Michelle Leslie used to be behind bars. Now she's designing them

sportsgirl melbourne launch 2008/zimbio

Frockwriter was interested to spot a recent series of Tweets from Michelle Leslie, who reports that on November 12, the doors opened to a new Sydney bar whose interiors she has designed: The Winking Lizard at 28 Chalmers Street, Surry Hills (below). With its stark refectory tables, old metal chairs and murals by Sydney artist Ben Frost, the ambiance is, according to Leslie, “industrial and distressed”. To our eye, it's a little Left Bank bohemian - not to be at all confused, of course, with Third World prison common room. Leslie has more than a passing acquaintance with the latter, having spent three months in Bali’s notorious Kerobokan Prison in 2005 following her arrest in the possession of two ecstasy tablets. Five years on from her annus horribilis, the former model has reinvented herself as a creative consultant. With interior design studies under her belt from the Sydney Design School - and entertainment/marketing industry work with Peer Group Media, the company founded by her fiance Adam Zammit - Leslie has launched her own interior design and styling business called Curious & The Specimen. This follows a first foray into design with the Miyow & Barkley pet clothing and accessories line, launched in 2007 with friend Traci Griffith, the first range of which reportedly sold out. 

Booked: Museyon's 'City Style' taps Sydney as a global fashion capital

Mitchell Oakley Smith isn’t the only Australian getting published by an international imprint. Paul Bui, former editor of Australia's longest-surviving indie fashion magazine, Oyster, now working as a freelance stylist and writer, has penned the Sydney chapter of the upcoming City Style: A Field Guide to Global Fashion Capitals. The book is being published in October by New York-based Museyon Guides, which commissioned hipsters in eight cities to write about their local haunts, hotspots and fashion creatives. Bui joins Tokyo-based Brit Dan Bailey from the Tokyo Dandy blog and New York-based Laia Garcia from Geometric Sleep and writers in Milan, London, Paris, LA and Stockholm. Designers profiled include Rad Hourani, Danielle Scutt and Australia’s Kit Willow. Interesting to see Sydney make the global fashion cities cut yet again, after popping up in the top 10 Fashion Capitals list published by Texas-based Global Language Monitor in both 2008 and 2009 (with the launch of the 2010 list imminent). 

The Gap is opening this month in Australia - it's just not sure where

American retail juggernaut The Gap is leading the fast fashion charge to Australia, opening its first store downunder this month. Spain's Zara is also en route, ditto Japan’s Uniqlo. But is the first Gap store due to open in Melbourne, as advertised - or Sydney? Looking at The Gap’s website (screen cap above - click to enlarge; tks to Guy Willis for the tip), you’d be forgiven for thinking the company hasn’t got a blinking clue which city is which. Behind the “Melbourne” sign on the left are three Sydney icons: the Opera House, Centrepoint Tower and what appears to be Aussie Stadium. Behind the "Sydney" sign on the right are three Melbourne icons: a green tram, the Arts Centre spire and what looks very much like the Docklands. To Gap’s credit it did get the correct Luna Park – that’s Melbourne's version on the left. And that appears to be a sliver of Melbourne's Flinders Street Station behind that. Unless, of course, it’s Sydney’s Queen Victoria Building. Could The Gap please sort itself out stat. We’re pretty laid back, us Aussies, but there is a minor difference of 1160kms between the two cities.

The Silence of the Birkins

kent vaughan

Who killed Bambi and Basil Brush? Hermès did! But here’s the good news: the august luxury leathergoods house is trying to bring them and their critter buddies back to life using the powers of visual merchandising. The flash new front window display in Hermès’ flagship Australian store, on the corner of Elizabeth and Market Streets, boasts a kind of Re-animator theme. According to Hermès' VM head Nicole Morgan – who also doubles as the company's Oz PR – the windows depict a mad scientist mixing fragrances in his laboratory in a bid to resuscitate a series of stuffed animals. The Boyac-wallpapered cabinet of curiosities showcases several deer, a warthog, wallaby, buffalo, horse, zebra, eagle and a grey squirrel – which looks to be relieving himself on a vintage Kelly bag.

Not everyone is going to like the contents of these windows, but in frockwriter's opinion, if other Sydney retailers demonstrated half of Hermès’ imagination and initiative with their visual merchandising, we’d have a much more vibrant retail landscape.

Like many other luxury leathergoods houses, Hermès uses leather, fur and exotic skins to make its products. Among the items showcased are a crocodile skin clutch and a deerskin cap hanging adjacent to the warthog (frankly, frockwriter thinks the warthog should be wearing it.)

However Morgan did not seem concerned that in flaunting dead animals in its front windows, the company is rubbing the issue in the face of the animal rights lobby.

Morgan insists that all the taxidermy featured is either antique or else sourced from roadkill, via either eBay, Sydney antique dealer Hunters & Collectors or the Macleay Museum at Sydney University. The only sacrifices made for the window, revealed Morgan, are two Hermès Click Clack ‘H’ bracelets that have been permanently glued to a pair of glass beakers by way of clear resin, as props in the scientist’s lab.

