted and is being paid. As was Lily Cole, last year's international runway ringin at the event. IMG of course owns Australian Fashion Week and it has an interest in promoting its own talent. That's not to say that Wasson doesn't like and wear Ksubi's jeans or that she doesn't know and like Single and Gorrow. But it's worth pointing out this connection, just to keep some perspective.
After the "conference", during which not a great deal was said other than organiser Simon Lock recounting some of Ksubi's antics at AFW's past and some of their upcoming projects (a store in Tokyo, a book of photographs due out tomorrow) - and certainly nothing about yesterday's announcement of the sale of a chunk of Ksubi equity to Quiksilver Europe founder Harry Hodge - Gorrow, Single and Wasson squeezed in together for pics.
This is what Ksubi revels in: photo ops, back pats and prat fall pranks. Their fashion career, since they first launched themselves into publicity orbit in 2001, by sending 169 rats down the AFW runway, has been punctuated by one photo op after another. For the most part I do take my hat off to them: for the ability to keep on pulling publicity rabbits out of hats. I'm all for pushing the corners of the envelope and the label formerly known as Tsubi has certainly gone there many times.
From the models overboard show of 2003 (even Simon Lock at the time admitted he was nervous about the public liability issues of models coming to grief in Sydney Harbour after diving off the Tsubi boat) to the "fabulous nobodies" show of May 2005, you usually never know just what you're in for with a Tsubi show. Some ideas have been clever. Some have been offensive - a case in point, the "porno" calendar launch, for which models (including Michelle Leslie) posed in some very unflattering poses alongside cars and motorbikes. One line of accompanying 'graffiti' was so offensive that I wrote it down for posterity: "It is the code of the semen to f**** a golden prostitute".
And one idea apparently wasn't theirs at all: the famous "two minute" show of November 2004 - when, after making the audience wait for over an hour, models were sent out on a victory lap of the runway, clapping, as if it was the end of the show. London-based Swedish designer Ann-Sofie Back has, I am assured, been doing this very stunt since she first launched.
Ksubi has lapped up all the attention and publicity - and rucked up a A$20million sales turnover in the process, the greatest slice of which has of course come from their killer jeans. Perhaps it's no surprise to learn that they don't like bad publicity. I mean who does in fashion? This business runs on PR and publicists and designers love fashion writers who don't ask the hard questions best. Sydney is not the only town where fashion journos get banned and verbally attacked - Cathy Horyn of The New York Times is currently under a ban from several separate design houses, following negative reviews, including Dolce e Gabbana and Carolina Herrera. Ksubi is the only show this week that I haven't been invited to and there was the incident in New York last September where loudmouth New York publicist Kelly Cutrone - Ksubi's US PR rep - banned me from all her clients' shows forthwith.
I was interested to finally see the dark side of Dan Single on Saturday night at the Willow presentation. I'd heard a lot about it. Totally unprovoked - except save for a series of stories that I have written about the Tsubi/Tsubo trademark dispute which obliged Tsubi to change its name to Ksubi, and the Cutrone incident - Single approached me while I was talking to several other people and made a couple of nasty comments in a loud voice.
When I later attempted to clear the air, by asking just what Single's problem was, he told me - once again in full earshot of a number of people - that after I had made enquiries to some of Ksubi's suppliers approximately 18 months ago, some of the companies had been spooked and it wound up costing Ksubi a great deal of money. He didn't elaborate any further.
At the end of the Tsubi trademark story that I wrote this time last year, I alluded to a major cash crunch that Tsubi appeared to be having in late 2005. That's certainly when I first got wind of it - due solely to the fact that the ragtrade, from Sydney to Auckland, was abuzz with talk about the company.
Who knows what's really going on in Ksubi's world? Many fashion companies experience cashflow problems - and of course some unfortunately also go under. But while Single and Gorrow may have laughed off suggestions from branding specialists this time last year that the trademark changeover cost could potentially wind up in the seven figures, it's probably a safe bet to say that irrespective of the cost, it's an additional expense that they probably did not need at the time.
A Tsubo director told me that his company had been pursuing Tsubi for several years but claimed that Single and Gorrow just kept fobbing off the calls and emails. In the end, Single and Gorrow didn't have much choice - the case almost went to court, which could have cost the duo more money still. Had they nipped the matter in the bud, at a time when most people had never heard of Tsubi, presumably the entire exercise would not have been quite so expensive.
Good luck to Single and Gorrow. It will be interesting to see how this new partnership pans out and just where the Ksubi brand is heading. Hopefully it's onwards and upwards. I don't enjoy having to investigate/report that fashion companies may be experiencing financial problems however the ragtrade is a tough industry and at the end of the day, it's my job.
One thing's for sure however. As a number of fashion creatives have discovered after selling brand equity to investors - there's no such thing as a free lunch.
Original post and comments.
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Veni Vidi Varga: Brunsdon's pinup girls and Vogue's advertiser-friendly TV
Sitting here waiting for the Jayson Brunsdon show to start. It's the same upstairs "OPT" venue as the Lisa Ho, Anna Thomas and Melanie Cutfield shows yesterday - the one that looks a lot like The Salon tent at Bryant Park in New York. Given that that's precisely the tent in which Brunsdon showed in New York in February, this time it really, really feels like deja vu.
Strangely enough however, given the big fish in a small pond factor, I'd say Brunsdon's New York show was fuller than this. There are a few people standing around here due to the seats filling up - but in February, they were standing shoulder-to-shoulder in lines around the walls.
The big difference between the two shows is that this one is happening in the throes of a very warm Sydney autumn, while the other was staged during a bitterly cold New York winter - and gripped by a dreadful gastric flu, I recall sitting through Brunsdon's show wishing that they had not given me a front row seat, because frankly I felt like I was going to have to run out the door at any moment.
I could just envisage The Daily's headline the following day:"Chunder from Downunder!" or, perish the thought, the entry on Kelly Cutrone's www.fashionweekdaily.com blog. So far noone has been able to answer the following question: has anyone, in the history of fashion presentations, ever thrown up on a runway during a show? On that frigid New York evening, I prayed that the first recorded sighting was not going to be me.
Anyhow, to my left, about three seats up, is Dita Von Teese. Two seats to my right, expat Australian model - and newly-minted Victoria's Secret "Angel" - Miranda Kerr. Photographers on the other side of the runway keep training their lenses on both. Sandwiched in between them, as I am, it's a somewhat disconcerting feeling. This is what celebs live for of course - the photo op. Only to later bitterly complain when they can't switch that media interest off at inconvenient times.
Jbrundson1B.jpg
As for the collection, I have to hand it to Brunsdon - as I do also to Josh Goot, Alice McCall and anyone else who is currently juggling runway commitments in two hemispheres. Brunsdon's first show in New York was just three months ago. And yet here he is again with a complete - but very tightly-edited - resort range.
No, Brunsdon is not reinventing the design wheel but he has managed in a very short space of time (three years) to carve a smart niche for himself in the Australian womens classic eveningwear category. Yes his pencil-thin, beaded, tailored cocktail dresses and boleros with built-in corsets owe as much to Roland Mouret as they do to his stated collection inspiration - the 40s Varga Girl - but there were a couple of knockout dresses, both of them in burnt orange silk. Perhaps I have been bamboozled by Brunsdon's New York buzz factor, but I can't help seeing this collection snapped up by a few Manhattan princesses.
Walking backstage afterwards I do a double-take when I spot a woman with dead straight, platinum-blonde hair, wearing a pink smock dress, interviewing Brunsdon in front of a television camera. I can't help thinking that the woman looks alarmingly like David Jones' group general manager for apparel, footwear, accessories and cosmetics, Colette Garnsey.
The woman turns towards me and voila, it is indeed Garnsey - doing a few quick backstage ivs, I am informed by a David Jones spokeswoman, for a video story for Vogue Australia's online division, vogue.com.au. Apparently Garnsey's debut vogue.com.au iv was at last night's Alex Perry show.
Presumably, Garnsey won't be doing any interviews with non-DJs designers. But the question remains, should she be doing any interviews at all? I wonder to myself whether the end piece will be clearly advertised as a David Jones advertisement, whether it will masquerade as some sort of daft industry type-on-industry type interview - or whether perhaps there is any delineation between anything these days at Vogue. It should be noted that the magazine found itself on Media Watch on two occasions recently.
"So do we [the media] get our turn to play buyers now?" I joke, in Garnsey's direction.
"No!" snaps Garnsey.
Original post and comments.
Strangely enough however, given the big fish in a small pond factor, I'd say Brunsdon's New York show was fuller than this. There are a few people standing around here due to the seats filling up - but in February, they were standing shoulder-to-shoulder in lines around the walls.
The big difference between the two shows is that this one is happening in the throes of a very warm Sydney autumn, while the other was staged during a bitterly cold New York winter - and gripped by a dreadful gastric flu, I recall sitting through Brunsdon's show wishing that they had not given me a front row seat, because frankly I felt like I was going to have to run out the door at any moment.
I could just envisage The Daily's headline the following day:"Chunder from Downunder!" or, perish the thought, the entry on Kelly Cutrone's www.fashionweekdaily.com blog. So far noone has been able to answer the following question: has anyone, in the history of fashion presentations, ever thrown up on a runway during a show? On that frigid New York evening, I prayed that the first recorded sighting was not going to be me.
Anyhow, to my left, about three seats up, is Dita Von Teese. Two seats to my right, expat Australian model - and newly-minted Victoria's Secret "Angel" - Miranda Kerr. Photographers on the other side of the runway keep training their lenses on both. Sandwiched in between them, as I am, it's a somewhat disconcerting feeling. This is what celebs live for of course - the photo op. Only to later bitterly complain when they can't switch that media interest off at inconvenient times.
Jbrundson1B.jpg
As for the collection, I have to hand it to Brunsdon - as I do also to Josh Goot, Alice McCall and anyone else who is currently juggling runway commitments in two hemispheres. Brunsdon's first show in New York was just three months ago. And yet here he is again with a complete - but very tightly-edited - resort range.
No, Brunsdon is not reinventing the design wheel but he has managed in a very short space of time (three years) to carve a smart niche for himself in the Australian womens classic eveningwear category. Yes his pencil-thin, beaded, tailored cocktail dresses and boleros with built-in corsets owe as much to Roland Mouret as they do to his stated collection inspiration - the 40s Varga Girl - but there were a couple of knockout dresses, both of them in burnt orange silk. Perhaps I have been bamboozled by Brunsdon's New York buzz factor, but I can't help seeing this collection snapped up by a few Manhattan princesses.
Walking backstage afterwards I do a double-take when I spot a woman with dead straight, platinum-blonde hair, wearing a pink smock dress, interviewing Brunsdon in front of a television camera. I can't help thinking that the woman looks alarmingly like David Jones' group general manager for apparel, footwear, accessories and cosmetics, Colette Garnsey.
The woman turns towards me and voila, it is indeed Garnsey - doing a few quick backstage ivs, I am informed by a David Jones spokeswoman, for a video story for Vogue Australia's online division, vogue.com.au. Apparently Garnsey's debut vogue.com.au iv was at last night's Alex Perry show.
Presumably, Garnsey won't be doing any interviews with non-DJs designers. But the question remains, should she be doing any interviews at all? I wonder to myself whether the end piece will be clearly advertised as a David Jones advertisement, whether it will masquerade as some sort of daft industry type-on-industry type interview - or whether perhaps there is any delineation between anything these days at Vogue. It should be noted that the magazine found itself on Media Watch on two occasions recently.
"So do we [the media] get our turn to play buyers now?" I joke, in Garnsey's direction.
"No!" snaps Garnsey.
Original post and comments.
That's not a miniskirt, THIS is a miniskirt: Alex Perry courts danger and some Central Coast comparisons
What an utter hoot the Alex Perry show was last night. After such a flat morning, with some momentum starting to build after a couple of strong shows - notably Anna Thomas and the very confident debut of Melanie Cutfield - in walking across to Perry's Cargo Hall venue it really did feel like a big, buzzy show.
A long queue of people stood waiting in line to get in, a mini red carpet 'arrivals' section had been cordoned off to one side in order to capture the bevy of Australian celebrities who had turned up for the show. You name them, they were there: Tara Moss, Michelle Leslie, Sophie Faulkiner, Jodhi Meares, I even spotted Ros and Gretel Packer in the front row. They joined the usual horde of Perry's big-haired clients and fans - every last one of the latter, as per usual, guilty-as-sin of major Crimes Against Bronzer.
Inside there was a feeling of minor pandemonium - which was only exacerbated for me by the shrieks of laughter from New York retail ringin, Henri Bendel VP Fashion Director Ann Watson, as she opened up her goodie bag to find a complimentary ironing board cover, courtesy of Perry's sponsor Sunbeam.
"I've never been at a fashion show, where they've given an ironic board cover!" squealed Watson. "I can't wait to take it home and show everybody. In New York City, I don't know anyone who irons their clothes. I think it's because we live in such a service culture - everybody sends out. Next I'm going to get a can of starch to go with it".
The show started, and a series of mostly stick-thin models - three from the tv show, Australia's Next Top Model, on which Perry is of course a judge - charged out to the loud strains of heavily-remixed disco.
There were plenty of Perry's signature floor-length evening dresses and ensembles - the prettiest those with multicoloured skirts over corset tops, cinched by large belts. However the most striking feature of the Swarovski crystal-encrusted collection - many items from which featured satin versions of the moment's fashionable sporty racerback - was the length of the cocktail dresses. Or rather, lack of it. One coral garment in particularly clearly showed the model's buttock cheeks.
"That's a Britney Spears there" noted Watson.
"He definitely had the best models of the day" she added later, just as the models were doing their victory lap at the end of the show. "Why didn't the other designers have these girls?"
Here's Perry's post-show answer - in a quick backstage iv I did with him post-show:
Alex Perry: [stylist] Trevor Stones and I go through this laborious process of casting. It's really important, especially with what I do. If I put girls who are slightly elegant in my show, it gives it a different slant. And this season especially.
So what, you don't want them to be elegant, but brassy?
Well no, but if they're too elegant... They need to be a bit younger, king of racehorse lean, fresher-ooking girls. Because when you put them in something that's so heavily-jewelled, if I put it on somebody who looks a bit more sophisticated, it looks like I'm trying to create 50s Dior and that time is gone so it needs to be like a modern version of that and you do it on beautiful young girls. Casting is really important.
What was the brief you gave them? They were almost like automatons.
Just pummel out there and pummel back. No sauntering and swaying. Get out there as soon as you can and get back as fast as you can.
What was it like working with the ANTM girls?
You know what - they were fantastic. When we did the dress rehearsal, I didn't recognise two of them. I don't know that you would have guessed which ones they were in the show. Everyone would know Alice [Burdeau - the particularly skinny teenager whose weight has been the subject of recent controversy] because she's like a Nicole Kidman-esque kind of girl. But they fitted in seamlessly with the rest of the girls.
