The butterfly effect: Why couldn't Toni Maticevski take over the reins at Christian Dior?

Frockwriter popped down to Melbourne last week for the last leg of the L’Oréal Melbourne Fashion Festival (as a guest of the organisers, once again). Among the shows we caught was Toni Maticevski’s 'Red Carpet Runway' on Thursday night, which closed the event with 50 looks from Maticevski’s archive of 2000 pieces, collected since he launched his demi-couture label in 1999. There were plenty of his signature, heavily-embellished ballgowns and shorter, artfully-deconstructed tailored pieces that have made their way to New York Fashion Week, The Grammys, the Cannes Film Festival and a raft of other events on the backs of celebrities such as Beyoncé, Scarlett Johannson, Leighton Meester, Christina Ricci, Abbie Cornish, Gemma Ward and Kim Kardashian. At 35, Maticevksi is exactly the same age as was John Galliano in 1996, when the latter was appointed as the creative director of the storied Parisian haute couture house of Christian Dior. With Galliano fired last year, there is a vacant position to fill. Suspend your disbelief for a moment that an Australian designer could ever be considered for the creative director’s role of a major Paris fashion house (Martin Grant FYI once turned down the Céline gig) and ponder the hypothetical question, why couldn’t Maticevski fill Galliano’s shoes?

Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia SS1213: The Survivor edition

So Australian Fashion Week is back in its third incarnation from April 30th to May 4th. Founded in 1996 as Mercedes Australian Fashion Week, Rosemount became the naming rights sponsor in 2007 and now, five years later, Mercedes-Benz is back on deck, to the reported tune of AUD 1million. The new official title is Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia. For the past four years we have pulled together a preview schedule ahead of organiser IMG Fashion Asia Pacific's official schedule release. So here we go again. Why so soon? Because earlier this week IMG went out with a press release - unusually, some nine weeks ahead of the event - to announce which designers are on board so far this season. Could the timing of this release have anything to do with next week's L'Oréal Melbourne Fashion Festival? We have a hunch it might. UPDATE 07/04: FINAL CONFIRMED SCHEDULE BELOW, VIA MBFWA. UPDATE 16/04: BOTH DION LEE AND JOSH GOOT HAVE NOW CANCELLED THEIR MBFWA SHOWS. 

RAFW Spring/Summer 2011/2012 - The commuter edition

Australia's most high profile fashion event, Rosemount Australian Fashion Week, runs from May 2-6. As per tradition, frockwriter has been making a list and checking it twice, ahead of the official release by organiser IMG Fashion Asia Pacific. Two years may have passed since the abbreviated "Recessionista edition", but that does not mean that retail is still not incredibly tough. Or that sponsors are not thin on the ground. Two longstanding RAFW partners will not be showing: Nicola Finetti, who has shown at the event every year since its 1996 launch and New Zealand's Zambesi. You can catch them in their showrooms. Also AWOL this season: Friedrich Gray, with designer Ben Pollitt taking a break from not just RAFW, but in fact putting his label on ice. The good news: among the big names showing are two of Australia's best-known designers, both returning to the schedule after several years showing in New York and London - Toni Maticevski and Josh Goot. Update 21/04: Good to see that Romance Was Born finally got over the line with its show plans. Although technically not on schedule, their slot is the next best thing: an unofficial kickoff to the week on the afternoon of Sunday May 1st. 

Because the night - LMFF 2011

Alex Perry's Spring/Summer 2011/2012 presentation was not the only glamour event at last week's L'Oréal Melbourne Fashion Festival. Although unlike Perry's show, it provided no reveal of any brand new season's offerings, the L'Oréal Paris Runway 5 show on Friday night, presented by Harpers Bazaar Australia, was nevertheless a wonderful showcase of highend PM-wear from some of Australia's most acclaimed designers: Collette Dinnigan, Toni Maticevski, Aurelio Costarella, Jayson Brunsdon, Dion Lee, Scanlan & Theodore and Willow. Here are a few shots below. Click (here) to see frockwriter's backstage portfolio shot during the show.

