The Miro Supremacy

Miro in Bondi rocking Puma RS 100's, Armani Exchange and A&F T.

Uncross your legs Bryant Park! Miro is heading your way. And no, I'm not referring to designers Antonio or Elena Miro, or even the new Joan Miro art exhibit slated for November at MoMa. I'm talking Miro Kubicek, better-known in Australian fashion circles as the Russian emigre, Jason Bourne-lookalike, Australian Fashion Week seat Nazi. We bumped into each other at Speedo's in Bondi yesterday and he let slip that he's Bryant Park-bound for New York's SS09 shows in September, with a permanent Manhattan move slated for April.

Miro, who runs his own Miro House front-of-house/red carpet/seating management company in Sydney, has consulted to AFW's new owner, IMG, for the past three years, taking over where the much-loved John Flower left off in 2006.

His promo video, cut to the Justin Timberlake/Timbaland toon SexyBack - with hilarious, occasional "Miro House" voiceovers in his sultry Eurotrash drawl - shows the former underwear model in action amongst models and celebs, talking into a Janet Jackson headpiece.

Given Miro's possible former eastern block special forces operative past (he won't be drawn on his background, other than to say growing up in Czechoslovakia was "rough"), he's in his element in more ways than one.



The SS09 shows won't be Miro's first international IMG gig. In August he had a trial run helping out at the inaugural Hong Kong Fashion Week.

One might assume Miro could also help out at the IMG-operated Miami Swim and LA Fashion Week events. Given his language skills - he's apparently fluent in Russian, Czech and German - possibly also Europe, where IMG already runs Berlin Fashion Week (with designs apparently also on Moscow and a few other spots).

IMG FASHION's senior vice prez Fern Mallis and suave PR director Zach "Iceman" Eichman, must have been impressed when they were both out for our SS0809 shows.

Having seen Eichman in action on numerous occasions wrangling a thousand paps, tv crews, Demi, Ashton and co, I think Miro could make a brilliant wingman

Inside the freak show: Gareth Pugh unmasked

Flaubert once advised you should never try to touch idols - lest the gilt rubs off on your fingers. But Gareth Pugh's not a personal idol, just an enigmatic, twentysomething Brit fashion designer whose shows are renowned for their freakish, at times sinister, sci-fi/operatic ensembles. He is the enfant terrible of the London fashion scene - an erstwhile costume designer who apparently hasn't sold a stitch of clothing but who nevertheless keeps handing London Fashion Week the images it needs to pat itself on the back as the world's most creatively fecund fashion forum.

Pugh's shows are also notoriously exclusive. Packed with London club kids and drag queens, his PR entourage, as with last season, can't be bothered replying to (at least my) requests for tickets. Last season I saw the show anyway. This time, again sans bait, I decide to delve a little more deeply into Pugh's mise en scene: the backstage engine room. I wanted to try to take a peek at what makes him tick.

I breeze past the security guard out front who is conveniently bamboozled by the British Fashion Council-issue "Priority Press Pass" in my wallet.

I walk to the back of the venue, where a swarm of people are having a fag.

Inside I find a line of models, half made-up, half-coiffed, standing in a straight line right down the middle of the room, in front of the runway, ready for a runthrough. Although dressed in their own clothes - save one blonde man, who is wearing nought but a flesh-coloured G-string - they are all wearing black pumps with perilously-high stiletto heels, wrapped like pigs' trotters in clear cellophane as high as the ankle.

To my left are several long refectory tables spread with makeup kits and long hairpieces: Pugh's accoutrements for tonight's freak show.

To my right, the clothes racks with the collection. Spying black patent leather and clear PVC, I sniff a 60s odeur. There's a bohemian posse of dressers. One has long, pink hair and they boast a plethora of tattoos. The most elaborate tattoo of all graces the entire back of Mr G-string. Someone has made an attempt to cover his body, and tats, in white makeup. Mr G-string looks like he's about to perform a bit of Butoh theatre.

I walk to the hair table and almost slip over on a giant, synthetic furball that has gathered underneath via offcuts from the hairpieces.

As I compose myself, a man walks past wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words, "Anarchy is the key".

The music comes up and the models disappear through the proscenium to the runway.

I walk through a side door into the auditorium to watch the runthrough. I can see the models' faces much more clearly now and they are all extraordinarily androgynous, with finely-chiselled cheekbones. Apart from Mr G-string, it's in fact not at all obvious just how many are women. I later clock the model list and of the 15, there are three men's names. Pugh squats in the middle at the very end of the runway and stares intently down its barrel - like a film director framing a scene.

The models storm back through the proscenium and dive back into hair and makeup. Apparently there's a lot more work to be done. Camera crews are getting kicked out. Everyone is getting kicked out, bar one photographer from US Vogue, who I later learn has an exclusive on the show's backstage component.

Hair stylist Eugene Souleiman is directing his team to apply yet more hairpieces to the straight wigs the models are already wearing. It's an intricate affair involving three or four pieces, some darker, some lighter and layered over each other to produce stripes - a kind of geometric skunk effect.

"It's about stripes and lines... sort of Vidal Sassoon" offers Souleiman.

In two separate corners, Mr G-String and a female model, now also wearing nothing but a flesh-coloured thong, are having more white body makeup applied. He's sitting with his legs wide apart. She's standing, attempting to cover her breasts with her hands in front of an in-house video camera operator, the US Vogue snapper and a small throng of people armed with personal digital cameras, all lenses trained on her.