It was very short - particularly that coral number.
I took the reference from old 50s swimsuits. You know, those ones that have that panel in the front.
A Terrigal Skirt?
[Laughs] I wanted them to be dangerous. Everybody at some point has done short skirts since the beginning of fashion. And I thought, 'Alright, I'll show you how how to do a short skirt'. I've never touched that territory and I thought, 'I'm going to do it today, I'll jewel it and cut it to almost a dangerous level'.
Do you think you are going to actually sell the shortest versions?
I might have to lengthen them slightly. But those dresses, they could be made in any length and they're still beautiful - gorgeous cocktail dresses. And you know what? Some cheeky little girl is going to wear it like that. So long as she's got the legs. Let's hope it's not a bad leg offender.
Or a Crime Against Bronzer. There were more than a few of those here I have to say.
There could have been. If I had more time, I would have been too. They're tanned. They're healthy tans. They travel a lot. We're here pasty in the middle of winter and they've come back from somewhere. My clients - they can afford to go whenever they want.
Outside the venue, the lack of length of Perry's skirts was a subject of some debate - notably whether The Terrigal Skirt was in fact the appropriate term.
"Yes there's the Terrigal Skirt, which is just south of The Entrance" noted David Jones head buyer David Bush.
He added, "Then there's the Toukley Skirt - where you can actually see The Entrance".
Original post and comments.
A long queue of people stood waiting in line to get in, a mini red carpet 'arrivals' section had been cordoned off to one side in order to capture the bevy of Australian celebrities who had turned up for the show. You name them, they were there: Tara Moss, Michelle Leslie, Sophie Faulkiner, Jodhi Meares, I even spotted Ros and Gretel Packer in the front row. They joined the usual horde of Perry's big-haired clients and fans - every last one of the latter, as per usual, guilty-as-sin of major Crimes Against Bronzer.
Inside there was a feeling of minor pandemonium - which was only exacerbated for me by the shrieks of laughter from New York retail ringin, Henri Bendel VP Fashion Director Ann Watson, as she opened up her goodie bag to find a complimentary ironing board cover, courtesy of Perry's sponsor Sunbeam.
"I've never been at a fashion show, where they've given an ironic board cover!" squealed Watson. "I can't wait to take it home and show everybody. In New York City, I don't know anyone who irons their clothes. I think it's because we live in such a service culture - everybody sends out. Next I'm going to get a can of starch to go with it".
The show started, and a series of mostly stick-thin models - three from the tv show, Australia's Next Top Model, on which Perry is of course a judge - charged out to the loud strains of heavily-remixed disco.
There were plenty of Perry's signature floor-length evening dresses and ensembles - the prettiest those with multicoloured skirts over corset tops, cinched by large belts. However the most striking feature of the Swarovski crystal-encrusted collection - many items from which featured satin versions of the moment's fashionable sporty racerback - was the length of the cocktail dresses. Or rather, lack of it. One coral garment in particularly clearly showed the model's buttock cheeks.
"That's a Britney Spears there" noted Watson.
"He definitely had the best models of the day" she added later, just as the models were doing their victory lap at the end of the show. "Why didn't the other designers have these girls?"
Here's Perry's post-show answer - in a quick backstage iv I did with him post-show:
Alex Perry: [stylist] Trevor Stones and I go through this laborious process of casting. It's really important, especially with what I do. If I put girls who are slightly elegant in my show, it gives it a different slant. And this season especially.
So what, you don't want them to be elegant, but brassy?
Well no, but if they're too elegant... They need to be a bit younger, king of racehorse lean, fresher-ooking girls. Because when you put them in something that's so heavily-jewelled, if I put it on somebody who looks a bit more sophisticated, it looks like I'm trying to create 50s Dior and that time is gone so it needs to be like a modern version of that and you do it on beautiful young girls. Casting is really important.
What was the brief you gave them? They were almost like automatons.
Just pummel out there and pummel back. No sauntering and swaying. Get out there as soon as you can and get back as fast as you can.
What was it like working with the ANTM girls?
You know what - they were fantastic. When we did the dress rehearsal, I didn't recognise two of them. I don't know that you would have guessed which ones they were in the show. Everyone would know Alice [Burdeau - the particularly skinny teenager whose weight has been the subject of recent controversy] because she's like a Nicole Kidman-esque kind of girl. But they fitted in seamlessly with the rest of the girls.
It was very short - particularly that coral number.
I took the reference from old 50s swimsuits. You know, those ones that have that panel in the front.
A Terrigal Skirt?
[Laughs] I wanted them to be dangerous. Everybody at some point has done short skirts since the beginning of fashion. And I thought, 'Alright, I'll show you how how to do a short skirt'. I've never touched that territory and I thought, 'I'm going to do it today, I'll jewel it and cut it to almost a dangerous level'.
Do you think you are going to actually sell the shortest versions?
I might have to lengthen them slightly. But those dresses, they could be made in any length and they're still beautiful - gorgeous cocktail dresses. And you know what? Some cheeky little girl is going to wear it like that. So long as she's got the legs. Let's hope it's not a bad leg offender.
Or a Crime Against Bronzer. There were more than a few of those here I have to say.
There could have been. If I had more time, I would have been too. They're tanned. They're healthy tans. They travel a lot. We're here pasty in the middle of winter and they've come back from somewhere. My clients - they can afford to go whenever they want.
Outside the venue, the lack of length of Perry's skirts was a subject of some debate - notably whether The Terrigal Skirt was in fact the appropriate term.
"Yes there's the Terrigal Skirt, which is just south of The Entrance" noted David Jones head buyer David Bush.
He added, "Then there's the Toukley Skirt - where you can actually see The Entrance".
Original post and comments.
Many Rivers to cross: Fergie's fashion manifesto for the red carpet neophyte
Dita Von Teese wasn't the only international in town yesterday with nervous management. The publicist of Black Eyed Peas frontwoman Fergie was very closely vetting his client last night, while she was sequestered in a little velvet rope-enclosed section next to the stage where Von Teese was due to perform. After unsuccessfully attempting to sidle up to Fergie, I was obliged to politely ask the publicist could I throw a few fashion questions her way. I was wound up after three, so here they are for what they're worth.
Wearing a black and white Sass & Bide bubble dress, Fergie graciously chatted to Fashion Season about her personal fashion choices and the challenges inherent in navigating the red carpet.
Fingers crossed she pops in to a couple of shows later this week. According to her manager, there's a possibility that Fergie might try to squeeze at least one into her schedule, with Alice McCall a strong contender at this stage.
So what is your personal fashion philosophy?
Fergie: Be aware of what's current and what's coming but don't be afraid to make it your own.
And when you are making your own red carpet choices, is there a particular signature style that you tend to go for?
Well I always wear something that represents me, but if I'm doing something that's maybe a bit prim and proper like a.... [hard to hear with all the background noise]. There's always that one piece that, it's something that resembles you and only you. And that's what I try to do. And also, if it's too perfect I'll try to mess it up.
And what about the scrutiny of the media when it comes to celebrities and the red carpet? The potential for a massive slagoff etc... Do you think a lot of celebrities take that into serious consideration - do they worry about it?
Yeah I do but at the same point, sometimes I'll go out of the house and look at myself and know that it's an easy targeted outfit to say something about. But sometimes the comedians [presumably such television commentators as red carpet harpies Joan and Melissa Rivers] are just looking for a quick one-liner. But it's not the comedians who are setting fashion trends. They're usually the worst-dressed.
Original post and comments.
Wearing a black and white Sass & Bide bubble dress, Fergie graciously chatted to Fashion Season about her personal fashion choices and the challenges inherent in navigating the red carpet.
Fingers crossed she pops in to a couple of shows later this week. According to her manager, there's a possibility that Fergie might try to squeeze at least one into her schedule, with Alice McCall a strong contender at this stage.
So what is your personal fashion philosophy?
Fergie: Be aware of what's current and what's coming but don't be afraid to make it your own.
And when you are making your own red carpet choices, is there a particular signature style that you tend to go for?
Well I always wear something that represents me, but if I'm doing something that's maybe a bit prim and proper like a.... [hard to hear with all the background noise]. There's always that one piece that, it's something that resembles you and only you. And that's what I try to do. And also, if it's too perfect I'll try to mess it up.
And what about the scrutiny of the media when it comes to celebrities and the red carpet? The potential for a massive slagoff etc... Do you think a lot of celebrities take that into serious consideration - do they worry about it?
Yeah I do but at the same point, sometimes I'll go out of the house and look at myself and know that it's an easy targeted outfit to say something about. But sometimes the comedians [presumably such television commentators as red carpet harpies Joan and Melissa Rivers] are just looking for a quick one-liner. But it's not the comedians who are setting fashion trends. They're usually the worst-dressed.
Original post and comments.
The Dita factor and Kirrily's urban sport moment
Hurtling in a cab en route to the first show of Fashion Week day two - Kirrily Johnston, down once again at Bondi Icebergs. It's another beautiful day for a fashion meet. Many of us won't be quite as fresh-faced this morning as the last however due to the Dita Von Teese performance last night.
It was well past 11pm when the show finally wrapped and for those of us who then had to produce material to go to air, that wasn't the end of it. I was liaising with my producer until the wee hours this morning, checking that DVT's management had given their 'OK' to the footage for our video packages today.
Von Teese's management obliged all media outlets recording the performance to provide not just the performance footage for approval, but in fact the edited, ie ready-to-air stories - stitching everybody up with a signed contract before they could get through the door.
And look I thoroughly appreciate that DVT has an image to protect, and that some might well be keen to take the images of her writhing on a giant bucking bronco of a lipstick out of context, but I did have to laugh when I spotted what appeared to be dozens of mobile phones whipped out by punters the minute DVT hit the stage to record their own take-home versions of proceedings for posterity. Or YouTube, take your pick (on which currently appears a somewhat raunchier version of last night's show). If you can't stop Saddam Hussein's execution leaking onto the internet, what hope has poor Dita Von Teese of protecting her dignity for heaven's sake?
Now in another cab hurtling back to the OPT for the next shows. Once again Icebergs provided a glorious backdrop to Johnston's jolts of spring/summer colour.
In the case of this season's very sportif collection, the jolts were flashes of canary and saffron yellow and notably, a vibrant Pine Lime Splice green. I liked this collection, particularly the saffron yellow knit and grey marle micro singlet dresses with 'tough chic' exposed zipper and grommet embellishments, as well as Johnston's odes to the floor-length patio dress style, a nice contrast to all the uber minis we saw yesterday.
I liked the lime dress series best of all - all looking like they could have been made out of parka nylon, but which in fact were fashioned from various treatments of silk, from featherlight silk cotton to a glossy, viscose twill-look version. They were bright, breezy and effortlessly chic. But I couldn't help noting what I thought were some far too literal references to Alber Elbaz's just-shown AW0708 collection for Lanvin, the leitmotiv of which collection was a series of massive 'power' sleeves on loose shift shapes. Unlike some others working in the Australian market, Johnston has her own quite distinct aesthetic and, staying 'on trend' aside, I think she should follow her instincts a little more closely next time.
Original post and comments.
It was well past 11pm when the show finally wrapped and for those of us who then had to produce material to go to air, that wasn't the end of it. I was liaising with my producer until the wee hours this morning, checking that DVT's management had given their 'OK' to the footage for our video packages today.
Von Teese's management obliged all media outlets recording the performance to provide not just the performance footage for approval, but in fact the edited, ie ready-to-air stories - stitching everybody up with a signed contract before they could get through the door.
And look I thoroughly appreciate that DVT has an image to protect, and that some might well be keen to take the images of her writhing on a giant bucking bronco of a lipstick out of context, but I did have to laugh when I spotted what appeared to be dozens of mobile phones whipped out by punters the minute DVT hit the stage to record their own take-home versions of proceedings for posterity. Or YouTube, take your pick (on which currently appears a somewhat raunchier version of last night's show). If you can't stop Saddam Hussein's execution leaking onto the internet, what hope has poor Dita Von Teese of protecting her dignity for heaven's sake?
Now in another cab hurtling back to the OPT for the next shows. Once again Icebergs provided a glorious backdrop to Johnston's jolts of spring/summer colour.
In the case of this season's very sportif collection, the jolts were flashes of canary and saffron yellow and notably, a vibrant Pine Lime Splice green. I liked this collection, particularly the saffron yellow knit and grey marle micro singlet dresses with 'tough chic' exposed zipper and grommet embellishments, as well as Johnston's odes to the floor-length patio dress style, a nice contrast to all the uber minis we saw yesterday.
I liked the lime dress series best of all - all looking like they could have been made out of parka nylon, but which in fact were fashioned from various treatments of silk, from featherlight silk cotton to a glossy, viscose twill-look version. They were bright, breezy and effortlessly chic. But I couldn't help noting what I thought were some far too literal references to Alber Elbaz's just-shown AW0708 collection for Lanvin, the leitmotiv of which collection was a series of massive 'power' sleeves on loose shift shapes. Unlike some others working in the Australian market, Johnston has her own quite distinct aesthetic and, staying 'on trend' aside, I think she should follow her instincts a little more closely next time.
Original post and comments.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Thomas the swank engine: Anna T administers a bit of CPR to AFW
After an extremely flat morning, which was punctuated by a couple of minor jolts of colour in the shows of Silence is Golden and New Zealand's Cybele, Anna Thomas gave Australian Fashion Week some much-needed CPR.
And look it wasn't the endless suite of trapeze-line shift and sack dresses that bored the pants off most people - this silhouette has already infiltrated the Australian fashion market, just as it hits the northern hemisphere summer, so we expected to see a lot more of it this week.
It was a combination of poor-man takes of big international names, drab fabric, drab workmanship, dull, dull, dull colours. And some really bad shoes. I found myself asking people, "Does this seem really flat to you?". Which question tended to be greeted with a deadpan expression.
Then came Anna Thomas. And I started feeling like I was back at an international runway event - New York Fashion Week to be precise, with AFW's new "OPT" upstairs venue a dead ringer for the medium venue there that was called last season, from memory, The Salon. Not that the same venue felt like it during the earlier Lisa Ho show.
Slick and commercial yet very fresh, Thomas' collection featured a suite of sweet, gathered peasant skirts in graphic black and white polka dots, short shorts - or as the Americans like to call them, "panties" - boxy blazers and one striking pewter sack dress with a voluminous back.
The dresses were particularly strong, notably Thomas' take on what is emerging as another Australian SS0708 season requisite - the shirt-dress - as well as some utterly charming pinafore and shift dresses such as the banded lime green/black/grey sleeveless shift dress and a softly gathered pewter sundress with black contrast bodice and belt.
