Christopher Kane taps the British government to make a nuclear fashion statement

christopher kane Resort 2010/style.com


You may recall the furore over Kate Sylvester’s use of war medals in the styling of her 2008 Rosemount Australian Fashion Show in Sydney. Well frockwriter can’t help wondering if Scottish fashion darling Christopher Kane might be heading down a similar path. Overnight, prominent fashion website style.com gushed over images of Kane’s “first-ever pre-collection” on its homepage, complete with headline, “It’s the bomb”. The collection’s mushroom cloud graphics were sourced, at least according to style.com - which is owned by Condé Nast, calls itself the online home of Vogue and is regarded as an authority, so we must assume that the details are correct - from “free public-access photos” on the UK Ministry of Defence website. Kane told the website, “I wanted something natural, but I'm so fed up with florals. And then I came across these images of nuclear test explosions from the fifties to the seventies on the Internet. I like the crazy-bright chemical colors. The way they're sinister—but beautiful". UPDATE 15/6: SEVENTY THOUSAND WERE NUKED IN NAGASAKI. NOW YOU CAN BUY THE T-SHIRT FROM CHRISTOPHER KANE.



screen grab/style.com

On her collection review, style.com’s senior fashion critic, Sarah Mower, a Brit, makes the following quip:

“The dresses in Christopher Kane's first-ever pre-collection radiate instant-appeal commerciality in just enough of a subversive way to be interesting”.

christopher kane Resort 2010/style.com


There are potentially several problems with this. It is interesting that noone sought to clarify the details.

Firstly, if you decide to use images of nuclear testing to make some kind of artistic or political statement, why not get a designer to conjure up exclusive graphics? Kane makes no mention of a political statement, simply that he was jack of florals.

Secondly, there’s the issue of copyright. Here are the MOD's terms and conditions for the use of the images in its database:

“The material featured on this website is subject to Crown Copyright protection unless otherwise indicated. The material may be downloaded to file or printer for the purposes of non-commercial research and private study.

Any other proposed use of the material is subject to a copyright licence available from the Ministry of Defence in accordance with standard Crown Copyright licensing policy”.

Frockwriter was unable to locate the images which Kane claims to have used for the graphics in the MOD database. It's unclear if, due to the time frame, any British government images from the 1950s would be considered public domain.

Did Kane seek permission to use the images for commercial purposes or was he just "inspired" by them, in the same way that Shepherd Fairey was directly inspired by an Associated Press image of Barack Obama for Fairey's iconic HOPE poster of the 2008 US presidential campaign? The case became mired in controversy.

In the extremely unlikely scenario that the MOD in fact licensed Kane to reproduce military imagery to make nuclear war a fashion statement, a number of people would most likely have issues with this.

Starting with the Atomic Veterans Group: 1000 British, New Zealand, Fijian and Australian war veterans who, just last Friday, won a five-year battle to sue the British government for compensation over a raft of health problems which they claim are the direct result of exposure to radiation during the government’s atomic tests in the South Pacific and Australia between 1952 and 1958.

Although the majority of the group is British, it includes 200 New Zealanders, 180 Fijians and approximately 30 Australians.

The retired servicemen were among 25,000 forces who were exposed to the tests. Air and naval servicemen were, reportedly, ordered to pass close to the testing, with ground forces provided with scant protection.

Earlier hearings concluded that the British government and military administration of the day had withheld information about the dangers of the testing.

Don James, who was stationed on Christmas island during five tests in 1958, told The Guardian on Friday:

"We had no special kit. They just told us to turn your back to the blast and cover your eyes. You could see the bones in your fingers."

Friday’s High Court ruling has also greenlit the compensation claims of hundreds of other Australian, New Zealand and Fijian war veterans who participated in the testing program.

Update 11.00pm: Comment is being sought from both Kane and the UK Ministry of Defence, the latter nevertheless confirming that a license would definitely be required for use of the images. The MOD is looking into whether or not this was obtained by Kane.

Neil Sampson, a partner of the London-based Rosenblatt Solicitors, who has led the Atomic Veterans Group case, said he would be "astounded" to learn that the MOD licensed the images to Kane - or that Kane's use of the atomic test images at this time was coincidental.