Booked: FASHION by Mitchell Oakley Smith

Books on Australian fashion are few and far between. In fact Alexandra Joel’s Parade and Elina Mackay's The Great Aussie Fashion, both published in 1984 (with Parade reprinted in 1998) and David Meagher's 2008 Fashion Speak (in which Australasians account for half of Meagher's 14 designer profiles) are the sum total to date if frockwriter is not mistaken. Well now we can add Mitchell Oakley Smith’s first literary effort to this very slim list: FASHION, a 352-page book on Australian – and New Zealand – designers, published by no less than Thames & Hudson Australia, the local arm of one of the world’s most prestigious fashion and art publishers (to be sold internationally as well). Here is an exclusive preview of the cover: a Georges Antoni shot of Anthea Page in Toni Maticevski’s silk cotton voile and triacetate ballgown. According to the notes, the dress is from the Autumn/Winter 2006 collection and according to Oakley Smith, the shot was first published in Oyster.

The dress bears a strong resemblance to the "doona" dresses that were later presented by Maticevski in New York in February 2007 for the Fall/Winter 0708 season. And no, apparently that's no Photoshop job - the model is actually carrying an eski bag emblazoned with an Australian flag.

Sydney-based Oakley Smith is associate editor of GQ Australia and has been writing about fashion for four years, for publications including BELLE, Myer Emporium and The Australian.

Accompanying a fantastic selection of imagery (see below) are 50,000 words profiling 70 designers, including Akira Isogawa, Josh Goot, Zimmermann, Karen Walker, Kate Sylvester, Nom*D, World, Birthday Suit, Romance Was Born and Arnsdorf.

The book took Oakley Smith two years and he approached five different publishers before hooking up with T&H.

Available from August 1 ($79.95).








All images supplied by Thames & Hudson
(Top to bottom)
Toni Maticevski by Georges Antoni.
Ksubi
RM Williams
Fernando Frisoni
Chronicles of Never
Marnie Skillings

Four Australians to show in New York

anthony adamson

New York Fashion Week runs from September 9-17 and after several quiet seasons on the Oz front – with Toni Maticevski making the pilgrimage alone last season - things look to be picking up. Which is interesting, given the ongoing problems of the US retail sector. WWD reports that 4,600 retail outlets are tipped to close this year, on top of 6,913 closures last year, in what the paper has dubbed “the Great Retail Rationalization of the Great Recession”. Nevertheless, as frockwriter can reveal, four Australians will be showing in New York next month. Joining Kit Willow Podgornik, Toni Maticevski and New York-based Michael Angel is Sydney’s Anaessia, designed by Lisa Vanikiotis (pictured above) – first spotted at Rosemount Australian Fashion Week in May. Maticevski, Podgornik and Vanikiotis are in fact showing on the same day: Tuesday 15th September.

Anaessia’s romantic cocktail dresses and embellished skull print sheath – which we dared sheath otaku Michelle Obama to wear – were in fact this journalist’s pick of brands in RAFW’s group shows.



Sold in Australia exclusively through its own boutique at the Sofitel Wentworth hotel and, from October, a second boutique in The Strand, the five year-old highend label, whose Australian retail prices range from A$800-3500, has been wholesaling for just over a year.

Anaessia has 10 international stockists so far, from the US to Jakarta to Kuwait.

The brand’s first US client, interestingly, was the head of wardrobe for ABC TV, who has purchased outfits from three collections for All My Children’s Susan Lucci – and according to Vanikiotis, to wear on the show.

Anaessia will show in New York as part of an umbrella event called Nolcha Fashion Week.

London Fashion Week, which runs September 18-22, also looks to be shaping up as a major Australian fashion showcase.

Josh Goot will show at LFW for the third consecutive season, on September 21st at 3.30pm, venue TBC.

It also seems likely that sass & bide will return to the event after numerous seasons showing in New York

At the David Jones show on Tuesday morning, Sarah-Jane Clarke told frockwriter that she was awaiting confirmation on a time slot from LFW organisers, who have a bumper season on their hands due to the event’s 25th anniversary. Burberry and Clements Ribeiro, among others, are returning to the London runways to help celebrate the milestone.

A second show venue has just been announced for the event, 180 The Strand - which is located adjacent to LFW's brand new main venue this season, Somerset House.

The second venue will house, among other initiatives, On|Off, LFW's regular off-schedule showcase.

According to a series of reports about the new venue, Ksubi is planning to show at 180 The Strand.

At the same venue, the Robinson Pfeffer Showroom is also due to showcase a number of Australian brands, including Tina Kalivas, Alpha 60 and Arnsdorf.



