Prince Charles to meet Australian fashion royalty - and some sheep

via the clitheroe advertiser

Now that Andrej Pejic has met the Queen, it’s only fitting that some other members of the Australian fashion flock get to mingle with the Royals. If you didn’t already know by now, Their Royal Highnesses Prince Charles and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall are en route to Australia with a whirlwind itinerary that will take in Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup – in fact the duo is due to present the trophy to the winner. Far less well-advertised on their Aussie to-do list is a Woolmark event on Friday 9th November at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Inside Sabatini

Frockwriter had always wanted to visit the head office of New Zealand knitwear brand Sabatini, which showed in a group show during New Zealand Fashion Week a fortnight ago. On this NZ trip we did finally made it out to the Mt Roskill factory, about 20 minutes outside of Auckland’s CBD. Founded 57 years ago by Croatian refugees Zarko and Sonja Milich as Sonny Elegant Knitwear Ltd, this third generation family-run knitwear business is unique in Australasia. From 1967, it was also one of the original partner’s of the International Wool Secretariat’s Woolmark program (and yes, they use Australian wool - most of New Zealand's clip goes into high quality carpets and rugs). Operated today by Zarko's and Sonja’s son and daughter Tony Milich and Margie Evans-Milich and granddaughters Anja Milich and Danielle Evans-Milich, Sabatini has been likened to Italy’s Missoni clan. It’s fascinating to see the beautiful jacquards being woven on equipment that includes some quite spectacular postwar machinery. The company’s stable of brands includes Sabatini and the highend Sabatini White, which is sold around the world. 

Michelle Jank helps reimage Oz wool

awi

Sydney is certainly a fashion hub this week – and the inaugural Rosemount Sydney Fashion Festival doesn’t even officially kick off until tomorrow. After yesterday’s Fashion Laureate announcement, this morning Australian Wool Innovation relaunched its new corporate identity and brand stable – together with a spectacular A$120million campaign styled by Paris-based Australian fashion and jewellery designer Michelle Jank.

Couldn’t get to this presentation either (I’m flat out with other work - thanks for hanging in there on the blog) but I do have a story about the launch in today’s WWD.

I thought I would share some of the images not used in the story.



The new relaunch includes three new brands: Australian Merino, Superior Merino and Superior Merino Blend.

The new marketing push aims to relaunch Australian merino wool into the global market as a clean, green - read sustainable and biodegradable - luxury fibre.

Images 1, 2 and 3 are from the Superior Merino campaign, styled by Jank and shot by David Mandelberg.

Images 4 and 5 are from the Australian Merino campaign – once again styled (and designed) by Jank. John Macarthur also provided knit garments for this shoot, which took place in the Kimberleys in WA. The photographer is Georges Antoni.

The ideas of “clean” wool and corporate social responsibility vis-à-vis the Australian wool industry probably won’t go down well with the animal rights lobby.

The latter regards the industry as barbaric and has been on its back over the past four years over the mulesing issue - and even with the industry commitment to a 2010 mulesing phaseout, still does not appear to be satisfied.



PETA would presumably like nothing better than for Australia’s 55,000 woolgrowers to shift to hemp production and for Australia’s 80 million sheep to be released into the wild - where they would irrefutably die agonising deaths from, take your pick, predators, flystrike, parasitic infestation or heat exhaustion.

Or perhaps PETA could rescue them and then simply put them all down en masse? As with the 10,000 animals it reportedly euthanised from 1998 to 2003.



While PETA has been busy trying to win over retailers to its anti-wool cause, apparently you can’t keep designers away from wool.

Over the past eight months the rollcall of designers putting their hands up to become involved with various AWI initiatives, from the Protégé Project to the Woolmark Prize, has included Karl Lagerfeld, Donatella Versace, Paul Smith, Francisco Costa and Sonia Rykiel.

At today’s presentation that designer rollcall also included the winner of the 2008 Woolmark Prize Qui Hao from China, Jank and Sydney-based Jayson Brunsdon and Ben Pollitt.

Merino suits from Herringbone were modelled by Wallabies players.