"In June 2009, when the UK Ministry of Defence's role in the development of atomic warfare is on the front pages of newspapers throughout the world, it seems a little cynical" Sampson told frockwriter. "But I could ask, since when has advertising not been cynical and opportunistic?"

Rachel Rutt cruises into New York

3.1 philip lim resort 09/wwd.com

Well we told you that Rachel Rutt was Chic Management’s breakout star of Rosemount Australian Fashion Week 2009 and that she was New York-bound last month. Well just as Chic's hot RAFW 2008 ticket Myf Shepherd walked straight out of Sydney and into a couple of prominent collections in the 2009 Resort season, Rutt is off to a flying start. She was the only girl in WWD's slideshow showcase of the Resort 2010 collection of stellar New York name 3.1 Phillip Lim (while Sydney's Tallulah Morton was one of two girls booked by Lim for his own lookbook of the collection, as shown on style.com). Rutt was also booked by Doo.Ri for her Resort collection lookbook, with the images appearing on both WWD (below) and style.com. Frockwriter will take a bet this is just the beginning. Update 10/06: Rutt made models.com's Of The Minute column today.


doo.ri resort 09/wwd.com

Zambesi's speed racer

angie tinker


Frockwriter mentioned that Zambesi’s Neville Findlay is a rev head. Here’s a shot of the co-founder of the iconic Kiwi fashion label – which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year – that was just snapped at the Taupo Motorsport Park for today's second and final round of the 2009 North Island Endurance Series, a four-hour race. Findlay qualified fifth. As you can see, Findlay has upgraded from his brother’s Datsun 260Z, that he raced in March, to what we understand is a very rare BMW ZM coupe. We also have it on good authority that Findlay and his wife/business partner and the head Zambesi designer, Liz Findlay, are making a real weekend of it – having booked the honeymoon suite at Lake Taupo’s luxury motor lodge Chantilly’s. Can a Zambesi-customised car be far away?

Creative Sydney: Advance Australia flair

candy bowers/flickr

Over the past fortnight I’ve been called a Fun, Fearless Female (thanks Cosmo), a Creative Catalyst (thanks Creative Sydney) and a c***face (thanks Tallulah Morton – who has since self-censored her MySpace page). And although I am still scratching my head over my inclusion on the inaugural Creative Catalysts list, I feel very honoured to have been ranked amongst such a creative coterie. I must admit, I did chuckle when I read that I had been accorded a nod for services including “...testing the limits of the online medium” – and consider it a vote of confidence in all the RAFW Twitter artists, and of course, the Bluralism movement. Last night, I had the great pleasure of taking part in a Creative Sydney panel event called Reaching the World, which included the following speakers.

Hip hop artists Candy Bowers and Morgan Lewis, textile designer Liz Casella from Karolina York, sustainable furniture designer Michael Alvisse from Schamburg + Alvisse and Kate Bezar, the founder and editor of the Dumbo feather, pass it on magazine.

For anyone unfamiliar with the latter title, the name refers to to the Walt Disney character Dumbo the circus elephant, who believed he needed a magic feather to fly.

Four times a year, Bezar publishes five 4,500-word interviews with people who have pursued their creative passions and dreams.

My favourite line of the evening came from Bowers, the first speaker, who has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival but claims to have been told by one Australian television executive:

“Australian television isn’t ready for you yet”.

Having worked in Australian commercial television, I don’t doubt her for a moment.

Presumably what needs to happen for Bowers to get a mainstream media guernsey here is to first be discovered by an international network - and then return a star.

It's wonderful to see creativity being celebrated in Australia for once – and not just sport. I could have listened to the speakers for the entire evening and would highly recommend others make an effort to attend the remaining events.

Well done to organiser/panel moderator Jess Scully and the Creative Sydney team – not to mention the NSW government, which has funded the initiative.

It would be great to see an ongoing program like this roll out around Australia.

As noted by Scully in her signoff last night, let’s keep this conversation going people.

Sydney’s Fashion and Film Festivals hook up for a nuclear Wintour

screen grab the september issue/arp.tv

It premiered January 16th at Sundance and will be released in the US in September. But here’s a little incentive to attend next week’s launch of the 2009 Rosemount Sydney Fashion Festival. Organiser IMG FASHION Asia Pacific has partnered up with the Sydney Film Festival and RSFF's somewhat genius launch party is the Australian premiere of RJ Cutler’s much-hyped Anna Wintour/US Vogue frockumentary, The September Issue. Details (subject to change): Thursday 11th June, 8.30pm red carpet, 9.15pm screening, 11.00pm afterparty. By invitation only (see IMG). By all means move at a glacial pace towards the RSVP hotline. You know how that thrills AW.