The collection had grace, polish and a kind of Roman Holiday ease. Ex-Country Road and also Max Mara, Thomas launched her label in 2002 and apart from taking part in the most recent 'transseasonal' AFW shows in Melbourne in September year, this was her first show at the event's biggest showcase in Sydney.
Let's hope it's not her last.
We had a (really) quick chat after the show:
You launched your label in 2002, why has it taken so long to show in Sydney?
Anna Thomas: I guess we've just been really finding our feet and we didn't want to present anything that wasn't really world-class and that we wouldn't want to put on a catwalk in Europe or in New York. I haven't felt confident enough to do it until this point. I was really happy with the collection and the direction that we took for the show, we tried to make a little bit of a departure from the typical thing that people think about an Anna Thomas collection. Everything just felt right this season.
Original post and comments.
And look it wasn't the endless suite of trapeze-line shift and sack dresses that bored the pants off most people - this silhouette has already infiltrated the Australian fashion market, just as it hits the northern hemisphere summer, so we expected to see a lot more of it this week.
It was a combination of poor-man takes of big international names, drab fabric, drab workmanship, dull, dull, dull colours. And some really bad shoes. I found myself asking people, "Does this seem really flat to you?". Which question tended to be greeted with a deadpan expression.
Then came Anna Thomas. And I started feeling like I was back at an international runway event - New York Fashion Week to be precise, with AFW's new "OPT" upstairs venue a dead ringer for the medium venue there that was called last season, from memory, The Salon. Not that the same venue felt like it during the earlier Lisa Ho show.
Slick and commercial yet very fresh, Thomas' collection featured a suite of sweet, gathered peasant skirts in graphic black and white polka dots, short shorts - or as the Americans like to call them, "panties" - boxy blazers and one striking pewter sack dress with a voluminous back.
The dresses were particularly strong, notably Thomas' take on what is emerging as another Australian SS0708 season requisite - the shirt-dress - as well as some utterly charming pinafore and shift dresses such as the banded lime green/black/grey sleeveless shift dress and a softly gathered pewter sundress with black contrast bodice and belt.
The collection had grace, polish and a kind of Roman Holiday ease. Ex-Country Road and also Max Mara, Thomas launched her label in 2002 and apart from taking part in the most recent 'transseasonal' AFW shows in Melbourne in September year, this was her first show at the event's biggest showcase in Sydney.
Let's hope it's not her last.
We had a (really) quick chat after the show:
You launched your label in 2002, why has it taken so long to show in Sydney?
Anna Thomas: I guess we've just been really finding our feet and we didn't want to present anything that wasn't really world-class and that we wouldn't want to put on a catwalk in Europe or in New York. I haven't felt confident enough to do it until this point. I was really happy with the collection and the direction that we took for the show, we tried to make a little bit of a departure from the typical thing that people think about an Anna Thomas collection. Everything just felt right this season.
Original post and comments.
Paul Keating and the Veronicas - Fashion Week kicks off
I'm en route to the first show of Fashion Week: camilla and marc down at the Sydney Theatre Company. It's a beautiful day, with still not much sign of winter - except save no doubt for the winter clothes in which I am expecting most will be clad today. Wear current season's winter, watch next season's summer.... yes the crazy fashion locomotive charges forward.
This time last year I was new to blogging - and indeed blogging was relatively new to the event. This is my fourth blog in twelve months and I've noticed that the blogging ranks have started to swell, not just in Sydney but overseas as well. By February we saw The New York Times add a fashion blog to the runway review duties of its chief critic (Cathy Horyn), the latest in a long list of mainstream newspaper and also indie blogs to enter the tents. As with every other sphere that the blogging phenomenon touches, blogging provides a unique viewpoint at fashion shows.
Bloggers have no space limits, usually no sub editors and few rules. We also provide a backbone for dialogue with our readers and this is one aspect of the medium that I am finding fascinating at the moment - the reactions by some designers to the (relatively) unfettered commentaries of the public.
Some, like Alex Perry, say they are "thick-skinned" - and the frequent flack is like water off a duck's back. Others, I can tell you, aren't quite so bolshie. All I can say to them is, deal with it. The public are the end users of what you are showing on these runways, they have a right to their point of view.
Now sitting down inside the venue - one very long, snaking front row that runs from the front to the back of the STC. Too bad Cate Blanchett isn't on deck yet here. It's little consolation I suppose, but I've just brushed past a couple of Oz popettes.
"We could sit you over there next to them - you could be the third Veronica" quipped Lorraine Lock, the wife of Fashion Week supremo Simon Lock.
[Former Australian prime minister] Paul Keating is supposed to be somewhere in the distance. He could be the fourth Veronica.
The show itself is a pretty, and very short ode to the major influences of the northern hemisphere's current spring/summer season, with a soupcon of the new winter's tough chic thrown in for good measure: a suite of A-line, waistless shift dresses with exposed silver and brass zippers, some of them boasting sportif racerbacks.
I liked the cropped, hooded boleros in barely-there flesh tones, the vermillion micro knit dress and the series of cobalt shift dresses, which should provide plenty of party dresses for the Pretty Young Thing customers of this up-and-coming brand.
But while everyone has a trench coat on offer these days, camilla and marc's baggy-sleeved versions looked far too Stella McCartney-esque for my money and the lab coat dresses with grommets, like (very) poor man's Lanvin. Please leave the complete ripoffs to the high street.
Walking out, I spot Keating and manage to grab a few comments:
What did you think about the collection?
Paul Keating: Oh I liked the collection. I liked #1, #3 and #5 for a start. And a number of other single items in there.
What did you particularly like about them?
Well, their chic casualness.
Does it compare to Zegna?
Well that's formal. We don't get around in suits all day, do we?
No that's very true. What do you think about fashion in Australia in general?
Well I think fashion is one of the great arts, one of the great creative arts. One of the places where the endless combinations and permutations of fantasy all mix.
Do you think it gets enough support from the Australian government?
Oh well, I don't know what support it gets, to be honest.
On Saturday night at another show I spoke to Ian Thorpe, who volunteered that he had seen some Dior shows. Have you done Dior - or any other international fashion shows?
I haven't been to any.
Really?
I'm interested in the international fashion shows of the 30s and 40s and 50s when clothing was at its peak.
But that was a bit before your time wasn't it?
Well no style is before one's time.
I meant you couldn't possibly have been at those shows.
Oh I couldn't have been at the shows. But the gear is still around - the great A-line of the 50s, Balenciaga and all those people.
Original post and comments.
This time last year I was new to blogging - and indeed blogging was relatively new to the event. This is my fourth blog in twelve months and I've noticed that the blogging ranks have started to swell, not just in Sydney but overseas as well. By February we saw The New York Times add a fashion blog to the runway review duties of its chief critic (Cathy Horyn), the latest in a long list of mainstream newspaper and also indie blogs to enter the tents. As with every other sphere that the blogging phenomenon touches, blogging provides a unique viewpoint at fashion shows.
Bloggers have no space limits, usually no sub editors and few rules. We also provide a backbone for dialogue with our readers and this is one aspect of the medium that I am finding fascinating at the moment - the reactions by some designers to the (relatively) unfettered commentaries of the public.
Some, like Alex Perry, say they are "thick-skinned" - and the frequent flack is like water off a duck's back. Others, I can tell you, aren't quite so bolshie. All I can say to them is, deal with it. The public are the end users of what you are showing on these runways, they have a right to their point of view.
Now sitting down inside the venue - one very long, snaking front row that runs from the front to the back of the STC. Too bad Cate Blanchett isn't on deck yet here. It's little consolation I suppose, but I've just brushed past a couple of Oz popettes.
"We could sit you over there next to them - you could be the third Veronica" quipped Lorraine Lock, the wife of Fashion Week supremo Simon Lock.
[Former Australian prime minister] Paul Keating is supposed to be somewhere in the distance. He could be the fourth Veronica.
The show itself is a pretty, and very short ode to the major influences of the northern hemisphere's current spring/summer season, with a soupcon of the new winter's tough chic thrown in for good measure: a suite of A-line, waistless shift dresses with exposed silver and brass zippers, some of them boasting sportif racerbacks.
I liked the cropped, hooded boleros in barely-there flesh tones, the vermillion micro knit dress and the series of cobalt shift dresses, which should provide plenty of party dresses for the Pretty Young Thing customers of this up-and-coming brand.
But while everyone has a trench coat on offer these days, camilla and marc's baggy-sleeved versions looked far too Stella McCartney-esque for my money and the lab coat dresses with grommets, like (very) poor man's Lanvin. Please leave the complete ripoffs to the high street.
Walking out, I spot Keating and manage to grab a few comments:
What did you think about the collection?
Paul Keating: Oh I liked the collection. I liked #1, #3 and #5 for a start. And a number of other single items in there.
What did you particularly like about them?
Well, their chic casualness.
Does it compare to Zegna?
Well that's formal. We don't get around in suits all day, do we?
No that's very true. What do you think about fashion in Australia in general?
Well I think fashion is one of the great arts, one of the great creative arts. One of the places where the endless combinations and permutations of fantasy all mix.
Do you think it gets enough support from the Australian government?
Oh well, I don't know what support it gets, to be honest.
On Saturday night at another show I spoke to Ian Thorpe, who volunteered that he had seen some Dior shows. Have you done Dior - or any other international fashion shows?
I haven't been to any.
Really?
I'm interested in the international fashion shows of the 30s and 40s and 50s when clothing was at its peak.
But that was a bit before your time wasn't it?
Well no style is before one's time.
I meant you couldn't possibly have been at those shows.
Oh I couldn't have been at the shows. But the gear is still around - the great A-line of the 50s, Balenciaga and all those people.
Original post and comments.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
'I've done Dior!': Fish-out-of-water fashionisto Ian Thorpe dives into the Fashion Week swim
We have touchdown. Well, celeb touchdown at least. Having now clocked two full OS show seasons and notably, two celeb-infested New York fashion weeks, and after last May's very disappointing "VIP" turnout at AFW, I have to admit I was a tad apprehensive about the prospect of only having the clothes to review next week. I mean, perish the thought of anyone talking about the clothes at a fashion show these days.
But some bona fide celebs are now in our midst - thanks to tonight's MTV Awards and the Fantastic Four premiere, (and if there isn't already an appropriate collective noun, Fashion Season would like to nominate the following to denote same - a paparazzi of celebs, or perhaps even a Fawcett of celebs). Should any of these wind up popping into the fashion tents, we could be in for some fun and games.
Dita Von Teese of course is a shoe-in. Here to promote her involvement with (AFW sponsor) MAC, notably the brand's Viva Glam lipstick - with a fat $100,000 cheque handed to Sydney's Bobby Goldmsith Foundation yesterday - Von Teese will be on deck at at least some shows as the VIP guest editor of Australian Harper's Bazaar. Just as Cate Blanchett, Sarah Wynter and Elle Macpherson etc... have done in years past.
Anyone present at Myer Sydney City yesterday for the cheque presentation couldn't have missed the celeb buzz in the air, with a score of fans turning up for signings and photo ops with the petite, porcelain-complexioned DVT. Judging by the number of Goths I spotted, the Marilyn Manson factor obviously has not rubbed off either, in spite of the fact that DVT and Manson are now estranged.
No major sightings at the Willow presentation at Carthona last night. But the 'show' itself was nevertheless a sight to behold. Quite apart from the rare glimpse inside this harbourside Gothic mansion - and its superb, wild garden - the Helmut Newton-inspired tableaux of Willow lingerie-bedecked models inside a couple of the rooms provided a sumptuous visual feast. I trust the poor girl who had to lie with her back arched against one brocade sofa for an hour's duration won't require the services of a chiropractor today. We shot a preview video of this retro-look luxury lingerie range last week which will go live tomorrow.
Some pieces - notably the black tulle-swathed, white silk high-waisted knickers and bra - seem far too pretty to cover up. With DVT and her old-worlde Hollywood froufrou style thrown into the mix this season, Fashion Week seems, for the moment at least, to be having a bit of a burlesque-nosed moment.
About an hour later, back downtown in Ultimo, I turned up to the Nicholas X Morley show and was intrigued to spot Ian Thorpe. Thorpe has of course had more than his fair share of fashion moments so I was interested to get his take on the subject.
Here's what he said just before and straight after the show:
So, what are you doing here at the Nicholas X Morley launch?
Ian Thorpe: I was invited by a friend who is a model here tonight [Cheyenne Tozzi, apparently]. So I was asked to come along, which I'm more than happy to do. From what I've heard and from what she's told me I think it's going to be great.
You have been involved with a few different fashion projects. Are you still involved with Autore pearls?
Yeah... I'm not designing jewellery at the moment. Still designing underwear and I'm doing a few more things in the future but that's about it at the moment.
Any new fashion projects?
Nothing I can talk about.
Top secret?
Not top secret, because that means it's coming up soon. But something that's definitely on the radar.
[With the recent doping allegations] You have been going through some difficult issues recently.
I'm still going through all of those things. It's all playing out its due course at the moment. I start filming a documentary tomorrow. So things are all on track.
What do you think about fashion in general? I mean obviously you have always had very close fashion ties.
Yeah.... Fashion for me is kind of you know, it comes and it goes, but it always is a great reflection on kind of social issues and what's going on. At that kind of moment in time. The same as what music does and what art does at that particular time. That's what I love about it. It's seasonal and it's cyclical as well. It's great. All of us love some good clothes, it's as simple as that.
You have also had some special 'fashion moments'. A case in point one highly-publicised leather outfit with boots.
Yeah, I was in Paris.
And you copped a lot of flack over that.
Well you know, I wear what I want to wear and I don't care what people think.
The show wrapped. If you haven't seen the video we shot last week, it's a bright, print-heavy streetwear range of T-shirts, jeans, shorts, longline singlets and babydoll dresses, with a small swimwear component. I'm not too crash hot on a couple of the dresses, which seem a bit fiddly with sheer overpanels, but the prints are very strong and the skinny, cropped, lowrider women's jeans with exposed silver zips and microskirts in the signature crossbone print - either white on black or vice versa - as well as some of the fluoro babydoll smock dresses, tops and leggings looked great.
Ditto some of the menswear, a case in point the baggy pants, T-shirt and matching blazer in the white-on-black crossbone print. Although you probably wouldn't want to wear the latter three together, or risk looking like you had just stepped out of a prison scene from Pirates of The Caribbean.
And the Thorpedo's post-show verdict?
"The rave's back" he said.
Will we see you at any other shows this week?
Thorpe: No, I film a documentary starting tomorrow.
So no Fashion Week for Ian Thorpe?
This is it.
Shame, because Fashion Week induced one of your most spectacular fashion moments: the famous pearl mask you wore to one event.
Yeah, it was a masked ball.
It was very dramatic.
Oh OK, yeah.
