Merry Christmas from Frockwriter

melise williams, charlie brown AW13 backstage, auckland, september 2012 

Just a quick one to say Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of frockwriter's readers. It's been a bit of a watershed year for this blog – one during which, as many know, we took the controversial step of introducing a metered paywall. Oops. Unable to support ourselves through advertising alone and disinclined to accept potentially lucrative brand ambassadorships, sponsored posts and a raft of other commercial tie-ins from the industry on which we report - because of ethics considerations and genuine conflicts of interest - we assumed readers who value the blog for its independence would support it. Some have and a massive shoutout to our subscribers. Your support is truly appreciated - especially considering how flipping easy it has been for all those pesky freehadists (yes there's a term for you now) to defeat the paywall. In their thousands. I now have access to frockwriter's subscriber list and have been overwhelmed to learn just who these supporters are. So thank you!

Onya Anja

solve sundsbo for muse magazine fall 2010/touch puppet

Where didn’t frockwriter's interview with world number 3 Anja Rubik go last week? From New York Magazine’s The Cut to The Huffington Post to Vogue UK, Grazia UK and Elle US...not counting a score of other blogs, we lost track in the end (and thanks to Next Management's Stephen Lee for the hookup). Not surprisingly, everyone seized on Rubik’s revelation that she turned down Terry Richardson’s 2010 Pirelli calendar because she was uncomfortable with his aesthetic – which in her own words, borders on “vulgar”. It was a great kickoff to the New Year for this blog, as it rapidly approaches the one million visitor mark. On Monday 3rd January, we were extremely honoured to be featured on the website of hot New York-based Nepalese designer Prabal Gurung, as part of his blogger series (which has previously profiled The Cut’s Amy Odell, Fashion Toast’s Rumi Neely, Nylon’s Faran Krentcil, Fashionista’s Lauren Sherman and Papermag’s Alyssa Vingan). Then on Friday, frockwriter was blog of the week on new UK online magazine Motilo. Many thanks for thinking of us. Rubik, FYI, capped off a week's work in the outback with Vogue Australia with a big bucks shoot for a Polish jewellery brand up at Sydney's Palm Beach over the weekend our sources report. 

London Fashion Week, New Zealand Fashion Week - and a sneak peek at World Autumn/Winter 2011

 

Another day, another Fashion Week. Yes, New York Fashion Week wraps today, giving the most gung-ho fashionistas/os the chance to hop the red eye to London for tomorrow’s kickoff of London Fashion Week, which runs September 17-22. Here is the British Fashion Council schedule, with some collections at Somerset House and others off-site. Here is the digital schedule of shows to be live streamed. And here is the On/Off schedule (an off-schedule event staged in Bloomsbury). Vis-à-vis Australians, jewellery designer Jordan Askill will present a film on Friday 17th at 15.00, with sass & bide showing at 17.45 that day and UK-based Richard Nicoll and Antipodium showing on Sunday 19th at 19.30 and Tuesday 21st at 09.30 respectively. While LFW is in full swing, New Zealand Fashion Week will kick off in Auckland (September 21-25). Frockwriter will be attending for the second time as the guest of the organisers. Click here for the NZFW schedule, which includes Zambesi, Nom*D, Karen Walker, Trelise Cooper and World, with New York’s Nicole Miller this year’s international ringin. What’s Miller doing downunder?

Auto (model) portraits

Interesting developments in model blogger land. Since frockwriter launched a year ago we have looked at quite a few model blogs, ranging from the fun, to the ballsy, to the erudite, and not forgetting the mysterious. But while many model bloggers tend to adopt a photo reportage style, using either professionally-taken shots of themselves, or snapping self portraits on the job or while clowning around, a new breed of model blogger is emerging, styling their own fashion shoots. This is an offshoot of course of the wider street style blog phenom in which the authors don’t capture random street looks, but shots of their own outfits. Fashion Toast's photogenic Rumi Neely (who is heading to next month's Air New Zealand Fashion Week) is probably the greatest exponent of the latter. Interestingly, Neely has now been signed to New York's Next Models. With their on-camera experience, professional models add an additional dimension to this. Priscillas’ Blake Lively-lookalike Zanita Whittington (see below), who has been blogging since November, introduced herself backstage at Jayson Brunsdon last week, camera in hand. Then there is Alexandra Spencer from Next's Australian affiliate Chic Management, who could wind up being the agency's next breakout star - without having ever set foot on an international runway.

The 20 year-old Sydneysider has been modelling for one year and has booked jobs including Vogue, Harpers Bazaar, Oyster, Bec & Bridge, JAG, Jeans West, General Pants and Wrangler.

At 5'8" she is, frockwriter understands, considered a little too petite for the runway, which goes some way to explain why we have not seen her on the catwalks of David Jones, Myer or RAFW etc.

With self-timer in hand however and a great sense of style, involving some hand-made and/or customised garments - and a propensity to sex it up - Spencer has been creating quite the stir with her edgy rock/surf chick auto portraits on the four-month old blog 4th and Bleeker. (That's if the photos are in fact genuine self-portraits. The quality seems suspiciously professional - ditto the blog's use of typography).

The blog is rapidly garnering coverage, including mini profiles on Igor + Andre, Refinery 29 and style.com.

Spencer, who hails from the northern beaches suburb of Warriewood, mixes in interesting surf circles - she is currently dating former pro surfer Nathan ‘Noodles’ Webster, the Australian licensee of US skate/surf brand RVCA.













1-5 alexandra spencer via 4th and bleeker
6-9 zanita whittington via zanita