Artist/DJ Matthew Stone walks past. Stone and Pugh are mates - they met as students, at one stage squatted together and are part of the same creative coterie. Stone's doing the music, I surmise.

"It's very operatic, electronic, quite disjointed" he says of the show's soundtrack. "It's stark, but there are also elements of humour in it. And a euphoric finale".

The hair application continues, as does the body washing on Mr and Ms G-String. As for the facial makeup, it's also white. Then the makeup artists begin attaching masks.

They are clear plastic masks that have been partially painted black: covering half the face, or in stripes. Once the masks are attached - hard, transparent carapaces that obscure the whitewashed, chiselled faces - Pugh's models resemble a phalanx of androids.

The hair and makeup area starts to clear. The dressing begins. Pugh flits in and out of the racks vetting operations.

"I don't want to see any girls in hair! (ie the department)" announces a small man. The atmos starts to rev up.

For the first time I get a proper look at the clothes on the models and am surprised: the garments have quite clearly-defined arms, seams and zippers. Apart from one or two pure showpieces, one a Dada-inspired getup consisting of three black styrofoam tranches which transform the model into a human wedding cake, they bear a remarkable resemblance in fact to something traditionally anathema to Pugh: clothes, not costumes.

Once the models are all dressed, the backstage scene resembles a series of images from some sort of retro futurist fashion shoot taken during Sixties' swinging London. Veruschka eat your heart out.

One woman is wearing a clear PVC and black leather striped minidress. Several others wear some quite beautifully-crafted, detailed leather and pelt coats. One coat boasting a high funnel collar is in black leather; another is fashioned from plaited black leather and covered in small strips of black patent. The most striking coat of all is fashioned from layered fringes of what I am later told is black goat hair.

Mr and Ms G-String are being helped into a giant clear PVC/black leather-striped poncho and a clear PVC hooded cape and undersuit respectively. It's got to be hot in there.

"I have another show to go to right after this - I don't know what I'm going to do, I'll have to take a shower" says Ms G-string.

London art director and jewellery designer Judy Blame (a man) stands to one side holding a necklace fashioned from jet beads, black ribbons and black plastic beer six-pack holsters.

"I drink a lot of beer" quips Blame, explaining that this is the fourth time he's worked with Pugh. There is usually no brief, he explains.

"We just get together, he shows me fabrics and things like that, that's why we do quite a lot of work backstage - sometimes the outfits aren't made until the last minute" he adds. "I love working with him. He's got a feel, a sense of creativity and if you actually look into things, they are really beautifully-made, really crafted".








It is approaching 6pm - one and a half hours past the show's slated start time - and the auditorium sounds packed. I briefly consider going back outside to watch the show but as I poke my head around the side door I twig that I'll never get a vantage point, it's too crowded. I have no choice but to stick with my back-to-front perspective of the production.

The models realign down the centre of the room. The music starts. The black and white figures are pushed out into the spotlights one by one - like fledglings from a magpie's nest. I am standing so close as they walk through the proscenium, I am almost on the runway myself.

"We've got a girl down! A girl down!" screams a hysterical PR through his Janet Jackson headpiece.

Apparently the clear cellophane wraps on the feet - which I originally figured were designed to keep the shoes clean until the show - were part of the styling.

Thunderous applause. The fledglings go back out for their victory lap, so does Pugh. When they return they clap - as does everyone backstage. Having not wanted to interrupt Pugh beforehand, I make my move to secure some quotes. And am finally busted by a PR who asks who I am, who I work for and just how I got in.

"I just walked in the door" I reply.

It seems fairly obvious that this is a breakthrough collection for Pugh - who was recently taken under the wing of avant-garde American designer Rick Owens. Owens' studio, as it emerges, helped produce some of these pieces, and the collection will go on sale in Paris in two weeks' time in Owens' showroom. It's a good fit for Pugh - and a big step.




"I'm sick of people thinking it's all like wacky and crazy because that for me has tones of bad quality and nothing that I do is" says Pugh. "I strive as hard as I can to make everything well. So I wanted to strip everything back, remove all of the paraphernalia like shoulder pads and whatever and still have a little bit of that but concentrate more on what I can do. I don't have to just do these big things".

Just as I go to throw to another question, the PR cuts me off to switch to another journalist.

I've jumped the queue - I don't want to be ungracious, so I step out of the way. Besides, I think I already have the answer.

What drives creative people in London? That's what I asked Blame during the show.

"Having a good time I think with it" he replied. "We're not always the most sensible ones about money and normally we have to go abroad to nick the yen or the franc or the euro or the dollar. But we have fun doing it here I think. And there's a nice sense of camaraderie between creative people. I mean you've got Simon Costin doing the set, Eugene doing the hair, me doing the accessories, Nicola [Formichetti] doing the styling... I mean I don't think in another city you'd get quite as fertile a team as that. They'd all be snapping at each other. Whereas in London it's like, 'Right... what do we have to do?'".

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Let them eat Target: The high-low shows of Proenza Schouler

Of course I wanted to see the Proenza Schouler show. Who wouldn't? That's the hybrid label of Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez. Both 28 and in business for just five years, already their show is one of New York Fashion Week's hottest tickets - rendered even hotter this season by virtue of their new deal with Target.