So we won't be seeing any more moments like that this week - not even in the documentary?
No definitely not.
But you could do a documentary with Ian Thorpe's greatest fashion moments.
Maybe not yet.
I thanked him for being such a good sport and noted that it was great to see him front-and-centre at a fashion show.
"Hey" he quipped, without missing a beat. "I've done Dior shows!".
Original post and comments.
But some bona fide celebs are now in our midst - thanks to tonight's MTV Awards and the Fantastic Four premiere, (and if there isn't already an appropriate collective noun, Fashion Season would like to nominate the following to denote same - a paparazzi of celebs, or perhaps even a Fawcett of celebs). Should any of these wind up popping into the fashion tents, we could be in for some fun and games.
Dita Von Teese of course is a shoe-in. Here to promote her involvement with (AFW sponsor) MAC, notably the brand's Viva Glam lipstick - with a fat $100,000 cheque handed to Sydney's Bobby Goldmsith Foundation yesterday - Von Teese will be on deck at at least some shows as the VIP guest editor of Australian Harper's Bazaar. Just as Cate Blanchett, Sarah Wynter and Elle Macpherson etc... have done in years past.
Anyone present at Myer Sydney City yesterday for the cheque presentation couldn't have missed the celeb buzz in the air, with a score of fans turning up for signings and photo ops with the petite, porcelain-complexioned DVT. Judging by the number of Goths I spotted, the Marilyn Manson factor obviously has not rubbed off either, in spite of the fact that DVT and Manson are now estranged.
No major sightings at the Willow presentation at Carthona last night. But the 'show' itself was nevertheless a sight to behold. Quite apart from the rare glimpse inside this harbourside Gothic mansion - and its superb, wild garden - the Helmut Newton-inspired tableaux of Willow lingerie-bedecked models inside a couple of the rooms provided a sumptuous visual feast. I trust the poor girl who had to lie with her back arched against one brocade sofa for an hour's duration won't require the services of a chiropractor today. We shot a preview video of this retro-look luxury lingerie range last week which will go live tomorrow.
Some pieces - notably the black tulle-swathed, white silk high-waisted knickers and bra - seem far too pretty to cover up. With DVT and her old-worlde Hollywood froufrou style thrown into the mix this season, Fashion Week seems, for the moment at least, to be having a bit of a burlesque-nosed moment.
About an hour later, back downtown in Ultimo, I turned up to the Nicholas X Morley show and was intrigued to spot Ian Thorpe. Thorpe has of course had more than his fair share of fashion moments so I was interested to get his take on the subject.
Here's what he said just before and straight after the show:
So, what are you doing here at the Nicholas X Morley launch?
Ian Thorpe: I was invited by a friend who is a model here tonight [Cheyenne Tozzi, apparently]. So I was asked to come along, which I'm more than happy to do. From what I've heard and from what she's told me I think it's going to be great.
You have been involved with a few different fashion projects. Are you still involved with Autore pearls?
Yeah... I'm not designing jewellery at the moment. Still designing underwear and I'm doing a few more things in the future but that's about it at the moment.
Any new fashion projects?
Nothing I can talk about.
Top secret?
Not top secret, because that means it's coming up soon. But something that's definitely on the radar.
[With the recent doping allegations] You have been going through some difficult issues recently.
I'm still going through all of those things. It's all playing out its due course at the moment. I start filming a documentary tomorrow. So things are all on track.
What do you think about fashion in general? I mean obviously you have always had very close fashion ties.
Yeah.... Fashion for me is kind of you know, it comes and it goes, but it always is a great reflection on kind of social issues and what's going on. At that kind of moment in time. The same as what music does and what art does at that particular time. That's what I love about it. It's seasonal and it's cyclical as well. It's great. All of us love some good clothes, it's as simple as that.
You have also had some special 'fashion moments'. A case in point one highly-publicised leather outfit with boots.
Yeah, I was in Paris.
And you copped a lot of flack over that.
Well you know, I wear what I want to wear and I don't care what people think.
The show wrapped. If you haven't seen the video we shot last week, it's a bright, print-heavy streetwear range of T-shirts, jeans, shorts, longline singlets and babydoll dresses, with a small swimwear component. I'm not too crash hot on a couple of the dresses, which seem a bit fiddly with sheer overpanels, but the prints are very strong and the skinny, cropped, lowrider women's jeans with exposed silver zips and microskirts in the signature crossbone print - either white on black or vice versa - as well as some of the fluoro babydoll smock dresses, tops and leggings looked great.
Ditto some of the menswear, a case in point the baggy pants, T-shirt and matching blazer in the white-on-black crossbone print. Although you probably wouldn't want to wear the latter three together, or risk looking like you had just stepped out of a prison scene from Pirates of The Caribbean.
And the Thorpedo's post-show verdict?
"The rave's back" he said.
Will we see you at any other shows this week?
Thorpe: No, I film a documentary starting tomorrow.
So no Fashion Week for Ian Thorpe?
This is it.
Shame, because Fashion Week induced one of your most spectacular fashion moments: the famous pearl mask you wore to one event.
Yeah, it was a masked ball.
It was very dramatic.
Oh OK, yeah.
So we won't be seeing any more moments like that this week - not even in the documentary?
No definitely not.
But you could do a documentary with Ian Thorpe's greatest fashion moments.
Maybe not yet.
I thanked him for being such a good sport and noted that it was great to see him front-and-centre at a fashion show.
"Hey" he quipped, without missing a beat. "I've done Dior shows!".
Original post and comments.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Get it while it's Goot: Target stitches up another designer dynamo
We've seen McCartney-mania. Is it time for a Josh juggernaut?
Two months after Target shelves around the country were stripped bare within minutes of the arrival of a Stella McCartney collaboration collection, Target Australia plans to unveil a top secret project with one of Australia's brightest fashion lights, Josh Goot.
UPDATE: 16/05/07
Well don't say we didn't warn you................ Finally today, the worst kept secret in the Australian fashion industry - thanks to this blog's big mouth - was laid out in the open for all to see.
Yes indeedy, Target Australia has stitched up Josh Goot for a special limited-edition collaboration range. It's a lot smaller than the range Stella McCartney did for Target earlier this year - 12 pieces, as opposed to 42 - and it remains to be seen of course whether the Josh Goot name will resonate as well as McCartney's with Australian consumers, and if the latter will scratch each others' eyes out to get a piece of it in "selected" stores when it launches on June 19. As happened in a number of (the 100 designated) Target stores, with the McCartney mania of March 12th.
But with a veeeeeeery similar looking Josh Goot silver trench coat selling at Browns Focus in London right now for GBP290 (A$692), A$129.99 for the Target version looks to be one hell of a saving. The trench is the exxiest item in Goot's Target range, with prices starting at $59.99.
With racerback tanks, leggings, pencil skirts, cardigans, blazers and yes the infamous jersey trench coat in a colour palette of grey marle, silver, navy, black as well as Kelly green and a cobalt blue - all in a Tencel/wool blend, and in sizes from XS-L - Goot is pushing the signature 'tailored comfort' look of his first range shown in Sydney in May 2005.
As evidenced by the new collections shown in New York in February and Sydney a fortnight ago, he's moving on from that ever-so-slightly. That said, the theme of the latest collection was "future Roman sport". Let the Tarjay games begin.
ORIGINAL BLOG: 26/04/07
Target is the principle sponsor of Goot's Fashion Week show on Thursday May 3 at 9.00am - and its logo appears on the invitation. But although neither the Target or Goot camps were spilling any other beans this afternoon, Fashion Season has learned that a Josh Goot/Target collaboration is due be either announced or else unveiled at Target in mid May.
It won't be without precedent of course in this market. Last year Target unveiled several styles from three other Australian labels, Alice McCall, Tina Kalivas and TL Wood, under the Designers For Target umbrella. A Target spokeswoman declined to confirm or deny whether Goot was the only Australian fashion brand involved with this latest Designers For Target project.
"I can't tell you anything other than Target are supporting me on this show" Goot told Fashion Season. "It's great to have their support - I think they've shown a commitment to young Australian designers over the past year".
The Stella McCartney range was sold in 100 Target stores around Australia. The 42-piece collection ranged in price from $29.99 for a scarf to $199.99 for a trenchcoat. Selling out in some stores within minutes, according to a Target source it was the retailer's most successful sales day ever in this market.
So just what might Josh Goot For Target look like? Dripping, most likely, in the designer's signature urban sport aesthetic.
Goot, now 27, made his runway debut at Fashion Week in May 2004 with a print-heavy streetwear brand called Platform. Launched a few months later his eponymous collection boasted a leitmotiv of "tailored comfort", with a simple concept: constructed wardrobe classics of the type normally made from woven fabrics, the trenchcoat, the blazer and trousers etc..., but fashioned instead from cotton jersey T-shirting. The entire, machine-washable collection came in grey marle, charcoal marle and silver. It earned Goot the 2005 Tiffany & Co Young Designer of The Year Award.
Goot's May 2005 Fashion Week show made an impact here and several months later, the front cover of high-profile US industry newspaper WWD. The brand was immediately picked up by prestigious London retailer Browns Focus and then swiftly by other key international retailers, notably the Colette emporium in Paris and Henri Bendel in New York.
In September last year Goot debuted at New York fashion week - with US Vogue later heralding him as the designer who kicked off the SS07 season's urban sport mood.
Goot showed for the second consecutive season in New York in February. He is committed to showing back in New York in September.
"This is the fourth show we've done in a year which is insane and it won't happen again" said Goot of next week's show, his southern hemisphere SS0708/international resort collection. "I felt that I hadn't finished the job here in this market. As far as positioning the brand and expressing the brand philosophy and mapping out our distribution, all these types of things, I think we have a little way to go, and hopefully the show will be another piece in the puzzle".
Apart from whatever promotion Target may be planning for the Goot project in mid May, could next week be the last Josh Goot show downunder?
"I wouldn't want to say that because that's got a lot of finality to it" said Goot. "I really enjoy showing here. It's in a sense much easeir than showing overseas. It's your own backyard. And I know how much of a role the Australian industry played in helping us build this brand. We've enjoyed a lot of support and in a sense I feel like showing once a year [here] is the least we can do to I suppose keep everyone's interest and kind of say thank-you".
Original post and comments.
Two months after Target shelves around the country were stripped bare within minutes of the arrival of a Stella McCartney collaboration collection, Target Australia plans to unveil a top secret project with one of Australia's brightest fashion lights, Josh Goot.
UPDATE: 16/05/07
Well don't say we didn't warn you................ Finally today, the worst kept secret in the Australian fashion industry - thanks to this blog's big mouth - was laid out in the open for all to see.
Yes indeedy, Target Australia has stitched up Josh Goot for a special limited-edition collaboration range. It's a lot smaller than the range Stella McCartney did for Target earlier this year - 12 pieces, as opposed to 42 - and it remains to be seen of course whether the Josh Goot name will resonate as well as McCartney's with Australian consumers, and if the latter will scratch each others' eyes out to get a piece of it in "selected" stores when it launches on June 19. As happened in a number of (the 100 designated) Target stores, with the McCartney mania of March 12th.
But with a veeeeeeery similar looking Josh Goot silver trench coat selling at Browns Focus in London right now for GBP290 (A$692), A$129.99 for the Target version looks to be one hell of a saving. The trench is the exxiest item in Goot's Target range, with prices starting at $59.99.
With racerback tanks, leggings, pencil skirts, cardigans, blazers and yes the infamous jersey trench coat in a colour palette of grey marle, silver, navy, black as well as Kelly green and a cobalt blue - all in a Tencel/wool blend, and in sizes from XS-L - Goot is pushing the signature 'tailored comfort' look of his first range shown in Sydney in May 2005.
As evidenced by the new collections shown in New York in February and Sydney a fortnight ago, he's moving on from that ever-so-slightly. That said, the theme of the latest collection was "future Roman sport". Let the Tarjay games begin.
ORIGINAL BLOG: 26/04/07
Target is the principle sponsor of Goot's Fashion Week show on Thursday May 3 at 9.00am - and its logo appears on the invitation. But although neither the Target or Goot camps were spilling any other beans this afternoon, Fashion Season has learned that a Josh Goot/Target collaboration is due be either announced or else unveiled at Target in mid May.
It won't be without precedent of course in this market. Last year Target unveiled several styles from three other Australian labels, Alice McCall, Tina Kalivas and TL Wood, under the Designers For Target umbrella. A Target spokeswoman declined to confirm or deny whether Goot was the only Australian fashion brand involved with this latest Designers For Target project.
"I can't tell you anything other than Target are supporting me on this show" Goot told Fashion Season. "It's great to have their support - I think they've shown a commitment to young Australian designers over the past year".
The Stella McCartney range was sold in 100 Target stores around Australia. The 42-piece collection ranged in price from $29.99 for a scarf to $199.99 for a trenchcoat. Selling out in some stores within minutes, according to a Target source it was the retailer's most successful sales day ever in this market.
So just what might Josh Goot For Target look like? Dripping, most likely, in the designer's signature urban sport aesthetic.
Goot, now 27, made his runway debut at Fashion Week in May 2004 with a print-heavy streetwear brand called Platform. Launched a few months later his eponymous collection boasted a leitmotiv of "tailored comfort", with a simple concept: constructed wardrobe classics of the type normally made from woven fabrics, the trenchcoat, the blazer and trousers etc..., but fashioned instead from cotton jersey T-shirting. The entire, machine-washable collection came in grey marle, charcoal marle and silver. It earned Goot the 2005 Tiffany & Co Young Designer of The Year Award.
Goot's May 2005 Fashion Week show made an impact here and several months later, the front cover of high-profile US industry newspaper WWD. The brand was immediately picked up by prestigious London retailer Browns Focus and then swiftly by other key international retailers, notably the Colette emporium in Paris and Henri Bendel in New York.
In September last year Goot debuted at New York fashion week - with US Vogue later heralding him as the designer who kicked off the SS07 season's urban sport mood.
Goot showed for the second consecutive season in New York in February. He is committed to showing back in New York in September.
"This is the fourth show we've done in a year which is insane and it won't happen again" said Goot of next week's show, his southern hemisphere SS0708/international resort collection. "I felt that I hadn't finished the job here in this market. As far as positioning the brand and expressing the brand philosophy and mapping out our distribution, all these types of things, I think we have a little way to go, and hopefully the show will be another piece in the puzzle".
Apart from whatever promotion Target may be planning for the Goot project in mid May, could next week be the last Josh Goot show downunder?
"I wouldn't want to say that because that's got a lot of finality to it" said Goot. "I really enjoy showing here. It's in a sense much easeir than showing overseas. It's your own backyard. And I know how much of a role the Australian industry played in helping us build this brand. We've enjoyed a lot of support and in a sense I feel like showing once a year [here] is the least we can do to I suppose keep everyone's interest and kind of say thank-you".