For your reference, here are the Australasian shows at New York Fashion Week:

September 10 at 09.00 – Michael Angel, The Salon, Bryant Park
September 12 at 16.00 – Karen Walker, the Altman Building
September 15 at 12.00 – Toni Maticevski, the Altman Building
September 15 at 18.00 – Willow, The Salon, Bryant Park
September 15 at 19.30 – Anaessia, Bohemian National Hall

Also, a first draft of New York's Fashion Calendar:


fashion calendar via COACD

Here is the Mercedes Benz Fashion Week schedule (to be opened for the second time by Angel).

And here, the London Fashion Week provisional schedule.

Paper, Castle, Runway... RAFW SS0910, the season of the comeback queens

toni maticevski backstage/sonny vandevelde

Well, well, well, Emma Balfour isn’t the only one making a runway comeback. As frockwriter Tweeted last night after Toni Maticevski's show, you can add Sophie Ward to the mix as well (UPDATE 23/04: and apparently also Alyssa Sutherland). But while 39 year-old Balfour has been working on her comeback for seven months – first popping up at the SS09 New York Fashion Week shows (and will open Friedrich Gray on Sunday) – to frockwriter’s knowledge, last night’s show was 23 year-old Ward’s first fashion gig in two years. Ward is currently being promoted for RAFW – and according to Viviens, is attending castings, with Romance Was Born already confirmed. Last week, Ward made mention of her runway return on her blog. As we recently reported, Ward, a professional writer, has been busy over the past 12-18 months establishing her own publishing company, Paper Castle Press. No word yet on the publication date of the imprint’s first titles (one a childrens book called The Ginger Marmalade Toastmeister, with illustrations by Ward’s mate, the talented American illustrator Danny Roberts). Modelling is not the easiest of professions - the older you are, the harder it gets to compete with reed-thin adolescents. As the Ward family is already well aware, it is particularly hard when you have been out of the game for a while. The big question is will both Ward sisters return to the runway in 2009?

Snubbed by Coca Cola, supported by Schweppes

maticevski backstage/sonny vandevelde

As many may already be aware, Melbourne couturier Toni Maticevski will stage a presentation in Sydney tonight at The Ivy. It’s not a Spring/Summer 0910 collection per se, more a collection of 30 unseen looks (above, below) from the past two years. The presentation is being sponsored by Schweppes. As it happens, Maticevski’s Schweppes show comes a week before Diet Coke is to play a pivotal role at Rosemount Australian Fashion Week – an event which, of course, owes its current existence to the naming rights generosity of a beverage. In addition to the multibrand Diet Coke Little Black Dress show, frockwriter hears that Diet Coke is also sponsoring at least 10 other shows at the event. This is interesting, considering that Maticevski himself says that he approached Coca Cola for sponsorship several years ago, only to be informed “We don’t associate ourselves with fashion or celebrities”. Or so he told me on Sunday night when we bumped into each slap bang in the middle of Sydney’s Kings Cross – and amusingly, just a few metres from the suburb's iconic Coca Cola sign.



maticevski backstage/sonny vandevelde

As to why he’s not showing at RAFW proper, Maticevski told me that, beyond his representation in Myer, he’s just “not doing wholesale” at the moment. Given how hard it has proven of late for many designers to extract monies out of retailers - and notably in the US market - this is not difficult to understand.

Maticevski's private order business is, he reports, travelling well – even in the US. Maticevski is in fact planning to return to New York Fashion Week in September and reports that he self-funds all his shows.




all three studio images: justin ridler

Here are also two quite beautiful mid century Schweppes posters, illustrators unknown (even though the red one bears some resemblance to the style, and signature, of venerated French illustrator René Gruau).




Schweppes has plucked these illustrations from its archives, from an era when the brand was actively involved in the fashion business. A selection has been made into postcards, to be distributed tonight.

Wouldn’t it be nice if big commercial brands – and, yes, fashion magazines - once again became the champions of hand-rendered fashion illustration?