I had read about but not personally witnessed the sales floor frenzies that have erupted on every occasion that so-called "fast" fashion retailer H&M recently launched a collection tie-in with a big design name such as Karl Lagerfeld or Viktor & Rolf. Released simultaneously in a number of stores, the merchandise reportedly evaporated within hours. It's a scenario that is sure to be played out in April once Britain's TopShop unveils its Kate Moss collaboration - and of course potentially also next month in Australia, once Target Australia unveils its just-announced tie-in with Stella McCartney.

But I managed to see the Proenza Schouler for Target hysteria in situ. Tagging along with a mate - Melbourne-born, Tokyo-based Vogue Nippon international fashion coordinator Leeyong Soo - I trekked down to SoHo store Opening Ceremony on fashion week's first weekend. The store was having a preview of the PS for Target range a few days before it went into wide Target release. And I can report that it was pure pandemonium. You would have thought these people were starving refugees getting food drops from an aid agency, so voraciously were they crawling over the racks and grabbing armfuls of merchandise: stripey long-sleeved Ts, rope-print singlets, purple palm-print totes and cotton sundresses with embroidered bodices. The designs were cute. The prices, even cuter: US$39.99 apiece for a sundress and tote and US$16.99 for a long-sleeved T. Sources say 10,000 units were sold over the three-day preview

"If this was in Tokyo I wouldn't normally be buying this - I don't normally pay more than $5 for anything" confessed Leeyong, a vintage flea market hound, part-time fashion designer (who has just launched a new label called new Fourth Daughter) and dead ringer for a young Faye Dunaway. "It's just the fervour of it all".

Eventually overwhelmed by the same fervour, I purchase three items.

A couple of days later, there I am outside the Proenza Schouler show proper. It's off-schedule and they are about to close the doors. And of the myriad shows I try to catch all week, as it turns out, this is the only one I don't manage to crack. And I'm not alone it seems. When the glass doors shut and then rudely (although I am later told it is specifically for the purpose of lighting), screens suddenly come down, a dozen or so media reps are left outside in the foyer straining to catch a glimpse of the show through a chink in the blinds - and whinging. They include representatives of London's Independent newspaper, a well-known New York fashion writer who walked away from the venue, I am told, "in tears - because she knows them personally" and a female television journalist who is doing a Proenza Schouler feature. Although backstage beforehand filming what are called "first looks" (first outfits), this presenter found herself barred from seeing the show.

The show finishes. The lights and screens come up. The doors swing open. I step inside, collect a program and head backstage where the designers are in the middle of a series of pre-organised interviews - including one by the same female anchor who had been snubbed from a personal view of the show. While she may not have been, clearly all her free publicity is warmly welcomed.

"What am I supposed to say if they ask, 'What did you think of the collection?'" she asks one of the PR reps. No reply.

I crash the interview line and score a chit-chat. Frankly, if I had a choice between seeing the season's 'high' PS show and getting the one-on-one here - or make that one-on-two - I'd take the interview.

Here's what Jack n' Laz had to say:

Now look I'm sorry I didn't see the collection - sadly your PR flacks wouldn't let me in. What was the design impetus?
Hernandez: We were just kind of interested in the idea of warmth and the idea of things that felt just cozy and warm and Fall-like. And we were looking to find a hook for that feeling and we were looking to the world of interiors and the idea of these cozy, amazing, beautiful rich homes. And then a lot of wallpapers, and the idea of the damask came from that. And a lot of the fabrics were kind of inspired by upholstery fabrics actually.

Just looking at the show notes, even before I heard you say the term 'high-low' in the interviews you've just been doing here, I noticed that you used crocodile and also Swarovski crystal in the collection and I planned to ask you about the 'high-low' concept. It's interesting because of course you've just done this line with Target.
McCollough: Yeah, we kind of knew that that was coming out too right around now, it just came out a couple of days ago. That's more the low end of the spectrum. So it was kind of nice to do something the complete opposite to kind of show our diversity.

What does it represent to a young label to be able to score a deal like that with a major distribution outlet like Target?
McCollough: It's great. We're a small company so we obviously have no money for advertising. So that's a really great way to get your name out there, to really expose you to different markets where they haven't seen you. Especially now that we're about to launch a lot more accessories and develop the line in different areas.

Hernandez: But it's also within our spirit, you know? The whole idea of high-low as we said before, it's something that we feel really comfortable with, we feel really comfortable with like wearing like a baggy, kind of dirty T-shirt with long sleeves under a croc trench, like that's cooler with your boyfriend's pants. Those contradictions and that feeling is kind of what we're about.

But you could do your own diffusion line.
Hernandez: We could totally do that but we don't have the budget to do that yet.

McCollough: We want to wait a little longer, expand our collection line..

Hernandez: It's either producing a hundred jackets as opposed to like 10 thousand jackets.

What's the hardest thing about being a new brand in the American market and trying to break through? You've done it very quickly in four/five years.
McCollough: I don't know what the hardest thing is... it's just like, running a business in general. No matter what you're doing, it's difficult to kind of keep it going. As I said it's great to like get our name out there. It's great exposure. For a small company you don't really have options to kind of expose yourself in such a high magnitude, which someone like Target can do.