Original post and comments.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Don't hate them because they're beautiful: The politics of glamour
I was looking into the issue of modeling yesterday - as you do when you write about this subject but particularly of course with Australian Fashion Week now five days away.
I wound up having a quick check of www.models.com. Operated by New Yorkers Stephan Moskovic and Wayne Sterling, models.com has become something of an authority on the subject. As per two quotes on its home page, some have in fact dubbed it "the NASDAQ of the modeling industry" (Ivan Bart, Senior VP IMG Models) and "the industry's favorite reference site" (Guy Trebay, The New York Times).
One of models.com's handiest reference components is its rankings of world models into various categories - from "icons" to "sexiest" to the hottest new girls to emerge, to the "Top 50" working models, the latter using as a gauge a model's exposure on major international runways, fashion editorial and covers and advertising campaigns. I do check the site regularly but apparently not regularly enough. Because since the last time I checked the Top 50, and yesterday, Perth's Gemma Ward had graduated to the world number 1 spot. Even more interesting: another Australian has just emerged out of nowhere to sweep aside a swag of high profilers to make her models.com Top 50 debut at number 26. With a bullet. Yes, Catherine McNeil.
Modeling for four years, but only seriously for one, 17 year-old McNeil was completely under the international radar until she met leading international fashion photographer Mario Testino earlier this year and was swiftly picked up by Testino for a six-month exclusive. The Testino "buzz" factor then helped open up an instant spot on the international runway show circuit - and she walked in 35 shows during the recent AW0708 season in Milan and Paris (and one show in London). "Fall belonged to the Australian beauty Catherine McNeil" noted style.com recently - one of the world's highest-traffic fashion websites.
That's right, Catherine McNeil - the very model who became the subject of yesterday's little fash slagfest on this blog, after we happened by chance to include a shot of her in an 'arty', contrived pose from Azzollini's 2007 swimwear catalogue. McNeil wasn't even the subject of the post. The subject was Azzollini's music video clip alternative to a Fashion Week show next week. But after a first, catty swipe at me for being too thin, posters swiftly sank their teeth into the skinny model brouhaha, to the point of declaring McNeil to be "anorexic".
Although obviously the skinny model issue has dominated news headlines over the past eight months sparked by the eating disorder-related deaths of three aspiring South American models, there is nothing new about the debate. It last reared its head in the mid 90s, in the midst of the "heroin chic" controversy and the emergence of the so-called "waifs". They included Kate Moss, Australia's own Emma Balfour but notably Jodie Kidd, runway images of which British teenager's skeletal arms and legs were shocking at the time (with Kidd later blaming her scrawny frame on a bout of glandular fever).
Australian Fashion Week was in fact born into this controversy in May 1996. Some may recall the minor ruckus that erupted at the time over images of Australian model Christy Quilliam, whose ribs visibly stuck out through the holes of her olive green Morrissey Edmiston cutout maillot.
Australian Fashion Week organisers have weighed, pardon the pun, into the current debate by asking model agents and designers to use only healthy-looking women on next week's runways (and this voluntary low BMI 'ban' really worked a treat in Milan in February). They have also asked editors not to go out of their way to use unflattering pictures of models for the sake of sensationalism. Yeah, right.
But while some may go out of their way to capture models in awkward poses so as to exaggerate the image - for example, one recent backstage shot of a topless teenager bending over, which accentuated her ribs or indeed, the first of two Azzollini images of McNeil which appeared in this blog, which accentuated McNeil's shoulders (and who really knows to what degree that image may have also been Photoshopped?) - some model images do not need any assistance at all.
The Jodie Kidd of the mid noughties, 20 year-old Snejana Onopka, alarmed many at the SS07 shows in September last year after dropping what appeared to be at least one dress size. Many of the raw (ie unretouched) runway images of Onopka from that season are just plain ugly and it is in noone's interest not to police this issue. Onopka was nonetheless back at the Milan and Paris shows earlier this year. Whether she had put on weight in the interim or whether the heavier winter clothes, stockings and the season's popular ultra-long gloves perhaps merely disguised her previously stick-thin arms and legs, Onopka appears to have escaped further scrutiny for the time being.
Anorexia nervosa is clearly a major health concern. According to The Eating Disorder Service, a 12-year research program at the Westmead Children's Hospital, one in 200 girls between 15-19 will be diagnosed with anorexia nervosa in Australia - or 0.005% of the population.
According to the program's medical director, Dr Michael Kohn, there is no evidence that anorexia nervosa rates are increasing in Australia, however those diagnosed with the disease are getting younger.
Interestingly, Kohn does not blame the fashion industry for all of Australia's self-starvation woes.
"China has a very longstanding history of anorexia nervosa - from the 1600s - anorexia nervosa has been described for hundreds of years, around the world, but the fashion industry as we would recognise it as such has not been" says Kohn, whose research points to genetic and family factors and pressures as major contributing factors.
He added, "It's easiest to scapegoat the fashion industry, but this is a pattern of behavior that occurs from a range of societal pressures and it oversimplies the issue to pick out one and put the blame for eating disorders in that one realm".
Obesity is demonstrably a far bigger issue than anorexia nervosa. A 1999-2000 study cited on the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare website indicated that over seven million adult Australians aged 25 years and over (60%) were overweight, of which over two million (21%) were obese.
But here is where we get into slippery territory.
There are those who seek to blame not just the problem of women starving themselves on 'unrealistic' fashion images - they appear to want to pin every last pigout on fashion as well. This of course lets the fast food industry, socio-economic factors and the increasing accessibility of home entertainment technology, from computers to widescreen tv, completely off the hook.
I recall once being interviewed about the fashion/body image subject by an Australian radio talk show host. Even though I had been armed with obesity and eating disorder statistics, she had made up her mind on the subject long before I had even been put through to talk to her. Her theory was that the population's frustration with the unattainable ideals depicted in contemporary fashion imagery is the inexorable cause of yo-yo dieting and, so it apparently followed, asses so big that they require supersized ambulance beds and toilet seats.
Anyone with any hard evidence as to the direct link between images of skinny women and the obesity epidemic please feel free to chime in here. Kohn reckons there isn't a heap of it.
She's no scientist of course, but British-born model Gail Elliott has an interesting take on the subject. Elliott now calls Sydney home for eight months of the year, with not just an Australian husband but a burgeoning Sydney-based fashion business (Little Joe by Gail Elliott). While she may eschew the "supermodel" tag, Elliott was most definitely part of the high profile 1980s model crew that included Linda Evangelista, Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell. Now mostly in their 40s, all of these women are still modeling - even if they have other business projects.
Elliott says she has noticed a marked difference in the industry's entry level age compared to when she first joined the business.
"I think they're definitely skinnier now, but they're teens - the little young Russian girls and Brazilian girls, are 13 and 14 years old" Elliott told Fashion Season.
She added, "Naomi was only the young one, she was probably 18 or 19 but we were all 24-ish, 25-ish. So we were grown up already. I think that's a got a lot to do with it. These girls are really young and young girls are skinny. And yes a couple of girls have died, that's terrible. But the other thing is there's so much more competition now. Everyone's a model. And you'll see girls at the shows and you probably won't even know their names and the next season they won't be around. Whereas we did the shows for ten years straight. We did all those shows, every year, every season.
"I think it's changed a lot, it's become very fickle. Editors want more, more, more, new, new, new. There are so many more designers. I remember doing 27 shows in Milan and I probably did all the shows in Milan at the time".
Elliott makes a good point about increased competition. To give you an idea of the pace of this industry, models.com doesn't calls its hottest newcomers category "Of the moment" but, Of The Minute. Does the industry put pressure on models to be thin? Of course - because that's what sells. Australian models tend to be larger than those in the northern hemisphere - that is, until they travel overseas for work.
"Sure girls have to be small to fit those small sample sizes, like a doctor needs to have a degree and seven years of university behind them, it's as simple as that" says Joseph Tenni, a booker with Chadwicks Models in Sydney, who for several years has penned a modelling industry column called Model Mania on New York fashion website hintmag.com. "Knowing that the maximum measurement that they [in New York] would really accept is a 90cm hip, I let girls be aware of that and then it's up to them to make the decision whether they're prepared to do that".
As for the common complaint that models don't look like real women, Tenni notes, "They're models. They look good and clothes look good on them. It's not about 40 year-old businesswomen who can afford the clothes. They want to see models as well. There's still an element of aspiration to it".
But just who are these taste arbiters who determine which of the thousands of newcomers to the industry are "so hot right now"? Who defines the current canons of modeling beauty?
The editors, photographers, stylists and casting directors of influence.
"What propels a girl's career is one influential person and then everybody copies" says Tenni. "If [Paris Vogue editor] Carine Roitfeld says someone's fabulous, everyone wants that girl".
Industry sources estimate that Catherine McNeil probably earned over A$100,000 last year in Australia - and that she stands to make US$1million over the course of the next. Yes she walked at Australian Fashion Week this time last year - under the radar. But McNeil was also shot for a substantial volume of Australian fashion magazine editorial, as well as campaigns for Azzollini, Watersun and Cue. She went to New York armed with a very good book.
The world number one, Gemma Ward, made her runway debut at Australian Fashion Week in May 2003, debuted at the SS04 Milan shows in September that year in a Prada exclusive and six months later was the hottest new girl of AW0405, walking in numerous shows.
Prada casting director Russell Marsh may have given Ward her big international break, but Australian editor/stylist Mark Vassallo also played a significant role, choosing Ward for the cover of his now defunct niche fashion magazine Mark earlier that year.
Similarly "blessed" by Vassallo, in May 2005 the then 13 year-old Tallulah Morton was scouted and flown to Sydney from the Gold Coast to open Josh Goot's Australian Fashion Week debut. Since this time Morton - and not McNeil - has been widely tipped as the next most likely Australian to follow in Ward's footsteps.
But after having been signed to the "Development" board of the world's biggest model agent early last year, IMG, shortly afterwards shooting some editorial with photographer David Sims and a Benetton campaign, Morton did a few New York shows in September but in the end was not booked for any European shows.
Morton's age (by that stage 14) might not have been the only determining factor. Yes it is harder for an under-16 model to work in Europe, due to recent industry crackdowns, however it is not impossible and there are several girls much younger than Morton who are on the circuit.
According to casting sources however, the real reason Morton failed to takeoff at the SS07 shows was because she was "too chunky". Yes it's a brutal industry.
An Australian is more likely to take the latter news with a pinch of salt and head to the beach - Morton, who remains one of Australia's most popular and high-profile models, recently dropped out of school to study multimedia and graphic design at TAFE. However a girl from a developing country in say South America or Eastern Europe - with a family to feed, and with her beauty as her only ticket out - might not be quite so nonchalant. Perhaps it's more than a coincidence that the three models who died as the result of eating disorders last year were South American. Snejana Onopka hails from the Ukraine.
"I'm not going to lie, it is a cutthroat industry and the girls who make it are the determined ones" says Tenni. "And there are plenty of girls who would love a door to open and the door doesn't open. It's not like they're doing anything wrong. They could look fabulous, they could be completely professional. But it's just not their time.
"When a girl doesn't book a job, you just take her off the option, you don't overanalyse it. But as well as having the right look, you do need to have the right mind for this business to be able to handle it all - to handle the rejection and to have the ambition. It is an industry where you will be scrutinised, no matter what. And it's a choice to be in this industry as well".
Like most other Sydney agencies, Chadwicks has several "hot" new girls on its books for next week. They include Emily C (16) who has done one previous Fashion Week, but who is, says Tenni, generating a great deal of buzz this year.
As for total Fashion Week neophytes, girls who have never walked a runway but who could be looking at multimillion dollar modelling careers should the stars align and their moment be "right", Chadwicks' tips are Pip Bingham from Perth (16) and Adelaide's Vanessa Milde (15), who is already placed with IMG's Development board in New York.
Noone has ever heard of either of course.
"But", predicts Tenni, "they will after next week".
Original post and comments.
I wound up having a quick check of www.models.com. Operated by New Yorkers Stephan Moskovic and Wayne Sterling, models.com has become something of an authority on the subject. As per two quotes on its home page, some have in fact dubbed it "the NASDAQ of the modeling industry" (Ivan Bart, Senior VP IMG Models) and "the industry's favorite reference site" (Guy Trebay, The New York Times).
One of models.com's handiest reference components is its rankings of world models into various categories - from "icons" to "sexiest" to the hottest new girls to emerge, to the "Top 50" working models, the latter using as a gauge a model's exposure on major international runways, fashion editorial and covers and advertising campaigns. I do check the site regularly but apparently not regularly enough. Because since the last time I checked the Top 50, and yesterday, Perth's Gemma Ward had graduated to the world number 1 spot. Even more interesting: another Australian has just emerged out of nowhere to sweep aside a swag of high profilers to make her models.com Top 50 debut at number 26. With a bullet. Yes, Catherine McNeil.
Modeling for four years, but only seriously for one, 17 year-old McNeil was completely under the international radar until she met leading international fashion photographer Mario Testino earlier this year and was swiftly picked up by Testino for a six-month exclusive. The Testino "buzz" factor then helped open up an instant spot on the international runway show circuit - and she walked in 35 shows during the recent AW0708 season in Milan and Paris (and one show in London). "Fall belonged to the Australian beauty Catherine McNeil" noted style.com recently - one of the world's highest-traffic fashion websites.
That's right, Catherine McNeil - the very model who became the subject of yesterday's little fash slagfest on this blog, after we happened by chance to include a shot of her in an 'arty', contrived pose from Azzollini's 2007 swimwear catalogue. McNeil wasn't even the subject of the post. The subject was Azzollini's music video clip alternative to a Fashion Week show next week. But after a first, catty swipe at me for being too thin, posters swiftly sank their teeth into the skinny model brouhaha, to the point of declaring McNeil to be "anorexic".
Although obviously the skinny model issue has dominated news headlines over the past eight months sparked by the eating disorder-related deaths of three aspiring South American models, there is nothing new about the debate. It last reared its head in the mid 90s, in the midst of the "heroin chic" controversy and the emergence of the so-called "waifs". They included Kate Moss, Australia's own Emma Balfour but notably Jodie Kidd, runway images of which British teenager's skeletal arms and legs were shocking at the time (with Kidd later blaming her scrawny frame on a bout of glandular fever).
Australian Fashion Week was in fact born into this controversy in May 1996. Some may recall the minor ruckus that erupted at the time over images of Australian model Christy Quilliam, whose ribs visibly stuck out through the holes of her olive green Morrissey Edmiston cutout maillot.
Australian Fashion Week organisers have weighed, pardon the pun, into the current debate by asking model agents and designers to use only healthy-looking women on next week's runways (and this voluntary low BMI 'ban' really worked a treat in Milan in February). They have also asked editors not to go out of their way to use unflattering pictures of models for the sake of sensationalism. Yeah, right.
