Chesty Bond market

Australian women were all over this week’s haute couture runways in Paris - playing tag team, in fact, with their male counterparts, who wrapped up the Spring/Summer 2013 ready-to-wear menswear season in the City of Light last Sunday. Aussie male models continued their assault on the menswear market, with at least nine names nabbing blue chip shows in London, Milan and Paris. Leading the pack, once again, was Brisbane’s Angus Low who walked in 16 shows, with fellow Brisbanite, Joel Meacock and Byron Bay’s Kye D’Arcy, hot on Low’s heels.

Frankie goes to fashionwood

givenchy SS10/wwd.com

Jethro Cave might have an edgy look, a famous dad and good connections, not to mention a Gumby earring. But the real dark horse of the Australian mens modelling scene was, as it turns out, right under our nose whilst reporting on the recent menswear season. Meet Frankie Elliss-Galati. The 19 year-old Gold Coaster was discovered by Sydney-based photographer Chris Ferguson in a Brisbane sushi bar in January. After booking jobs for Vogue Australia and Bisonte, among others, he headed to the mens Spring/Summer 2010 shows in Europe. In his first international season he walked for names including Christian Dior Homme, Givenchy, Thierry Mugler, Gucci, Roberto Cavalli, Calvin Klein, Trussardi and Tim Hamilton (which he closed) - a feat noted by models.com, which included him on its Top 10 Men’s New Faces for SS10. Not that anyone thus far appears to have been aware of his nationality.

Although repped in Australia by Viviens, Elliss-Galati's mother agent is in fact LA-based Australian Patrick Corcoran, who, like Ferguson, is a former Chic Management booker.

At Givenchy (above), Elliss-Galati got to wear one of the more extreme studded pieces which were inspired by the proposed collaboration between Givenchy creative director Riccardo Tisci and the late Michael Jackson, for Jackson's O2 Centre concerts in London. Tisci was reportedly due to meet with Jackson about the costumes on Monday 29th June, obviously an appointment that Jackson never made.



christian dior homme SS10 (top); robert cavalli SS10/wwd.com

Where the Bisonte roam

No sign of Rachel Rutt at last week's haute couture shows in Paris. But frockwriter hears the upwardly-mobile Chic-ette is biding her time until the Spring/Summer 2010 season, which is just around the corner. Meanwhile, Rutt’s latest Australian work is about to hit: the very first advertising campaign for Australian luxury leathergoods brand Bisonte, which has just added a Chatswood store to its three store lineup in Sydney and Melbourne (with a fifth store, in Sydney's CBD, to open early 2010). The images will go into all Bisonte stores on August 1st and also a leather-bound look book. Shot by Chris Ferguson, the campaign (see below) also features Ruby Grose, Max Panichetti, Adrian Africa (Priscillas), Avril Alexander, Frankie Elliss-Galati (Viviens) and Chadwicks’ Georgie Wass – who we caught up with on live-streamed video at RAFW in May.
















all images: bisonte