Hernandez: That's our biggest challenge. Like for us as designers, we're creative people. But the reality is it's also a business. So how do you balance the creativity with the business side of things? So that's always the toughest thing. And thank God we have a great business person who works with us so it's really split down the middle, so we can really focus on just creating.

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Narciso Rodriguez takes pity on the standing - gives the bird to Castro

Another day, another Rodriguez. But this one hopefully won't be showing prison-issue anklets - just minimalist chic. If Marc Jacobs thinks the world needs more beauty and less "backless bustiers blah blah blah", Narciso Rodriguez is on the same page.

I'm now standing inside his show venue, a Chelsea studio space, waiting for it to start. Let me tell you, it's a very nice place to be standing. And I'm not talking about the decor.

Getting into a fashion show for which you don't have a ticket is usually at the discretion of the respective PR firm, and involves waiting outside the venue until close to show start time. It's not quite The Day After Tomorrow here - yet - but that said, with what I read on one website was supposed to be -21C windchill factor today, it's not advisable for anyone to be outside for any extended period. And we're just a bunch of middle class wankers watching the next season's three, four, in some cases five figure outfits parade by. I frequently find myself wondering what happens to New York's homeless in weather like this. A friend said she heard a meteorologist on TV one day this week warning viewers not leave any skin uncovered - or risk frostbite. Rodriguez' PR team has kindly, nay sensibly, let the standing in.

A model walks out in a sculpted, longline black wool jacket over crisp white skinny pants, with a hint of a bootleg at the ankle - the same skinny bootleg that we saw at Marc Jacobs last night - and a sophisticated urban mood is set. A woman's voice on the soundtrack belts out the words, "the streets of Berlin". Five months ago Rodriguez was one of the early New York adopters of the sci-fi mood which reached a crescendo in Milan and Paris. No fibreglass body armour here, as in his spring show, but this new collection does have a hint of 1960s retro futurism, with its sculpted white jackets that nod to Courreges and Cardin.

There's also a shot of urban sport in the retro-look, chevron-appliqued wool parkas, for both men and women. It's a beautiful collection, in a sophisticated palette of black, white, cream, grey, popped with a strange petrol blue. The jackets are moulded and sculpted around the body, via detailed seamwork; the pants are skinny and more often than not, black and high-gloss, rendered through a wool/nylon amalgam. The coats are sublime - one black Princess line contoured wool coat reaches to the floor. Mayor Bloomberg should mandate for such coats - and Toni Maticevski's doona ballgowns - to be issued to all Gotham denizens in weather like this.

There is a tough chic to the eveningwear, with its exposed silver zippers, leather bodices and strands of silk cords which hang like seaweed off the bodices of a series of otherwise no-trick, floor-length silk columns in black or white - as if the ghosts of bigger ballgowns which survived a nuclear holocaust.

I manage to squeeze a couple of questions in backstage afterwards, including just what Rodriguez thinks about the possibility of Castro's revolucion coming to an end soon. Being Cuban-American, I figured he'd have an opinion.

The collection seems very urban, almost industrial. What was your inspiration?
The reality of the way we need to dress and how we need to live. I mean, fashion can be a fantasy, you know, and fun and frivolous and disposable. But I'm not very interested so much in that. I'm very serious about my work and the technique, the craft. But also how it functions in life, how to dress women, how I need to dress. I mean I need suits, I need pants that move, I need things that function.

Berlin seems to be popping up as a reference at these shows. Your soundtrack makes reference to it. What's the Berlin connection?
It's an inspiration. I think it's something that's exciting. Berlin is exciting, Berlin brings an edge, it's very urban. I live in New York, I travel around the world. I think the collection really reflects what I see. What I see for the future and the way that clothing should look.

What do you think about the very real possibility of Castro carking it some time in the not-too-distant future?
Oh I don't make political comments.

Yes but presumably you have an opinion on what it may mean for Cuba?
Yeah, I mean I think any dictator who goes away is a good thing, especially in Cuba.

Do you think someone will replace him and it will be a case of same-old, same-old, or is it high time for change in Cuba?
Hopefully it's time for not only fashion to change but all dictators to be abolished.

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Welcome to New York. Thank-you for not smoking

I've seen real cold...and it wears a balaclava.


And so New York Fashion Week cranked into gear. But it didn't start quite the way I had anticipated.

First up, may I just say, it's flippin' FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZING in New York.

After what by all accounts has been a mild winter, Jack Frost has suddenly shifted his glacial gaze to the Big Apple just in time for the shows. And the fall/winter season, which kicked off Friday, is not the glamour event that September was. The minus seven - and apparently dropping - wind chill factor has seen to that.

Big hats, big coats and double layers of gloves are de rigueur for a kind of Nanook of The North look. Rugging up and also avoiding walking long distances, are key to survival. As I learned yesterday after walking from my hotel to some godforsaken abandoned railway station down on Eleventh Avenue that Josh Goot selected for its edgy "atmos" for his second Big Apple effort. The icy wind cut into my face like razor blades.

Last night I was horrified to get back to my hotel and discover frostbitten fingers (in spite of gloves) and my face covered in large red blotches. I've lived in Amsterdam and Paris. I've been skiing. I just don't ever recall being in temperatures so cold that you have to don a bloody balaclava in order to avoid looking like you've succumbed to some sort of cosmeceutical catastrophe.