But while some may go out of their way to capture models in awkward poses so as to exaggerate the image - for example, one recent backstage shot of a topless teenager bending over, which accentuated her ribs or indeed, the first of two Azzollini images of McNeil which appeared in this blog, which accentuated McNeil's shoulders (and who really knows to what degree that image may have also been Photoshopped?) - some model images do not need any assistance at all.
The Jodie Kidd of the mid noughties, 20 year-old Snejana Onopka, alarmed many at the SS07 shows in September last year after dropping what appeared to be at least one dress size. Many of the raw (ie unretouched) runway images of Onopka from that season are just plain ugly and it is in noone's interest not to police this issue. Onopka was nonetheless back at the Milan and Paris shows earlier this year. Whether she had put on weight in the interim or whether the heavier winter clothes, stockings and the season's popular ultra-long gloves perhaps merely disguised her previously stick-thin arms and legs, Onopka appears to have escaped further scrutiny for the time being.
Anorexia nervosa is clearly a major health concern. According to The Eating Disorder Service, a 12-year research program at the Westmead Children's Hospital, one in 200 girls between 15-19 will be diagnosed with anorexia nervosa in Australia - or 0.005% of the population.
According to the program's medical director, Dr Michael Kohn, there is no evidence that anorexia nervosa rates are increasing in Australia, however those diagnosed with the disease are getting younger.
Interestingly, Kohn does not blame the fashion industry for all of Australia's self-starvation woes.
"China has a very longstanding history of anorexia nervosa - from the 1600s - anorexia nervosa has been described for hundreds of years, around the world, but the fashion industry as we would recognise it as such has not been" says Kohn, whose research points to genetic and family factors and pressures as major contributing factors.
He added, "It's easiest to scapegoat the fashion industry, but this is a pattern of behavior that occurs from a range of societal pressures and it oversimplies the issue to pick out one and put the blame for eating disorders in that one realm".
Obesity is demonstrably a far bigger issue than anorexia nervosa. A 1999-2000 study cited on the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare website indicated that over seven million adult Australians aged 25 years and over (60%) were overweight, of which over two million (21%) were obese.
But here is where we get into slippery territory.
There are those who seek to blame not just the problem of women starving themselves on 'unrealistic' fashion images - they appear to want to pin every last pigout on fashion as well. This of course lets the fast food industry, socio-economic factors and the increasing accessibility of home entertainment technology, from computers to widescreen tv, completely off the hook.
I recall once being interviewed about the fashion/body image subject by an Australian radio talk show host. Even though I had been armed with obesity and eating disorder statistics, she had made up her mind on the subject long before I had even been put through to talk to her. Her theory was that the population's frustration with the unattainable ideals depicted in contemporary fashion imagery is the inexorable cause of yo-yo dieting and, so it apparently followed, asses so big that they require supersized ambulance beds and toilet seats.
Anyone with any hard evidence as to the direct link between images of skinny women and the obesity epidemic please feel free to chime in here. Kohn reckons there isn't a heap of it.
She's no scientist of course, but British-born model Gail Elliott has an interesting take on the subject. Elliott now calls Sydney home for eight months of the year, with not just an Australian husband but a burgeoning Sydney-based fashion business (Little Joe by Gail Elliott). While she may eschew the "supermodel" tag, Elliott was most definitely part of the high profile 1980s model crew that included Linda Evangelista, Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell. Now mostly in their 40s, all of these women are still modeling - even if they have other business projects.
Elliott says she has noticed a marked difference in the industry's entry level age compared to when she first joined the business.
"I think they're definitely skinnier now, but they're teens - the little young Russian girls and Brazilian girls, are 13 and 14 years old" Elliott told Fashion Season.
She added, "Naomi was only the young one, she was probably 18 or 19 but we were all 24-ish, 25-ish. So we were grown up already. I think that's a got a lot to do with it. These girls are really young and young girls are skinny. And yes a couple of girls have died, that's terrible. But the other thing is there's so much more competition now. Everyone's a model. And you'll see girls at the shows and you probably won't even know their names and the next season they won't be around. Whereas we did the shows for ten years straight. We did all those shows, every year, every season.
"I think it's changed a lot, it's become very fickle. Editors want more, more, more, new, new, new. There are so many more designers. I remember doing 27 shows in Milan and I probably did all the shows in Milan at the time".
Elliott makes a good point about increased competition. To give you an idea of the pace of this industry, models.com doesn't calls its hottest newcomers category "Of the moment" but, Of The Minute. Does the industry put pressure on models to be thin? Of course - because that's what sells. Australian models tend to be larger than those in the northern hemisphere - that is, until they travel overseas for work.
"Sure girls have to be small to fit those small sample sizes, like a doctor needs to have a degree and seven years of university behind them, it's as simple as that" says Joseph Tenni, a booker with Chadwicks Models in Sydney, who for several years has penned a modelling industry column called Model Mania on New York fashion website hintmag.com. "Knowing that the maximum measurement that they [in New York] would really accept is a 90cm hip, I let girls be aware of that and then it's up to them to make the decision whether they're prepared to do that".
As for the common complaint that models don't look like real women, Tenni notes, "They're models. They look good and clothes look good on them. It's not about 40 year-old businesswomen who can afford the clothes. They want to see models as well. There's still an element of aspiration to it".
But just who are these taste arbiters who determine which of the thousands of newcomers to the industry are "so hot right now"? Who defines the current canons of modeling beauty?
The editors, photographers, stylists and casting directors of influence.
"What propels a girl's career is one influential person and then everybody copies" says Tenni. "If [Paris Vogue editor] Carine Roitfeld says someone's fabulous, everyone wants that girl".
Industry sources estimate that Catherine McNeil probably earned over A$100,000 last year in Australia - and that she stands to make US$1million over the course of the next. Yes she walked at Australian Fashion Week this time last year - under the radar. But McNeil was also shot for a substantial volume of Australian fashion magazine editorial, as well as campaigns for Azzollini, Watersun and Cue. She went to New York armed with a very good book.
The world number one, Gemma Ward, made her runway debut at Australian Fashion Week in May 2003, debuted at the SS04 Milan shows in September that year in a Prada exclusive and six months later was the hottest new girl of AW0405, walking in numerous shows.
Prada casting director Russell Marsh may have given Ward her big international break, but Australian editor/stylist Mark Vassallo also played a significant role, choosing Ward for the cover of his now defunct niche fashion magazine Mark earlier that year.
Similarly "blessed" by Vassallo, in May 2005 the then 13 year-old Tallulah Morton was scouted and flown to Sydney from the Gold Coast to open Josh Goot's Australian Fashion Week debut. Since this time Morton - and not McNeil - has been widely tipped as the next most likely Australian to follow in Ward's footsteps.
But after having been signed to the "Development" board of the world's biggest model agent early last year, IMG, shortly afterwards shooting some editorial with photographer David Sims and a Benetton campaign, Morton did a few New York shows in September but in the end was not booked for any European shows.
Morton's age (by that stage 14) might not have been the only determining factor. Yes it is harder for an under-16 model to work in Europe, due to recent industry crackdowns, however it is not impossible and there are several girls much younger than Morton who are on the circuit.
According to casting sources however, the real reason Morton failed to takeoff at the SS07 shows was because she was "too chunky". Yes it's a brutal industry.
An Australian is more likely to take the latter news with a pinch of salt and head to the beach - Morton, who remains one of Australia's most popular and high-profile models, recently dropped out of school to study multimedia and graphic design at TAFE. However a girl from a developing country in say South America or Eastern Europe - with a family to feed, and with her beauty as her only ticket out - might not be quite so nonchalant. Perhaps it's more than a coincidence that the three models who died as the result of eating disorders last year were South American. Snejana Onopka hails from the Ukraine.
"I'm not going to lie, it is a cutthroat industry and the girls who make it are the determined ones" says Tenni. "And there are plenty of girls who would love a door to open and the door doesn't open. It's not like they're doing anything wrong. They could look fabulous, they could be completely professional. But it's just not their time.
"When a girl doesn't book a job, you just take her off the option, you don't overanalyse it. But as well as having the right look, you do need to have the right mind for this business to be able to handle it all - to handle the rejection and to have the ambition. It is an industry where you will be scrutinised, no matter what. And it's a choice to be in this industry as well".
Like most other Sydney agencies, Chadwicks has several "hot" new girls on its books for next week. They include Emily C (16) who has done one previous Fashion Week, but who is, says Tenni, generating a great deal of buzz this year.
As for total Fashion Week neophytes, girls who have never walked a runway but who could be looking at multimillion dollar modelling careers should the stars align and their moment be "right", Chadwicks' tips are Pip Bingham from Perth (16) and Adelaide's Vanessa Milde (15), who is already placed with IMG's Development board in New York.
Noone has ever heard of either of course.
"But", predicts Tenni, "they will after next week".
Original post and comments.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Video killed the runway star: Azzollini's sex-on-legs swimwear supersizes up to the big screen
You've got to hand it to Michael Azzollini and Kate Nicholes. They create some of the most eye-popping swimwear on the market and from day one in 2003 just happened to align themselves with a sleeper celebrity: their mate, and star model, Michelle Leslie. Last year Azzollini made front page news around Australia when Leslie appeared in the brand's off-schedule show the week before Fashion Week - her first runway appearance since flying back into a Sydney media storm following her release from Bali's Kerobokan Prison. This year Azzollini is back on schedule, this time with a twist: by swapping a traditional runway show for a four-minute clip directed by one of the music video world's hottest new directors.
Azzollini and Nicholes have spent the past three days careering around a dozen locations in Sydney with eighteen models, 14 hair and makeup stylists, two choreographers, a muscle man, a contortionist and a 12-strong film crew from Sydney design and film collective Collider in tow.
The latter has been helmed by Don Cameron, a London-based Australian music video director who hails originally from the Blue Mountains and whose videography boasts work for headliners such as The Pet Shop Boys ('Minimal'), Garbage ('Androgyny'), Moloko ('Indigo') and Simply Red ('Sunrise'). Shot in various beach, harbourside and gym locations on a $29,000 shoestring budget - with undoubtedly tens of thousands of further dollars of favours pulled in from mates - the clip references Olivia Newton John's 1981 hit 'Let's Get Physical'.
We haven't seen the finished clip however given the calibre of Cameron's work - and connections - and Azzollini's knack for courting publicity, this could represent the brand's biggest break. In terms of international retail, they currently cite just Henri Bendel and Elizabeth Charles in the US, Lane Crawford Hong Kong and Figleaves in the UK as stockists. Fashion Season's was the only other video camera allowed on the shoot so stand by for an exclusive preview.
Yesterday Broadway's Pioneer Studios was awash with models kitted out in a sportif red, navy and white striped story from Azzollini's SS0708 collection. We filmed them performing a series of step aerobics routines and floor exercises such as bicycles and pelvic thrusts - a kind of horizontal version of The Time Warp from The Rocky Horror Picture Show's ballroom scene.
The clip is due to be screened at 5pm on May 2nd at the Dendy Cinema, Circular Quay, just around the harbour from Fashion Week's main Overseas Passenger Terminal location. It will feature a small live component with a few models in the collection, which also includes a stretch denim story, a tuxedo shirt-style maillot, some signature graphic prints - including a quirky take on the Redhead match print - and, surprisingly for Azzollini, a bit more cover than usual.
Azzollini is well-known not only for its intricately-cut maillots and bikinis but also for its sexed-up campaign images with models in hyperglamorous poses - such as last summer's campaign lensed by Troyt Coburn and featuring Australia's hottest new modeling export, Catherine McNeil (see above).
Although featured in the video, as is Leslie, 15 year-old Sydney model Tallulah Morton was not part of yesterday's 'gym' shoot and we are informed that she was not involved with any overly-provocative poses (as have been some other Azzollini models in campaigns past, notably Leslie).
On the differences between shooting a regular campaign and a four-minute video clip involving a cast and crew of 50, designer Michael Azzollini told Fashion Season, "I think I've bitten off more than I can chew!"
Original post and comments.
Azzollini and Nicholes have spent the past three days careering around a dozen locations in Sydney with eighteen models, 14 hair and makeup stylists, two choreographers, a muscle man, a contortionist and a 12-strong film crew from Sydney design and film collective Collider in tow.
The latter has been helmed by Don Cameron, a London-based Australian music video director who hails originally from the Blue Mountains and whose videography boasts work for headliners such as The Pet Shop Boys ('Minimal'), Garbage ('Androgyny'), Moloko ('Indigo') and Simply Red ('Sunrise'). Shot in various beach, harbourside and gym locations on a $29,000 shoestring budget - with undoubtedly tens of thousands of further dollars of favours pulled in from mates - the clip references Olivia Newton John's 1981 hit 'Let's Get Physical'.
We haven't seen the finished clip however given the calibre of Cameron's work - and connections - and Azzollini's knack for courting publicity, this could represent the brand's biggest break. In terms of international retail, they currently cite just Henri Bendel and Elizabeth Charles in the US, Lane Crawford Hong Kong and Figleaves in the UK as stockists. Fashion Season's was the only other video camera allowed on the shoot so stand by for an exclusive preview.
Yesterday Broadway's Pioneer Studios was awash with models kitted out in a sportif red, navy and white striped story from Azzollini's SS0708 collection. We filmed them performing a series of step aerobics routines and floor exercises such as bicycles and pelvic thrusts - a kind of horizontal version of The Time Warp from The Rocky Horror Picture Show's ballroom scene.
The clip is due to be screened at 5pm on May 2nd at the Dendy Cinema, Circular Quay, just around the harbour from Fashion Week's main Overseas Passenger Terminal location. It will feature a small live component with a few models in the collection, which also includes a stretch denim story, a tuxedo shirt-style maillot, some signature graphic prints - including a quirky take on the Redhead match print - and, surprisingly for Azzollini, a bit more cover than usual.
Azzollini is well-known not only for its intricately-cut maillots and bikinis but also for its sexed-up campaign images with models in hyperglamorous poses - such as last summer's campaign lensed by Troyt Coburn and featuring Australia's hottest new modeling export, Catherine McNeil (see above).
Although featured in the video, as is Leslie, 15 year-old Sydney model Tallulah Morton was not part of yesterday's 'gym' shoot and we are informed that she was not involved with any overly-provocative poses (as have been some other Azzollini models in campaigns past, notably Leslie).
On the differences between shooting a regular campaign and a four-minute video clip involving a cast and crew of 50, designer Michael Azzollini told Fashion Season, "I think I've bitten off more than I can chew!"
Original post and comments.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Sibling revelry: Fashion Week openers Camilla and Marc crack page one
Sydney's brother-and-sister fashion act Camilla and Marc Freeman are on a roll. First they scored the highly-coveted opening spot at Australian Fashion Week: 9am on Monday April 30th. And now they've made the cover of one of the world's most influential fashion publications: US fashion trade 'bible' Women's Wear Daily.
