Thurley's butterfly effect

Deadlines kept me away from Thurley's Spring/Summer 2010/2011 runway show last night at a gracious old home in Sydney's Woollahra. But a few backstage shots were slipped frockwriter's way. The four year-old cocktail and eveningwear line is designed by Helen O'Connor, who has earned comparisons with Collette Dinnigan - much to the latter's chagrin. The new collection is called 'The Butterfly Effect' and the show featured all Chic Management girls, including Samantha Harris, Meg Lindsay, Hannah Saul and Emma Norris. Styling was by Jolyon Mason, with Jon Pulitano for Redken on hair, makeup by Amanda Reardon and shoes by Camilla Skovgaard - the real Camilla Skovgaard, that is and not one of numerous Australian mid market manufacturers who are knocking her off.








all photos: courtesy golightly pr

The models of RAFW

Frockwriter profiled some of the designers and a few of the bloggers of Rosemount Australian Fashion Week, but what about the models? Sadly we ran out of time in the leadup and our planned RAFW newbies post remained unfinished in story drafts. But we did photograph quite a few models as we went along, in our Twitter/Posterous feed and show photo galleries (which have also, conveniently, been archived on Facebook – thanks Posterous). But we also wanted to check with each of the major Sydney agencies to see which of their models were the busiest at the event. Some of their nominated newbies were included. Of course there were many, many other models who worked during the week and it’s not necessarily about who pulled the most shows. There was in fact an exceptionally strong cross-section of Australian model experience on RAFW's runways this season. As distinct from runway diversity, which Australian designers - like their New Zealand counterparts - have yet to fully embrace, with Asian and black models still fighting hard for visibility above the bevy of über-popular blondes and Europeans. "It's like they'll only use a black girl if there's a tribal theme to the collection" noted one observer.