"Those Aussies", I could hear the hotel maintenance guy think to himself as he helped this frozen fashionista crank up her room heating; "so hopelessly inequipped for the northern hemisphere".

But hello, I hear you ask, New York Fashion Week? Wasn't that the very event out of which I was "smoked" last season?

Those who followed the last Fashion Season blog may recall the incident involving New York publicist Kelly Cutrone.

Unimpressed by reading some of her own comments repeated in The Sydney Morning Herald, Cutrone banned me from all of her clients shows - worldwide - then threatened to sue and "smoke" me out of NYC. She also used a photograph to create a poster, pasting copies around one venue, complete with words, "Patty Huntington, Sydney Morning Herald - No admittance. Do not let into shows".

I have had more than one request for a poster-emblazoned T-shirt commemorating the incident.

So here I am poking my nose back into New York. And I can report that the extent of Cutrone's "smoke out" is not as yet abundantly clear.

Quite apart from being ushered through US customs at LAX with no incident, my accreditation was whisked through by the organisers at record speed.

Before even registering, I also received several "save the date" email alerts from fashion companies. Due to the last-minute nature of this trip, I have not had a chance to properly chase tickets but so far so good.

I'm not holding my breath of course, however at the end of the day, surely no reasonable PR turns away a ticketless but nevertheless bona fide representative of a wide-reach media outlet from the front door of their show? PRs are in the publicity business. To hijack a quote from The Insider - which is not inappropriate, given the smoking references here - fashion journalists are in the "publicity delivery business". Those who are doing their job deliver both good and bad news.

I was not the only fashion scribe banned last season. The New York Times' fashion critic Cathy Horyn, along with style.com, was banned by Dolce e Gabbana after a negative review.

So much for politics, what of the clothes? Given the lemming-like exodus of Australians to NY runways I'll start there. Three of the five showing this season showed on Saturday, with Goot's 10.00am-er proving the very first show of the season for me (I arrived one day late).

Seated next to (Australian Fashion Week MD) Simon Lock, with Oz models Tiah Eckhardt and Alexandra Agoston O'Connor on the runway and Oz- born, London-based (Browns) buyer Yasmin Sewell nearby, it felt like being back in Sydney. Also there: Goot's talented cousin, designer Micaela Ezra, who recently started working for New York designer Cynthia Steffe.

In a slick, all-black and gunmetal grey collection, Goot showed he is no one-trick pony.

Beyond the batwing sleeves of his Gothic goddess gowns and capelets, gone was the tracksuit slouch chic of his early collections. In its place a different type of utilitywear in Goot's signature "urban sport" vein (which new trend US Vogue recently proclaimed he kickstarted last season) in the form of wetsuit-look tailleurs with industrial zippers, Wet Look raincoats and capelets (achieved via gloss-laminated merino wool) and sharp, mesh and metal-look leggings.

It was dark, it was risky - and so much of a departure for Goot that even Sewell admitted later she was worried.

"But it worked," said Sewell, the first international retailer to pick Goot up after his Australian Fashion Week debut in May 2005.

"He's got a real cult following now," she added, revealing that 10 per cent of Browns' Goot business is in fact coming from men. Not Goot's menswear, which Browns does not (yet) buy. But Goot's womens' jackets and slim-fit pants.

Backstage I asked Goot whether his all-black show was a reaction to the Style.com bagging last season over his (they hinted, typically garish Australian) use of colour. He denied it - adding that he had always wanted to do an all-black range.

Goot may be disappointed to find he didn't rate a Style.com review this time. On the other hand he got a pretty powerful back-pat from WWD.

Toni Maticevski has big potential - and it seems, mushrooming brand awareness in the US market. Last season he barely managed to fill one row of the tiny UPS Hub venue. The same space this season was packed. No mean feat considering that high profile Kiwi Karen Walker showed directly up against him off-schedule.

When Maticevski is good, he is very, very good. His breakthrough show in Sydney in May 2004 demonstrated his dual talents for razor-sharp day tailoring and achingly beautiful eveningwear.

However his collections have a tendency to look half-baked, no doubt exacerbated by the fact that he is a one-man show, making all his samples by hand.

In this 'Magic and Madness' collection, the sharply-contoured, anthracite grey tailleur and dove grey, leg-o-mutton silk mousseline smock top and dresses worked. Some of the other pieces looked ugly - worse, dull.

Maticevski says he's now committed to showing in NY. He needs to analyse his brand DNA, refine his story - and come up with more sensational tailoring and breathtaking ballgowns. The show's "wow" element, the voluminous, acid yellow and pink, foam-lined silk "doona" dresses - although slammed by style.com - will no doubt be snapped up for editorial spreads. Whether he sells any is irrelevant. To use his own words, Maticevski needs to adopt more of this F factor.

"I thought f**k it, I'm just going to show weird shit" Maticevski said backstage, where yet more Australians circled, including Jayson Brunsdon (who shows on Thursday) and Lock's former 2IC Jarrad Clark, currently on holidays from PBL. Clark trailed Lock throughout Bryant Park for the day and some might surmise he is itching to jump ship back into Lock's fold.