The Freemans are part of a double-page story inside Tuesday's edition about up-and-coming labels in the US market, from which their image was selected for page one - with their names, a brief backgrounder and stockist CV splashed all over same.
And while they are not the first antipodians to make WWD's cover - Collette Dinnigan was the first back in 1996, followed more recently by a handful of other names notably Josh Goot, Dinosaur Designs and Lover and Kiwis Trelise Cooper and Karen Walker - it's a pretty significant coup, not to mention a great leadin to their Fashion Week show.
"Marc and I are really excited that camilla and marc has made the cover of WWD, hopefully this is a positive sign of things to come for the label in the USA" Camilla Freeman told Fashion Season.
"We have also just confirmed [high profile UK- and now also US-based online retailer] net-a-porter.com as a stockist, which is great news as they are such a respected online store. All this good news has made the hard work involved in our RAFW show that much easier!"
I'm not going to pretend that was a first-hand quote.
You may get to hear from Alber Elbaz, Miuccia Prada, Marc Jacobs et al while Fashion Season is on the road but back in Sydney we have to make do with statements from twentysomething designers' publicists. Such is life. Australian designers are clearly busy bees these days. So much of the world to conquer, so little time.
But look, the Freemans have a charming, feminine signature, a great story and I wish them well. I mean come on, how many brother-and-sister fashion acts are there? Well OK, maybe Gianni and Donatella Versace and Christopher and Tammy Kane and then of course Rebecca Davies and her brother and Belinda Seper and her Joburg-based bro..... but that said, it's fairly unusual you have to admit. Camilla, 25, is a graduate of the Whitehouse Institute of Design and Marc, 27, has, I kid you not, an engineering degree from the University of NSW.
What else can I tell you? They will open Fashion Week down at the Sydney Theatre Company - using one long front row stretched along the STC boards between the Hickson Road entrance and the restaurant. The collection, in a muted palette, is described as "a strong collection of modern directional silhouettes paired back with feminine timeless fabrics".
Bring it on.
Patty Huntington is a contributor to Women's Wear Daily.
Original post and comments.
The Freemans are part of a double-page story inside Tuesday's edition about up-and-coming labels in the US market, from which their image was selected for page one - with their names, a brief backgrounder and stockist CV splashed all over same.
And while they are not the first antipodians to make WWD's cover - Collette Dinnigan was the first back in 1996, followed more recently by a handful of other names notably Josh Goot, Dinosaur Designs and Lover and Kiwis Trelise Cooper and Karen Walker - it's a pretty significant coup, not to mention a great leadin to their Fashion Week show.
"Marc and I are really excited that camilla and marc has made the cover of WWD, hopefully this is a positive sign of things to come for the label in the USA" Camilla Freeman told Fashion Season.
"We have also just confirmed [high profile UK- and now also US-based online retailer] net-a-porter.com as a stockist, which is great news as they are such a respected online store. All this good news has made the hard work involved in our RAFW show that much easier!"
I'm not going to pretend that was a first-hand quote.
You may get to hear from Alber Elbaz, Miuccia Prada, Marc Jacobs et al while Fashion Season is on the road but back in Sydney we have to make do with statements from twentysomething designers' publicists. Such is life. Australian designers are clearly busy bees these days. So much of the world to conquer, so little time.
But look, the Freemans have a charming, feminine signature, a great story and I wish them well. I mean come on, how many brother-and-sister fashion acts are there? Well OK, maybe Gianni and Donatella Versace and Christopher and Tammy Kane and then of course Rebecca Davies and her brother and Belinda Seper and her Joburg-based bro..... but that said, it's fairly unusual you have to admit. Camilla, 25, is a graduate of the Whitehouse Institute of Design and Marc, 27, has, I kid you not, an engineering degree from the University of NSW.
What else can I tell you? They will open Fashion Week down at the Sydney Theatre Company - using one long front row stretched along the STC boards between the Hickson Road entrance and the restaurant. The collection, in a muted palette, is described as "a strong collection of modern directional silhouettes paired back with feminine timeless fabrics".
Bring it on.
Patty Huntington is a contributor to Women's Wear Daily.
Original post and comments.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Not to put too Finetti a point on it: Fashion Week is upon us
Long time, no blog. But here we are some six weeks after the wrap of the northern hemisphere's AW0708 season only to find ourselves back in Sydney, staring SS0708 in the face. It's a scary thought. On it rolls however, the unstoppable fashion circus. The next destination is Australian Fashion Week, which runs April 30-May 4 at Sydney's Overseas Passenger Terminal.
Who's coming out? So far the most high-profile name mentioned is someone who is better-associated with no clothes at all: burlesque diva, MAC spokeswoman and the recently-estranged wife of Marilyn Manson, Dita Von Teese.
The whole event has, say organisers, been reconfigured so stay tuned to see what that looks like - hopefully a better deal for all those exhibitors who have been hitherto stuck upstairs at The Source trade show. Unlike Fashion Week's previous home Fox Studios, where the trade show was the central hub of the entire event - through which everyone had to pass to get to the runway venues - the configuration of the OPT has not so far endeared itself to the AFW exhibitors.
But I hear The Source is likely this year to be back down on the ground level. The one thing I can share with you right now is a preview of the draft schedule. Although subject to change (read pullouts - at 10 shows a day on most days I'm not sure how they would include many addons), this is not yet on the official website. As you can see, it's pretty jam-packed.
Monday 30 April
9am Camilla and Marc
11am Lisa Ho
12pm Cybele
1pm WRTW1: Dhini, Silence is Golden, Leonard St, High Tea with Mrs Woo, Showoff
3pm Anna Thomas
5pm WRTW2: Valerie Tolosa, Stephanie Cranford, Joveeba, Rachel Gilbert
7pm Melanie Cutfield
8pm Alex Perry
9pm Dita Von Teese & M.A.C
Tuesday 1 May
9am Kirrily Johnston
10am Zimmermann
11am WRTW3: Bec & Bridge, Maurie & Eve, Milk & Honey, Sewn
12pm LifeWithBird
2pm Jayson Brunsdon
3pm Tina Kalivas
4pm Zambesi
5pm sass & bide accessories
6pm Stephanie Conley
7pm Frisoni Finetti
8pm FashionAssassin
9pm Bowie
Wednesday 2 May
9am c & m - Camilla and Marc
10am WRTW4: Davis Eyes, United Constructions, The Cassette Society
11am Ginger & Smart
12pm Shakuhachi
2pm State of Georgia
3pm Fleur Wood
4pm MRTW/WRTW: Thousand Reasons, Trimapee, Vicious Threads, Xenheist
5pm Azzollini
7pm Arabella Ramsay
8pm Nicola Finetti
9pm Gail Sorronda
Thursday 3 May
9am Josh Goot
10am Fashion Design Studio, TAFE NSW - Sydney Institute
11am WRTW5: Annah Stretton, Brigid McLaughlin, Dev r Nil, Gavin Rajah
12pm Matthew Eager
1pm Alice McCall
2pm WRTW6: Melly, Constance and Violet, One Fell Swoop, Rahul & Firdos
4pm Jessie Hill
6pm Madame Marie
7pm Anna & Boy
8pm Ksubi
9pm Hallican Boodie
Friday 4 May
10am New Generation - Annie Who, Blanc + Delta, Amar, Gina Kim, Tu, George Wu
11am Lee Matthews
12pm Romance Was Born
1pm New Generation - Piper Lane, Artsu, Subfusco, Bam Bam, Kornered, Fischer von Meszlenyi
2pm Marnie Skillings
3pm Nevenka
8pm Alba Fan Club
So there you have it folks. Some good names - and a lot to see.
If you're wondering what the hell Frisoni Finetti is, it's the new menswear line that urban style snapper - and erstwhile Gretel Killeen stylist - Fernando Frisoni has done with Nicola Finetti. Interesting that it's not being just called Nicola Finetti Man or some such.
Can't speak for the new range as yet, but I have to say Finetti is looking great. He walked up to me in the middle of the Rue Saint Honore Miu Miu store in Paris last month and I did a double-take. Can't quite put my finger on it - he's been working out, changed his skincare regime, something.
Perhaps menswear is the new fountain of youth.
Original post and comments.
Who's coming out? So far the most high-profile name mentioned is someone who is better-associated with no clothes at all: burlesque diva, MAC spokeswoman and the recently-estranged wife of Marilyn Manson, Dita Von Teese.
The whole event has, say organisers, been reconfigured so stay tuned to see what that looks like - hopefully a better deal for all those exhibitors who have been hitherto stuck upstairs at The Source trade show. Unlike Fashion Week's previous home Fox Studios, where the trade show was the central hub of the entire event - through which everyone had to pass to get to the runway venues - the configuration of the OPT has not so far endeared itself to the AFW exhibitors.
But I hear The Source is likely this year to be back down on the ground level. The one thing I can share with you right now is a preview of the draft schedule. Although subject to change (read pullouts - at 10 shows a day on most days I'm not sure how they would include many addons), this is not yet on the official website. As you can see, it's pretty jam-packed.
Monday 30 April
9am Camilla and Marc
11am Lisa Ho
12pm Cybele
1pm WRTW1: Dhini, Silence is Golden, Leonard St, High Tea with Mrs Woo, Showoff
3pm Anna Thomas
5pm WRTW2: Valerie Tolosa, Stephanie Cranford, Joveeba, Rachel Gilbert
7pm Melanie Cutfield
8pm Alex Perry
9pm Dita Von Teese & M.A.C
Tuesday 1 May
9am Kirrily Johnston
10am Zimmermann
11am WRTW3: Bec & Bridge, Maurie & Eve, Milk & Honey, Sewn
12pm LifeWithBird
2pm Jayson Brunsdon
3pm Tina Kalivas
4pm Zambesi
5pm sass & bide accessories
6pm Stephanie Conley
7pm Frisoni Finetti
8pm FashionAssassin
9pm Bowie
Wednesday 2 May
9am c & m - Camilla and Marc
10am WRTW4: Davis Eyes, United Constructions, The Cassette Society
11am Ginger & Smart
12pm Shakuhachi
2pm State of Georgia
3pm Fleur Wood
4pm MRTW/WRTW: Thousand Reasons, Trimapee, Vicious Threads, Xenheist
5pm Azzollini
7pm Arabella Ramsay
8pm Nicola Finetti
9pm Gail Sorronda
Thursday 3 May
9am Josh Goot
10am Fashion Design Studio, TAFE NSW - Sydney Institute
11am WRTW5: Annah Stretton, Brigid McLaughlin, Dev r Nil, Gavin Rajah
12pm Matthew Eager
1pm Alice McCall
2pm WRTW6: Melly, Constance and Violet, One Fell Swoop, Rahul & Firdos
4pm Jessie Hill
6pm Madame Marie
7pm Anna & Boy
8pm Ksubi
9pm Hallican Boodie
Friday 4 May
10am New Generation - Annie Who, Blanc + Delta, Amar, Gina Kim, Tu, George Wu
11am Lee Matthews
12pm Romance Was Born
1pm New Generation - Piper Lane, Artsu, Subfusco, Bam Bam, Kornered, Fischer von Meszlenyi
2pm Marnie Skillings
3pm Nevenka
8pm Alba Fan Club
So there you have it folks. Some good names - and a lot to see.
If you're wondering what the hell Frisoni Finetti is, it's the new menswear line that urban style snapper - and erstwhile Gretel Killeen stylist - Fernando Frisoni has done with Nicola Finetti. Interesting that it's not being just called Nicola Finetti Man or some such.
Can't speak for the new range as yet, but I have to say Finetti is looking great. He walked up to me in the middle of the Rue Saint Honore Miu Miu store in Paris last month and I did a double-take. Can't quite put my finger on it - he's been working out, changed his skincare regime, something.
Perhaps menswear is the new fountain of youth.
Original post and comments.
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Two Americans, an Australian and an Israeli in Paris: giving the bold shoulder to FW0708
After Collette Dinnigan's triumphant return to the Parisian runways there was nothing else to do really, to cap off the season, than head for two French blockbusters: Louis Vuitton and Lanvin.
Louis Vuitton is the world's biggest luxury brand and parent LVMH likes to splash around the money. No Grand or Petit Palais this season, but a transparent, purpose-built marquee slap bang in the middle of the Louvre - in fact the original location of the French ready-to-wear shows, before the underground Carrousel du Louvre venue was constructed.
A luxe collection of slick, 40s-look tailleurs counterpointed against trapeze-line painter's smock-inspired blouses, dresses and coats, as well as a biker's jacket theme, many garments were made from futuristic, Wet Look rubber-infused or waxed fabrics. For evening, creative director Marc Jacobs stepped back into the fairyland of his spring/summer collections with more romantic pouf dresses, this time in pretty degrade colours. The entire collection was inspired by the paintings of Vermeer.
The degrade motif was also picked up in the handbags - where of course most of LV's money hails from - with plenty of the world-famous, and much-copied, LV monogram, in quilted and embossed leather with patent leather strips and raw sheepskin edging. Next winter is all about a patent leather or vinyl ankle boot - Vuitton's came in luxurious plastic-coated crocodile.
In a week virtually bereft of celebs - due, theorised many, to the timing of the Oscars - Jacobs managed to reel in the week's biggest name, LV's current advertising face, Scarlett Johansson.
En route backstage, and in spite of the best efforts of Johansson's security thug, I managed to throw a few questions her way:
What did you think of the collection?
Johansson: I thought it was gorgeous. I loved it. I loved all those beautiful dresses towards the end, they were very kind of whimsical and dreamy, the colours. So fabulous. And also like the really kind of crisp, white [shirt] with the slim pencil skirt.
Do you wear a lot of Louis Vuitton?
[cheeky] Well now I do.
You don't normally?
I said now I do! [laughs]
So we might be seeing you in some of those degrade pouf dresses? They were like fairy dresses.
They were, I loved it - the feathers and everything.
Although I didn't get a chance to talk to Jacobs on this occasion, two hours later I did grab another Marc: Australian interior designer Marc Newson. Spotted at Dinnigan's show earlier in the day, Newson was front and centre at Lanvin - together with girlfriend, and soon-to-be mother of his first child, UK stylist Charlotte Stockdale.
You live in Paris - or just have an apartment here?
Newson: No I live in London. I have a house here, I have an office in Paris, an office in London and I sort of go between both places a little bit. And everywhere else.
You've got your own clothing line haven't you? [G-Star]
Yeah I sort of dabble. It's not really fashion. I like to look at it as workwear.
The photos are amusing [the models have been photoshopped out of the shots]. Model are getting skinner and skinner, they may as well not be there.