Sonny Vandevelde backstage at Toni Maticevski

Apologies for the delay with Toni Maticevski coverage. There has been no shortage of coverage in the Australian press and frankly, if frockwriter can't get to something quickly for whatever reason, be that limited resources, or the need to continue regular work while these shows are on, we try to leave it to the mainstream crew. But here's an exclusive backstage portfolio from Maticevski's New York show via one of the world's leading backstage-specialist photographers, Australian Sonny Vandevelde. Taken as the models (including locals Vanessa Milde and Bridget Malcolm), head to the runway, or backstage, in between exits. This is a first look, as the shots have not yet made it onto Vandevelde's regular collections slideshow for New York's hintmag - or even his own blog. Click here to see the rest of his FW0910 New York coverage on hintmag.













all photos: © sonny vandevelde

Maticevski forms a lobby group

Toni Maticevski enjoyed a little international PR pick-me-up earlier this year when Gemma Ward chose his distressed silk goddess gown to wear to the Australian premier of The Black Balloon. Overnight he made his fourth New York Fashion Week foray: on-schedule, but off-site, in the lobby of the chic new Rafael Viñoly-designed Hotel Roger Williams.

The collection was inspired by the 1977 book, Inventive Paris Clothes 1909-1939. A photo essay by Irving Penn, the book documents the Diana Vreeland-curated 1973 Metropolitian Museum of Art exhibition Inventive Clothes 1909-1939, which featured garments from Paris couture masters including Paul Poiret, Madeliene Vionnet, Alix Grès, Molyneux, Chanel, Paquin, Schiaparelli and Callot Soeurs.

There were nods to Vionnet in the draped silk gowns and to Poiret, in the lace sack dresses and shifts, the most striking a black and white draped cocktail dress with lace insert.

The rest seemed like trademark Maticevski: exquisitely detailed teastained and ivory cocktail dresses and ballgowns, with some occasional shots of marigold and salmon pink, one of the prettiest a panelled ivory cocktail dress with high Victorian collar, silk fringing and delicate shoulder ruffles.

Smart tailoring included an ivory lace blouse with shoulder pads tucked into a matching pencil skirt; a sheer, striped maxi-length shirtwaister; and a glossy black, wide-legged jumpsuit worn under a jet black blazer - it seems no designer wants to do a collection this spring without one.

All up, a polished, if occasionally unfocussed, collection, which might have been perfect had Maticevski edited out a handful of exits (a case in point the petrol blue silk layered dress with ringlets).






all images: getty for img

Click here to see the complete collection on wwd.com.

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.

Original post and comments.

Vogue tells its models "Keep your legs together!" after Maticevski's Manhattan transfer

There were more than a few empty seats in Melbourne on Monday, when a preview of Toni Maticevski's New York debut runway collection opened Rosemount Australian Fashion Week. And it was a very similar scenario at New York's Bryant Park on Friday, with only the front couple of rows turning up to see Maticevski, the first of ten emerging international fashion names to take part in the event's sponsored "UPS Hub" initiative.

"I think there was a show up against Toni" offered head Olympus Fashion Week honcho, IMG Fashion vice president Fern Mallis, after the UPS Hub show of US designer Ashleigh Verrier later in the day, which was, by contrast, packed to the rafters.

Fortunately for Maticevski however his show of sculptured, cotton polyamide, safari-inspired separates and delicate, shredded silk tulle eveningwear, teamed with quirky kangaroo fur-trimmed platform shoes, was seen by a small, but powerful group of American buyers and media.

The latter included Saks Fifth Avenue, Henri Bendel, Womens Wear Daily, US Vogue and The Washington Post. Several among them that I spoke to afterwards seemed quite upbeat about the show (read our upcoming news stories and Thursday's Essential supplement in The Sydney Morning Herald for the complete Maticevski verdict).

At press time Maticevski had moreover already scored a couple of important pieces of editorial real estate. They include a highly coveted slot in US Vogue's 'Up Next' preview of the hottest talent at the New York shows. Of the seven up-and-comers selected by contributing editor Lauren Davis for the feature, Maticevski and Josh Goot are the only Australians.

At around 2pm today, when the US Saturday sites went live, Maticevski had also scored some impartial, and valuable, show criticism, as distinct to the frequently overhyped reviews he tends to receive from the Australian media.

The reviews were in the influential Womens Wear Daily (WWD) and Style.com - making in fact page one of Style.com today. Both companies are owned by Conde Nast, which owns Vogue. (And I am WWD's Australasian correspondent; however I had nothing to with the Maticevski review).

Here's what they said.