After helping Lock build Australian Fashion Week in May 2006, Clark departed for PBL in early 2005, at a time when the company was struggling to pay its bills. With IMG's October 2005 acquisition of the event - and Lock, as the new managing director IMG FASHION Asia Pacific - should Clark ever be tempted back, Lock's financials are of course a different story now.

And so to the seventh NY show of sass & bide. The biggest day one surprise, at least for me. Not in terms of the clothes, which were typical sass & bide trash glam - beyond the requisite skinny pants, some pretty waisted sundresses and also waistless velvet shift dresses, mostly hoiked to the coit - but the front-of-house entertainment.

I should note that of all five Australians showing in NY this season, sass & bide's was the only show for which I did not have an invite, in spite of having a formal accreditation and having touched base with sass & bide's Sydney office shortly before departure.

On the same plane over was one of sass & bide's publicity team, Emma Archbold, who dropped a bombshell.

Sass & bide had just changed New York publicists - to People's Revolution. Yep, Kelly Cutrone's agency.

Archbold said she hoped that the change would not be an issue for me. To which I noted that, given the extent of Cutrone's ban, surely it might well be.

For starters, it might explain why I was suddenly "declined" for that show for the first time in seven years. Archbold said she had no idea but promised to look into it. She seemed concerned the incident might end up on the blog.

After a few emails back and forth - and rather looking forward to being able to slug the first AW0708 blog entry, "Smoked out by sass & bide" - I received word that (one half of sass&bide) Sarah-Jane Clarke personally wanted to invite me and would ensure I had a seat.

Not keen to be on the receiving end of any more of Cutrone's unique brand of PR, I asked Archbold if she could kindly collect my ticket for me.

Surprisingly, a seat had been allocated: "H-13." Archbold ushered me into the venue. And to an empty seat in the front row. Not just the front row, but the pointy end of the front row. One of the best seats in the house.

"There must be some mistake," I said. "It says row H."

On closer inspection, all the seats in this spot were marked H. With no names allocated, this appeared to be some kind of emergency front row. H perhaps for all those highprofilers who just won't commit to attend (although Rose Byrne and a few others did).

Although she circled nearby on several occasions, there was zero contact with Cutrone.

Of course I'll never know what went on behind closed doors. Whether my invitation noshow was simply an oversight - which of course is possible.

Or whether perhaps it was not: but that with Cutrone's and my first confrontation coming in the form of the first show of her brand new Australian client that she didn't want to upset, she had no choice.

Perhaps they all wanted to avoid being blogged. Perhaps Cutrone will blog it herself - having just been given her very own blog, by no less than the IMG-owned Fashion Week Daily.

When the show started, I couldn't help note the irony inherent in the title of the first frock: a black micro singlet dress with gold and silver coin-spot embellishment. The name of the dress was, as per the show notes, "Commercial Union". Followed by, I kid you not, the "Take Me Back" harem pants, "A Love to Outspoken" cropped jacket, "Trapped by Fate" bowed gown and "Faustian Glee" bowed dress.

When the lights came up, I scratched my head and wondered if perhaps it had all been some kind of strange demi-couture dream - me a hapless Alice in the New York fashion Wonderland, to Cutrone's Queen of Hearts.

But I had a sudden reality check after bumping into an expat Sydney fashion journo who has been in NY for a few years. Upon spotting me, his immediate reaction was one of surprise.

He asked just how I had managed to sort out my differences with the organisers. He used the term "round table discussion", asking if perhaps I had had one?

"Oh - so did you read that blog post then?" I asked, genuinely surprised he had even seen it.

"Who didn't?" he replied.

On with the show.

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SMH banned from NY Fashion Week

And so New York Fashion Week ground to a halt. But it didn't end quite the way I had anticipated.

I came to this city hoping to learn more about its fashion industry and filed news stories, features, gossip – and of course blog posts – about its designers, its trends, its pain, not to mention its celebrity fixation. I thought I had a minor grasp on things.

But things took an unexpected turn at the last minute and the story wound up becoming something else entirely: a fascinating little snapshot of New York PR power politics.

Having seen more than 40 shows throughout the week, my hitherto unfettered access came to a screeching halt on Thursday night.

That was when I received a call from a one Kelly Cutrone – and found myself banned from her shows.

"I'm calling to say that you have been declined for the Jeremy Scott show," said Cutrone, who runs a New York PR agency called People's Revolution which produced a number of small, off-schedule shows in a venue called the Altman Building.

After having sent me an invitation for Scott's show and having welcomed me into others, Cutrone was calling to say I was persona non grata.

And it wasn't just Scott's show that she was banning me from – but in fact all future events staged by all of her clients.

The ban would moreover, she said, also cover all her international activities. She rattled off a list of cities where she staged events, including, I am sure she said, Moscow. She didn't mention that the ban extended to outer space, however, given the eccentricity of the performance, I started to wonder just how many aliens might be on her books.

Cutrone then also offered words to the effect that she would make it a personal mission to interfere with my ability to do my job "for the rest of your journalistic career".

"Dandy; I've entered the Pyongyang of PR," I thought to myself, before musing how uncanny it was that anybody throughout history who has ever purported to espouse a "people's revolution", inevitably wound up on a personal power trip, with a thin skin, a grossly overinflated sense of self-importance – not to mention a bad wardrobe. And how these "revolutions" always seemed to be accompanied by a media crackdown, however anathema that might be to the concept of democracy.