Yeah well exactly. They're just getting so skinny - this is a sort of anti-anorexia campaign. But my involvement in the fashion industry is pretty miniscule really.
So why are you here?
Well because they're just... friends. Charlotte, my girlfriend, she's an editor and stylist so she's there. And my buddy .... is the head of Lanvin and I'm good friends with Stefano, who's the designer of YSL.
So what do you think about the nexus between fashion and design - or at least to interior design?
Look for me it's not so much about fashion and design, it's contemporary culture. And as a designer I think that's it's very very important for someone like me to be aware of, you know, as many aspects of contemporary fashion as possible. Music, film, fashion... I mean it all influences our lives in one way or another and you know, regardless of what I think about the fashion industry and the fashion world it has to be a part of what we do. And I don't think it is actually to a great degree.
Really?
Well no, I don't think most designers are very successful at ... at assimilating fashion into their kind of world. I don't do it in a conscious way. I don't do it in a very obvious way either. I just think it's important to know who Alber Elbaz is. And I don't think a lot of architects or industrial designers have a clue. I'm certain of it.
Someone once said that at any one time there will only ever be five truly influential fashion designers - if that.
He's definitely one of them. I mean I think always, you've got to look towards someone like Azzedine Alaia. We're great friends and he's a collector of my stuff and we see each other a lot and I find him a wonderful source of inspiration. And he's firmly entrenched in fashion. He is kind of fashion. He's I think as good as it gets here really.
Apart from talent obviously, what do you think it is that differentiates those at the cutting edge from those who are just behind the cutting edge - in any sphere of design?
It's very, very hard to say really. I mean it's got to be luck, but then as they say the harder you work, the luckier you get.
But it's not just luck.
Being in the right place at the right time. Being tenacious.
Going out on a limb?
That goes without saying. I mean there's just no way you'll get anywhere if you remain in mediocrity, if you live in that space.
Have you been surprised by your own success?
Sometimes it surprises me but to be really honest I can't really see the wood for the trees. I'm so sort of immersed in what I do that I don't often step out to take a look at where I am or what's happening around me. You know I'm still surprised - if people recognise me I mean it always com es as a huge shock. I'm always taken aback.
Do you think breaking through internationally is any harder for creative people who come from Australia?
No I don't think so. But if it is hard in some ways then it's got to be easier in others so it all sort of evens out in the end. I'm always asked that question about Australia - what it is to be Australian in the design world or at least to be in a creative industry. For me it just doesn't really mean anything. Because I'm Australian, that's for sure, but I work everywhere. I work in every country. Well maybe not every country but I work all over Asia, in the US, in Europe...
You probably live on a plane.
Yeah I spend a lot of time on planes.
At least you've got your own bed that you've designed [Qantas Skybed]
It does come in handy.
So what are you working on at the moment?
Still an enormous amount of work for Qantas in fact. We've just designed the lounges actually. We're just finishing the first class lounge in Sydney and Melbourne. And I'm coming out in May to launch those. They're not just lounges actually. The one in Sydney's a building in fact. We've effectively built a building on top of the airport. Noone else in the aviation industry is doing anything remotely like what Qantas are doing.
So is it 2001 A Space Odyssey?
Yeah pretty much. Absolutely. It's a bit of that, it's a bit of the old TWA terminal in JFK. But it's an extraordinary building. You won't be able to see it from the moon but it's the first thing you'll see when you land.
But you have to be rich to experience it.
Yeah... kind of. You don't have to be that rich. But you know a lot of other people can get access.
What do you think about the idea of design only being available to a privileged few - as opposed to the masses?
Well we start there. You know and it kind of trickles down. First class is the loss leader I think. I'm talking more metaphorically. We start there and it does trickle down. I'm doing a lot of economy class stuff. In fact I've spent the majority of my time doing more mass-produced things in economy. But it has to start at the top somehow for me. That's where you have an opportunity to kind of put your money where your mouth is and really put your stamp on a concept, or a branding concept. It's much easier to do it there.
And so to Lanvin, at which many of us decided to call it quits. There were two shows afterwards, including the as per usual ludicrously exclusive presentation of Prada's Miu Miu diffusion label.
Set against a brooding industrial backdrop of mirrors and metal scaffolding - and two flights of stairs that the models, all wearing graphic short black bob wigs, had to carefully negotiate in their skyscraper heels en route to the runway - Lanvin creative director Alber Elbaz presented a collection that was at once tough, and romantic.
Groaning in waistless smock dresses and coats with exaggerated, puffed sleeves in Elbaz's signature colours of purple and red - this time far brighter violet and fire engine hues, the collection also notably boasted myriad versions of the season's omnipresent sleeveless, fitted shell dress with a simple rounded collar. Simple and straightforward at the front however, Elbaz's shell dresses then cascaded in ruffles and volume at the back.
I spoke to Elbaz briefly after the show:
You showed many versions of a sleeveless, fitted dress - which in a way has been the defining silhouette of the season. What is it about that dress?
Elbaz: Maybe it's the fact of believing in a thing that has to be a bit more simple. Maybe life is complicated enough. One time I asked myself, what would happen if I was a skinny man? Would I design differently? And I think it's the fact that I'm not in that group of skinny people make the whole lightness a fantasy for me. So I'm trying to do everything light and simple, which is everything I'm not.
You were talking before [in other interviews] about the exaggerated sleeves of the dresses - and about shoulders being about power, while arms are about strength. This season there have been a lot of 'strong' women on the runways - 'tough chic' has been a key theme. Your setting was also quite 'tough'. Why do you think designers want women to look strong?
I believe that men are powerful and women are strong. If you have a million dollars in the bank, you are powerful. But if your child tells you 'I love you', you are strong. I think it's hard being a woman. I am surrounded by women. Almost all the people that I work with are women. And you know what, it's much more difficult these days to be a woman than to be a man. What is right and what is wrong? Is it about more being a good mother or is it about being professional? And what is professional? I think that all these kind of rules that women have, that they have to be perfect, they have to be beautiful, they cannot look old anymore, there is no age. They all have to be skinny, they have to be great wives, they have to be great mothers, they have to be great daughters.... So there is a lot that women are doing today that men are not and that's why, we as designers, we can help there. Maybe.
Original post and comments.
Louis Vuitton is the world's biggest luxury brand and parent LVMH likes to splash around the money. No Grand or Petit Palais this season, but a transparent, purpose-built marquee slap bang in the middle of the Louvre - in fact the original location of the French ready-to-wear shows, before the underground Carrousel du Louvre venue was constructed.
A luxe collection of slick, 40s-look tailleurs counterpointed against trapeze-line painter's smock-inspired blouses, dresses and coats, as well as a biker's jacket theme, many garments were made from futuristic, Wet Look rubber-infused or waxed fabrics. For evening, creative director Marc Jacobs stepped back into the fairyland of his spring/summer collections with more romantic pouf dresses, this time in pretty degrade colours. The entire collection was inspired by the paintings of Vermeer.
The degrade motif was also picked up in the handbags - where of course most of LV's money hails from - with plenty of the world-famous, and much-copied, LV monogram, in quilted and embossed leather with patent leather strips and raw sheepskin edging. Next winter is all about a patent leather or vinyl ankle boot - Vuitton's came in luxurious plastic-coated crocodile.
In a week virtually bereft of celebs - due, theorised many, to the timing of the Oscars - Jacobs managed to reel in the week's biggest name, LV's current advertising face, Scarlett Johansson.
En route backstage, and in spite of the best efforts of Johansson's security thug, I managed to throw a few questions her way:
What did you think of the collection?
Johansson: I thought it was gorgeous. I loved it. I loved all those beautiful dresses towards the end, they were very kind of whimsical and dreamy, the colours. So fabulous. And also like the really kind of crisp, white [shirt] with the slim pencil skirt.
Do you wear a lot of Louis Vuitton?
[cheeky] Well now I do.
You don't normally?
I said now I do! [laughs]
So we might be seeing you in some of those degrade pouf dresses? They were like fairy dresses.
They were, I loved it - the feathers and everything.
Although I didn't get a chance to talk to Jacobs on this occasion, two hours later I did grab another Marc: Australian interior designer Marc Newson. Spotted at Dinnigan's show earlier in the day, Newson was front and centre at Lanvin - together with girlfriend, and soon-to-be mother of his first child, UK stylist Charlotte Stockdale.
You live in Paris - or just have an apartment here?
Newson: No I live in London. I have a house here, I have an office in Paris, an office in London and I sort of go between both places a little bit. And everywhere else.
You've got your own clothing line haven't you? [G-Star]
Yeah I sort of dabble. It's not really fashion. I like to look at it as workwear.
The photos are amusing [the models have been photoshopped out of the shots]. Model are getting skinner and skinner, they may as well not be there.
Yeah well exactly. They're just getting so skinny - this is a sort of anti-anorexia campaign. But my involvement in the fashion industry is pretty miniscule really.
So why are you here?
Well because they're just... friends. Charlotte, my girlfriend, she's an editor and stylist so she's there. And my buddy .... is the head of Lanvin and I'm good friends with Stefano, who's the designer of YSL.
So what do you think about the nexus between fashion and design - or at least to interior design?
Look for me it's not so much about fashion and design, it's contemporary culture. And as a designer I think that's it's very very important for someone like me to be aware of, you know, as many aspects of contemporary fashion as possible. Music, film, fashion... I mean it all influences our lives in one way or another and you know, regardless of what I think about the fashion industry and the fashion world it has to be a part of what we do. And I don't think it is actually to a great degree.
Really?
Well no, I don't think most designers are very successful at ... at assimilating fashion into their kind of world. I don't do it in a conscious way. I don't do it in a very obvious way either. I just think it's important to know who Alber Elbaz is. And I don't think a lot of architects or industrial designers have a clue. I'm certain of it.
Someone once said that at any one time there will only ever be five truly influential fashion designers - if that.
He's definitely one of them. I mean I think always, you've got to look towards someone like Azzedine Alaia. We're great friends and he's a collector of my stuff and we see each other a lot and I find him a wonderful source of inspiration. And he's firmly entrenched in fashion. He is kind of fashion. He's I think as good as it gets here really.
Apart from talent obviously, what do you think it is that differentiates those at the cutting edge from those who are just behind the cutting edge - in any sphere of design?
It's very, very hard to say really. I mean it's got to be luck, but then as they say the harder you work, the luckier you get.
But it's not just luck.
Being in the right place at the right time. Being tenacious.
Going out on a limb?
That goes without saying. I mean there's just no way you'll get anywhere if you remain in mediocrity, if you live in that space.
Have you been surprised by your own success?
Sometimes it surprises me but to be really honest I can't really see the wood for the trees. I'm so sort of immersed in what I do that I don't often step out to take a look at where I am or what's happening around me. You know I'm still surprised - if people recognise me I mean it always com es as a huge shock. I'm always taken aback.
Do you think breaking through internationally is any harder for creative people who come from Australia?
No I don't think so. But if it is hard in some ways then it's got to be easier in others so it all sort of evens out in the end. I'm always asked that question about Australia - what it is to be Australian in the design world or at least to be in a creative industry. For me it just doesn't really mean anything. Because I'm Australian, that's for sure, but I work everywhere. I work in every country. Well maybe not every country but I work all over Asia, in the US, in Europe...
You probably live on a plane.
Yeah I spend a lot of time on planes.
At least you've got your own bed that you've designed [Qantas Skybed]
It does come in handy.
So what are you working on at the moment?
Still an enormous amount of work for Qantas in fact. We've just designed the lounges actually. We're just finishing the first class lounge in Sydney and Melbourne. And I'm coming out in May to launch those. They're not just lounges actually. The one in Sydney's a building in fact. We've effectively built a building on top of the airport. Noone else in the aviation industry is doing anything remotely like what Qantas are doing.
So is it 2001 A Space Odyssey?
Yeah pretty much. Absolutely. It's a bit of that, it's a bit of the old TWA terminal in JFK. But it's an extraordinary building. You won't be able to see it from the moon but it's the first thing you'll see when you land.
But you have to be rich to experience it.
Yeah... kind of. You don't have to be that rich. But you know a lot of other people can get access.
What do you think about the idea of design only being available to a privileged few - as opposed to the masses?
Well we start there. You know and it kind of trickles down. First class is the loss leader I think. I'm talking more metaphorically. We start there and it does trickle down. I'm doing a lot of economy class stuff. In fact I've spent the majority of my time doing more mass-produced things in economy. But it has to start at the top somehow for me. That's where you have an opportunity to kind of put your money where your mouth is and really put your stamp on a concept, or a branding concept. It's much easier to do it there.
And so to Lanvin, at which many of us decided to call it quits. There were two shows afterwards, including the as per usual ludicrously exclusive presentation of Prada's Miu Miu diffusion label.
Set against a brooding industrial backdrop of mirrors and metal scaffolding - and two flights of stairs that the models, all wearing graphic short black bob wigs, had to carefully negotiate in their skyscraper heels en route to the runway - Lanvin creative director Alber Elbaz presented a collection that was at once tough, and romantic.
Groaning in waistless smock dresses and coats with exaggerated, puffed sleeves in Elbaz's signature colours of purple and red - this time far brighter violet and fire engine hues, the collection also notably boasted myriad versions of the season's omnipresent sleeveless, fitted shell dress with a simple rounded collar. Simple and straightforward at the front however, Elbaz's shell dresses then cascaded in ruffles and volume at the back.
I spoke to Elbaz briefly after the show:
You showed many versions of a sleeveless, fitted dress - which in a way has been the defining silhouette of the season. What is it about that dress?
Elbaz: Maybe it's the fact of believing in a thing that has to be a bit more simple. Maybe life is complicated enough. One time I asked myself, what would happen if I was a skinny man? Would I design differently? And I think it's the fact that I'm not in that group of skinny people make the whole lightness a fantasy for me. So I'm trying to do everything light and simple, which is everything I'm not.
You were talking before [in other interviews] about the exaggerated sleeves of the dresses - and about shoulders being about power, while arms are about strength. This season there have been a lot of 'strong' women on the runways - 'tough chic' has been a key theme. Your setting was also quite 'tough'. Why do you think designers want women to look strong?
I believe that men are powerful and women are strong. If you have a million dollars in the bank, you are powerful. But if your child tells you 'I love you', you are strong. I think it's hard being a woman. I am surrounded by women. Almost all the people that I work with are women. And you know what, it's much more difficult these days to be a woman than to be a man. What is right and what is wrong? Is it about more being a good mother or is it about being professional? And what is professional? I think that all these kind of rules that women have, that they have to be perfect, they have to be beautiful, they cannot look old anymore, there is no age. They all have to be skinny, they have to be great wives, they have to be great mothers, they have to be great daughters.... So there is a lot that women are doing today that men are not and that's why, we as designers, we can help there. Maybe.
Original post and comments.
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