WWD:

"In a gentle palette of white and neutrals, Toni Maticevski worked a range of pretty dresses from stylishly minimal ones to deconstructed numbers, which occasionally veered too far over the top".

Style.com:

"Aussie Toni Maticevski arrived at the UPS Hub without a great deal of fanfare, but left with lots of new friends. He showed an appealing, delicate collection featuring trapeze shapes and diaphanous fabrics.

"The show was uneven - a blouse with Capulet sleeves seemed incongruous, as did a lone menswear look, paraded barefoot no less - but there was promise here. The eveningwear in particular was winning, especially a silk and tulle gown that looked as light as a cloud".

Shooting Maticevski and models out the back of the venue afterwards in Bryant Park, for the upcoming Vogue new talent feature, was expat Australian photographer Nicholas Samartis, who recently moved from LA to New York.

What does Samartis make of the so-called "Australian invasion" of New York this season, with six Aussie names treading the runways?

"There's always an Australian invasion" Samartis told me in between takes of the models walking towards him past a stationary Maticevski.

"We just invade, we can't help it" he quipped. "I don't know how they're getting their visas. They're paying somebody off, don't you think?"

Samartis initially attempted to prevent me from taking some video of his shoot with my phone.

"You can't do that, it's an exclusive" he trumpetted, while standing in the middle of a throng of punters who had been having lunch in Bryant Park at the same moment the Maticevski posse turned up for its Vogue closeup.

Every second punter took out their own phones and cameras to record the moment. So much for an exclusive.

Curiously however, there was not an Australian amongst Maticevski's models, in spite of me having spotted 14 year-old rising Australian star Tallulah Morton and expats Elyse Taylor and Miranda Kerr at the Marc Bouwer and Cia.Maritima shows elsewhere in the day.

Perhaps the Australian models are doing so well now, Maticevski can't afford them?

One wonders if there had been any Australian modules on hand for the Vogue shoot, whether Davis would have had to remind them to "please keep your knees together", as I overheard her saying to one model.

Wearing one of Maticevski's feather-print, ruffled silk organza columns, the girl had been posing against the side of a bistro table like a truck driver - with her knees akimbo.

Is it an Anna Wintour directive that Vogue's models keep their legs closed?

"It's America, it's a puritannical society" offered Samartis, who should know, as he claims to now do 90 percent of his work for Vogue. "They're supposed to be 'classy'" he sighed. "It's such an overused American word, 'classy'".

Noted Davis, "Me personally, I like the girls to look pretty and beautiful and yeah, you don't want to have a beautiful picture and have the girl's knees open. If that offends someone, slipping through, what's the point? I'm somewhat conservative I guess. I think the same rules that apply to you in your real life, should apply on a shoot. I would never sit like that so I would never instruct a girl to sit like that in a shot".

One has to assume then that Davis would prefer not to work with the so-called "bad boy" of US fashion photography, Terry Richardson, who has carved a career out of louche imagery that blurs the lines between art and pornography.

Richardson's work has also been dubbed "heroin chic", although that apparently has more to do with the grittiness of his images of adolescents, and less to do with the fact that he himself is a recovered heroin addict.

"Legs akimbo" appears to be the absolute least shoot directive that Richardson issues to his subjects. Leaving his personal exhibition work out of things (in which he has photographed himself, his models and even his studio assistants in various sexual positions) arguably his most famous campaign image is the shot of model Josie Moran simulating fellatio with a cow's udder, for Italian brand Sisley.

As revealed by The Sydney Morning Herald in July, Richardson was recently paid what industry sources estimated was US$150,000 for one day's work, shooting the spring/summer 2006/2007 ad campaign for Australian jeans brand Lee.

The campaign is about to break in Australian magazines, however one image went up on a Melbourne billboard last weekend.

The same image is due to appear on a billboard in Sydney's Taylor Square on October 1st. But I gather the campaign is already ruffling feathers down there. According to Lee's marketing manager Richard Bell, the company's first choice for the billboard image was knocked back by the Advertising Standards Bureau for being too risque, so you can only imagine what the wowsers would have said about that.

"He would be pretty sick of me pretty fast" said Davis, of the prospect of working with Richardson.

"I love his photography" she added. "[But] He would just be pretty annoyed at me telling the girls, sit up straight, put your knees together, get the needle out of your arm".


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