I wondered whether Cutrone could possibly be in breach of any UN resolutions. If so, I surmised, surely it's only a matter of time before George Bush decides to invade.

Cutrone added that she would also be suing me over what she claimed had been a "factually incorrect" story, adding that her father either owns or works at a top New York legal firm. I'm not sure if she mentioned this purely to big-note herself or to illustrate that the billings from her agency are so miniscule that she would be required to ask for a freebie from dad in order to get a case up.

So what prompted this dramatic volte-face?

A gossip snippet in the Herald column Fashion Police on Thursday.

The item was originally designed to be an exclusive preview of the new Jeremy Loves Ksubi collaboration range between Scott and the Sydney jeans brand. Due to be unveiled in Scott's show, the range launch had been mentioned in several newspaper stories in Australia, however none had as yet published any photos.

Having revealed Tsubi's trademark dispute with the US shoe manufacturer Tsubo in the Herald back in April, and then contributed to a second item that the Herald's US correspondent filed once the parties had reached an out-of-court settlement (hence the name change to Ksubi), I really wasn't expecting any exclusives from the Ksubi camp any time soon.

But PR agents change and, at the end of the day, publicity speaks louder than grudges – at least in Sydney perhaps – and I was given a preview.

That was the original plan – until I found myself standing outside Sunday's Costello Tagliapietra show, an off-schedule show that I was interested in covering. And, yes, it was a People's Revolution show – and I didn't have a ticket. Cutrone allowed me in, but not before weighing in loudly on an issue that had been bugging her vis-a-vis the Australian media.

It seems that, since word got out in Australia that Scott was doing a Ksubi collaboration, and that the range would be unveiled during New York Fashion Week, Cutrone had been inundated with inquiries from the Australian media about the show.

Cutrone went on to insist that the Australian media reports had been "factually incorrect" and that it was not to be a Ksubi show, but a Jeremy Scott show. She said this in a loud, and increasingly agitated voice and clearly did not mind who else heard it, because it was in full earshot of the line of people who were waiting to get into the show. And directly in front of three people I know, who were standing next to me.

I politely suggested that if Cutrone wasn't happy with the fact that Ksubi had been drumming up publicity over the Scott collaboration and show, that she should take it up with Ksubi.

At one point, Cutrone even attempted to play down the size of the range, dismissing it as "a couple" of items, adding there was even a possibility it might not be included in the show.

It was too good a story to ignore, a number of people overheard the conversation and the planned Jeremy Loves Ksubi item changed tack. The editors did not end up running the preview photo, which I personally was disappointed about. But this was an editorial decision and out of my hands.

Here's what was printed:

Jeremy hates Ksubi?
"Tomorrow, the Sydney label formerly known as Tsubi makes its New York runway debut – but will it make centre stage? It seems the US designer Jeremy Scott may be miffed by all the attention the Jeremy Loves Ksubi collaboration range is attracting. A public relations flack, claiming to represent Scott and Ksubi, bailed up Fashion Police to say: "This is definitely a Jeremy Scott show – it's not going to be a backstage photo op with Dan [Single] and George [Gorrow]". She dismissed the range – which features Scott's quirky Hotline and Finger Print graphics on Ksubi's skinny jeans, biker jackets and denim dresses – as nothing more than a "couple" of items and said it might not even make the final show cut. Meanwhile, in a Ksubi press release, Scott says: "What I think is extra special about our collaboration is that it really comes from a mutual admiration of one another - the humour, passion and a good time for all."

Sadly however, Cutrone's chipper phone call wasn't the end of the story.

I made no effort whatsoever to attend the show. It was raining and miserable, Fashion Week was over, I was over the likes of Kelly Cutrone and besides, why on Earth would I want to traipse across town in that weather to give one of Cutrone's clients a single column centimetre of free publicity?

Then I get word from the venue that Cutrone had tracked down a photograph of me – in fact this Fashion Season blog ID – and blown it up to create flyers to paste around the venue. The flyers reportedly included instructions in bold letters to staff in case I attempted to sneak in.

How absurd, I thought. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. But then someone retrieved one of the posters and showed it to me – as well as some video evidence of the front entrance area, complete with flyer [see top of post^].

After the show, according to a source who was standing near Cutrone at the time, she engaged herself in a conversation about me with several other people at one point, including Ksubi's George Gorrow, and Cutrone was overheard to say that she planned to "smoke" me "out of New York".

Gorrow is described as having clapped his hands together in glee at the prospect.

When one of Cutrone's staff members was asked what all the fuss was about and precisely what the person in the posters was supposed to have done, the staffer reportedly responded, "She wrote something which wasn't true".

Well it was true. But truth, it seems, is a dangerous commodity in the New York fashion business.

The following day I walked to take a look at the front window display that department store Henri Bendel had installed in honour of Sydneysider Josh Goot's first New York fashion show.

There were several mannequins kitted out in Goot gear and the visual merchandising team had plucked five quotes from Goot's press book, blown them up into large white letters and stuck them to the window.

Quotes from WWD, The Daily Telegraph and the Harper's Bazaar Daily were positioned to the side and in the bottom corners. But stretched right across the middle of the window, at eye level, just happened to be the following quote from me, published in May 2005:

"Josh Goot firmly established himself as a major new talent."
The Sydney Morning Herald

I was sorely tempted to get out my lip gloss and scrawl "Smoked out of town by Kelly Cutrone".

