Skeleton key

File this under impromptu frockwriter styling. During Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia earlier this month, we were shooting backstage at the menswear group show and couldn't help but do a double take as we walked past Jesus lookalike model Butch Dean being kitted out in a rather spectacular piece of body jewellery. A stainless steel exoskeleton to be precise, or so we christened it, designed by Perth jeweller Alister Yiap and deployed by another Perth-ite, Zsadar designer Shane Newton, to spruce up Newton's segment of the show. We took a shot of Dean - but not before asking for the piece to be turned around backwards, so as to best highlight the design, which is far more discreet from the front (both versions, below). Posted simultaneously on frockwriter LIVE, frockwriter's Facebook and our pop-up MBFWA live blog UNCUT, the shot proved the most popular of all the images we took at MBFWA. Among its fans was Michael Christofis - the Sydney-based designer behind mens' swim- and underwear brand The Navy Diver. So enamoured was Christofis of Yiap's creation, he immediately contacted Yiap and has since used the piece in every single shot of a new promotional series for The Navy Diver starring model Benjamin Gellie. And yes, it's worn backwards.

Paul de Gelder: Navy diver, shark attack survivor, smoking hot swimwear model

silke stuckenbrock/the navy diver

 

Aimee Mullins meet Paul de Gelder. Much has been written – and broadcast - about de Gelder’s near brush with death on February 11, 2009, when the then 31 year-old Royal Australian Navy clearance diver and former paratrooper and East Timor peacekeeper came face-to-face with a three metre bull shark, which savaged his right hand and leg. A double amputation, extensive rehabilitation and two years later, de Gelder is back at work as a Royal Australian Navy diver trainer, with several brand new spinoff careers, including motivational speaker and conservationist, who has called on the United Nations to protect sharks from over fishing. Earlier this year he also became a published author, with the release of No time for fear: How a shark attack survivor beat the odds. But de Gelder has another new career that’s a little less well-documented: fashion model. To be precise, underwear and swimwear model for new Sydney-based brand The Navy Diver.