"They're not coming back" she noted.

But the display's humans don’t get off too lightly.

The scientist himself appears to be suffering from overexposure to his chemical cocktail and has wasted away to the fashion industry’s ideal body type – an actual skeleton. There is also another small skull in one inset window.

And adding moreover to the Silence of the Lambs/Buffalo Bill vibe, one window features the legs of a dismembered, kilt-clad female mannequin climbing a step ladder into an imaginary attic.

Frockwriter is bitterly disappointed that we missed Morgan’s last Gothic horror VM masterpiece.

With a ‘Murder at midnight’ theme, those windows, according to Morgan, told the story of a woman who – we kid you not - tried to blackmail, poison and then ultimately stab to death an old woman, to procure the funds to buy a Kelly bag.

Most of the violence was implied, says Morgan, but the mannequin did hold a pair of bloodied scissors in its hands in the final tableau.

Sales of handbags have helped both Hermès and luxury juggernaut LVMH weather the economic downturn better than some of their competitors (even if the current climate has just prompted Hermès to cancel plans to open two new stores in China). Last week, Christian Lacroix filed for bankruptcy.

For 2008, Hermès reported sales of 1,764.6 million euros, up 10.2percent on 2007. Sales for the first quarter of 2009 grew 3.2percent to 428.4million euros - with first quarter sales in Asia outside Japan up 25.7percent up on the same period last year, to 99.4million euros.

Helping keep those cash registers ringing are the insatiable luxury appetites - and apparently bottomless wallets - of super-rich clients such as Victoria Beckham. Beckham reportedly owns a collection of 100 Hermès Birkin bags, worth an estimated £1.5million.

Prices in the Sydney store start at $40 for a soap and $130 for a fragrance. The brand’s iconic Kelly and Birkin handbags start at $9,000 and $12,000 respectively.

The Sydney store once sold a $200,000 diamond-encrusted Birkin reports Morgan.













all photos: kent vaughan

Sydney: Finally relevant to someone

jayson brunsdon SS0809 show, may 2/getty

Those with WWD subscriptions may have already seen my Letter From Sydney on Thursday. Letters From… is a running series that is distinct from WWD’s regular global fashion news coverage in that the reports focus specifically on the cities themselves, looking at growth, real estate, vital stats and of course fashion developments. Here are some interview outtakes from a couple of key local players which did not make it into the story due to space restrictions.


Philip Corne, CEO Oceania, Louis Vuitton (the world’s biggest luxury brand)

On the Australian LV customer:

“I think the Australian consumer sits somewhere for me between London and New York. In terms of the way they shop. We’re part of Asia geographically, but I think shopping in Asia is a recreational activity, whereas in Australia it’s not quite the same. We shop with a purpose I would say, if I could put it that way”.

On where to take the guys from head office when they’re in town:

“The thing that we find impresses, and you can kind of roll a lot of things about Sydney into one, is those great restaurants around the harbour. And we find somewhere like Guilluame at Bennelong or Quay restaurant, if you’re there and you’re looking out over the harbour and you’re experiencing that level of service, that level of food and that level of wine….. For the French, who love their food and wine, to be able to do that and look out over Sydney Harbour, they’re gobsmacked”.

On the long haul factor:

“The day they [jets] get faster I think will be the day that travel to Australia will change dramatically. [It needs to be] Twice as fast. I think that the Americans can handle going to Europe and the Europeans can handle going to America, but it’s once you start to get into 24 hours they go, ‘You’ve got to be joking’. For me I just turn my brain into solid neutral and try not to think about anything, because it’s too hard”.

Robert Jordan, managing director Australia and New Zealand, Westfield Group (the world’s largest listed real estate property group by market equity capitalisation)

On the city of Sydney – and Australian retail culture:

“I think it’s naturally one of the most beautiful cities in the world. But as a retail location, I think the Australian culture of being fashion-conscious, being casual, being free, all leads to an interesting environment for retail, because I believe it’s a fairly open environment to that”.

On the difference between Australian and US malls:

“I think that Sydney and Australia is quite a competitive environment to be in. I think we also have land blocks that aren’t large, that are quite small, that we need to deal with. I think we have been quite entrepreneurial and inventive in being able to cope with a number of issues. It’s different to the US, which is the home of shopping centres, which traditionally have had very large blocks of land available, at intersections to freeways… We’ve had to deal with town centres. We have small blocks of land, have to develop on multi levels, we have to work out how they work. I think our centres are more vibrant. They actually attract a number of different disciplines, from food, fashion, homewares… Whereas a lot of the other countries have just been focussing on fashion, we’ve been focussing on a true town centre”.

On Westfield Group’s Oz roots:

“Australia has always been our base from which we’ve grown and it’s also probably our origins and where our intellectual knowledge has actually come from. Australia really is the breeding ground for what we do around the world. And if you look at [new A$600million CBD development] Sydney City for instance, it’s probably the culmination of many years work, which started at Bondi [Junction]…. I think a lot of people were surprised at what we could do [at WBJ]. We were regional mall developers and we actually challenged ourselves to reinvent ourselves”.