I wonder if in fact Cutrone would expect me to make the ban on her clients retrospective, so as to delete the reviews I had planned on the other People's Revolution shows already seen that week, including Costello Tagliapietra and Grey Ant?

Unfortunately I did not get to see one other People's Revolution show on Friday that I had wanted to – the name of which label unfortunately escapes me because, well, it's just so fringe. Cutrone's clients seem to be mostly small, edgy labels that one would assume would benefit enormously from publicity.

But sorry mate, I couldn't get to your show for the sole reason that your publicist cut you off from access to a media outlet whose website receives a half million visitors per day. I'm sure you won't miss the exposure.

Viva la revolucion.


Original post and comments.

Seat wars #1: Checked out by Anna Wintour

I am standing outside the Narciso Rodriguez show. One of the bigger, buzzier names, Rodriguez is not on the official schedule but off it - and the front entrance is like Fort Knox.

A crowd of around 100 is standing in a queue waiting to get in. They are now letting some through. Curiously, some of these people seem to have tickets, while others do not. And quite a few of the latter are being let through because they are with the "right" person.

It's like a nightclub. Let's hope some of the hangers-on have jobs to do here because I and several others who don't have tickets, do, and we would like to be allowed to get on with that reportage. I'll get to why I don't have a ticket a little later. It is in part due to the size of this event and the shambolic manner in which it seems to operate.

"Erin you're OK, and you, you, and you are with Erin, you're OK too, come through" says one PR flack who is wearing de rigueur New York PR black, accessorised with mandatory Janet Jackson-style headset.

"You're all OK too" she says to another posse.

It seems the PR is fine with plenty of hangers on who don't have tickets, but she challenges one woman who does in fact have one. It should be pointed out that anyone who has a ticket but no assigned seating allocation must wait until the end, when they let in the unseated dregs.

"Excuse me, do you have your seating assignment?" the flack says to the woman.

"Cathy Horyn from The New York Times" the woman responds in a deadpan voice.

Another PR is kind enough to eventually let me in, once everyone else has gone through.

There must be 500 people inside here - a brick warehouse space with bare concrete floor. I make my way, as per usual when I don't have a seat, to the beginning of the runway where the models stand and pose for shots.

Apart from the minor inconvenience of having to stand, it's actually the best "seat" in the house. This fact appears to dawn on the Prada-loving devil herself, US Vogue imperatrix Anna Wintour, who is about a metre and a half in front of me, in what we both must assume is the best seat in the house.

Wintour checks me out. She seems to be thinking, "You interloper".

Original post and comments.

Baryshnikov, seat Nazis and Sabyasachi performs a miracle with the handicapped

So I am standing in a light-drenched space with bare concrete walls and floor-to-ceiling windows at the top of a midtown building near the Hudson River, waiting for the Naum show to start. And what a ceiling - seemingly all 40 foot of it.

So far it's just me and a dozen people standing around the edges of the space, behind two rows of grey plastic chairs that have been arranged against the four walls, around a central, square "runway" space.

There are also about eight photographers huddled in one corner, trialling camera angles as the models do a walk-through. They have their hair and makeup done, but are wearing their own clothes - a mix of floor-length, tiered boho skirts, skinny jeans and singlets. One model is wearing a black singlet with the following words printed down the centre:

Money
Crime
Drugs
Vice
Sex

I am leaning in fact against two wooden bars which run right around two of the walls.

The opposite wall is covered with a mirror. Yes, it's a dancer's studio - the Baryshnikov Arts Center in fact. I feel like I am in the middle of an audition for A Chorus Line and as such am tempted to take the barre and perform a plie. Had my ankle-length, A-line, Funkis shift dress been fashioned from anything a little more accommodating than Florence Broadhurst upholstery fabric, I might have carried it out. In the current textile context however, I fear a plie may be a little too ambitious.

The room suddenly fills. The show starts. The same model who had been wearing the "money crime drugs vice sex" singlet is now dressed like an altar girl. She glides past in a pristine white cotton shirt with buttoned collar and extended cuffs over a voluminous, white A-line skirt that is partially covered by a mushroom-coloured organza apron. It's a very pretty, minimalist collection.

A plane flies past in the distance across the Manhattan skyline and I shudder. Choosing to follow a horde of people down six flights of fire stairs instead of taking the lift afterwards, only exacerbates the uncomfortable feeling. I can't get into the daylight quickly enough.

Into a cab and back to Bryant Park. The farcical fash pack is out in force and any notions of terrorist forboding swiftly dissipate.

A seat nazi on the front desk of newish designer Sabyasachi tells me that she cannot possibly accommodate me because I don't have a ticket. I tell her that I believe I may have RSVP'd to the relevant PR agency but that the ticket did not arrive at the hotel and in any event I am more than happy to stand at the show of a designer I don't know from a bar of soap because I am very keen to see what he is doing.

She grudgingly gives me a "ST" (standing) ticket.

In a moment of absurdity, I watch as a man wheels an elderly woman in a wheelchair over to the same flack. She gives them some attitude and then proceeds to hand both of them "standing" tickets.

"Gee, that's going to be an interesting one to watch" I think to myself.

Original post and comments from smh.com.au/theage.com.au.