And of course, who could forget the inimitable response from the Sydney Chamber of Commerce communications director Nick Davy, following my request for an interview (for in fact this story) with the Chamber’s executive director Patricia Forsythe:

“this is..... just not relevant".

Sydney emerges as world's 7th Top Fashion City - no thanks to Chamber of Commerce

Jayson Brunsdon's models, Sydney Overseas Passenger Terminal, Australian Fashion Week. May 2nd 2008/Getty


Yes well, one week after the good, and clearly terribly fashion-savvy, folk at the Sydney Chamber of Commerce declined an interview with a leading international fashion business publication on the grounds that fashion is "not relevant" - the Global Language Monitor has just ranked Sydney as the world's seventh Top Fashion City. After New York, Rome, Paris, Milan, London and Los Angeles. Not only that, Sydney is ranked as the number 1 fashion city in Asia. Who knew?

And what the hell is the Global Language Monitor?

A five year-old, Austin, Texas-based not-for-profit that's operated by a bunch of cunning linguists.

They track the frequency of words, phrases and names across all sections of the media, including the blogosphere - and then rank them using a proprietary algorithm doo-dad called the GLM Predictive Quantities Index.

The organisation has been analysing world city names and terms related to the word "fashion" since 2004 - however only published its findings for the first time last year.

In 2004, at least by GLM's calculations, New York outranked the city which most people usually consider to be the world fashion capital - Paris - and New York has kept its number one ranking ever since.

A city's fashion ranking can be very much a reflection, GLM conceded this year, of marketing and literally "getting the word out there".

With an aggressive global marketer such as IMG now at the helm of at least the Bryant Park component of New York Fashion Week - not to mention both LA and Australian Fashion Weeks, the latter whose biggest showcase takes place in Sydney - it's not hard to fathom why those cities should fare so well in terms of media mentions.

Even so, Sydney would appear to be punching well above its weight.

Below is GLMs Top 30 list for 2008, with each city's 2007 rank where applicable. Separate to this I was also given other figures.

Sydney and Dubai are the biggest surprises: the first surging forward by five spots from 2007; and the second, by twelve.

Melbourne fell three spots to 18 which may well piss off Melburnians.

A number of cities are new to the 2008 list. Not seen here are Sao Paolo (which fell 12 spots to 33rd) and Bangkok (-17 to 34th).

1. New York (1)
2. Rome (2)
3. Paris (3)
4. Milan (5)
5. London (4)
6. Los Angeles (6)
7. Sydney (12)
8. Las Vegas (9)
9. Berlin (11)
10. Tokyo (6)
11. Hong Kong (8)
12. Dubai (24)
13. Shanghai (14)
14. Singapore (10)
15. Madrid (New)
16. Moscow (16)
17. Santiago (19)
18. Melbourne (15)
19. Stockholm (New)
20. Buenos Aires (22)
21. Johannesburg (23)
22. Mumbai (18)
23. Cape Town (New)
24. New Delhi (New)
25. Barcelona (13)
26. Miami (New)
27. Krakow (25)
28. Prague (New)
29. Toronto (New)
30. Rio de Janeiro (20)

Sydney Chamber of Commerce on fashion: "Not relevant"

camilla & marc backstage, Sydney Theatre Company, Australian Fashion Week. April 2007/Getty

At some time or another, everybody's job gives them occasion to laugh out loud. I had two such moments this week. The first was when I called the Sydney Chamber of Commerce concerning a story I am writing for Womens Wear Daily.

Some local readers already know that I am the paper's Australasian correspondent.

On Monday, in the course of researching upcoming Sydney events - which include next month's inaugural Sydney Fashion Festival - the city's growth, retail potential etc... I thought the Chamber of Commerce would be well-positioned to comment.

As not everyone is familiar with the publication, I explained to communications director Nick Davy that WWD is a high profile, New York-based, business-to-business publication which is read all over the world by movers and shakers in the global fashion, retail, luxury and beauty businesses.

Many of these companies, I added, may already have business operations in Australia - with others contemplating so doing in the future.

Davy said he would check if executive director Patricia Forsythe was available for a phone interview, adding that she is "very busy".

Davy's response, delivered some time later, was that neither Forsythe nor indeed anyone from the Chamber would be available to talk to me. He added:

"We've checked your website. It's a women's fashion publication and frankly, this is..... just not relevant".

Fast forward to yesterday and a news alert in one of my inboxes.

It was from travel retail e-letter The Moodie Report and covered a Sydney Airport Corporation callout to international luxury brands to open inside a new T1 "luxury precinct" called The Forum.

According to the release:

“This is a unique opportunity for world famous designers to join prominent, global fashion houses who have already indicated their intent to open flagship boutiques in Sydney International Airport’s Terminal (T1), which is currently undergoing redevelopment.

“As Australia's major gateway, T1 handled more than 10 million passengers in 2007 and designer brands are lining up to secure a retail site in the airport's much-anticipated expanded, world-class shopping precinct.”

As I say, I did have to laugh.