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

Rose is a rose is a rose

tito media via FAMOUS

Well the Cat, as they say, is out of the bag. Last night in Sydney Oz gossip magazine FAMOUS Tweeted two watermarked paparazzi shots of Chic Management superstar Catherine McNeil and MTV Australia VJ Ruby Rose Langenheim, kissing. On closer inspection, on Tito Media's website, the shots had been taken on May 23rd at the Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles. Even if FAMOUS had purchased and taken the shots off the market, it’s unlikely they would have spoiled their own exclusive. It's more likely the magazine did a spoiler for a story that is due to run in a Sunday tabloid or a competitor on Monday (update 1/06: the shots appear in a double-page spread in this week's NW). Langenheim sure does get around. Just three weeks ago in Sydney she was photographed kissing another top Chic Management model, Myf Shepherd.

In the intervening hours these new images have made their way to a number of online outlets. Here is what looks to be the complete set on McNeil's TFS thread.

And most, not surprisingly, are marvelling at the complex inter-model relationship geometry.

Fashionologie asks:

“Are two models involved in a love triangle?”

While ONTD_Fashinfags poster dcbaabcd notes:

“is the world ready for a freja, catherine, myf, and some other australian lesbian love quadrilateral? I'M NOT”.

As frockwriter has previously reported, initially in October, there has been much speculation over a romantic liaison between McNeil and Danish supermodel Freja Beha Erichsen - who ranks immediately below McNeil as the world number nine working model on go-to industry website models.com.

And as we mentioned on Tuesday, Langenheim came runnerup to McNeil in the 2003 Girlfriend Model Search competition and was once repped by Chic.

In April last year Langenheim described McNeil to The Daily Telegraph as:

“one of the best-looking women in the world… She deserves to be a supermodel"

Langenheim declined to comment however when the reporter asked the question if the pair had previously "locked lips".

At the time of 2002 Girlfriend Model Search competition, Langenheim and McNeil were 16 and 13 respectively.

Suggesting that the pair may today be, at the very least, the best of mates, earlier today Langenheim told her 11,000+ Twitter Followers:

“Happy birthday to my amazing Kitty Cat! <3”

According to her DOB information on several websites, McNeil celebrates her 20th birthday today.

As it emerges, Langenheim was in Los Angeles attending several business meetings and revealed to her Twitter followers that she has "big news" about work, which is currently under wraps - and may be US-focussed.

But while Langenheim appears to be a very active user of social media, according to several former Facebook friends of McNeil, McNeil's Facebook profile mysteriously vanished overnight last year.

Coincidentally, this was around the same time that rumours first started percolating about McNeil's friendship with Freja Beha Erichsen.

McNeil's Facebook account appears to have been recently reinstated, with a much tighter circle of 117 friends so far.

In Vogue: Myf Shepherd

vogue australia via chic blog


Well the tabloids might be all over her private life, but Myf Shepherd just cracked her first Vogue cover: the July edition of Vogue Australia. She is wearing what looks suspiciously like an outfit, or part thereof, from the Romance Was Born SS0910 show at Rosemount Australian Fashion Week. Coincidentally, Shepherd was front row at the RWB show at the Sydney Theatre Company on April 30th, sitting with the Vogue team. It only took a year for Vogue to put to her on there (having previously only used Shepherd on the cover of a racing fashion supplement and editorial features), but better late than never. Makes a very nice change to see an Australian model, brand and indeed, cover, on an Australian fashion glossy. Bravo.

Size matters

The Australian clothing sizes debate has been raging for several years. And it's about to kick off again with the release of a new story in the June 2009 edition of CHOICE magazine, out Monday. It includes the above ‘secret shopper’ video shot by CHOICE journalist Kate Browne, which demonstrates the dramatic sizing variations between some Australian brands. In the interim, CHOICE has gone down an interesting route for word of mouth promotion. The magazine invited some fashion bloggers and writers to attend a fashion roundtable discussion of the subject, which was staged earlier today in Surry Hills. Frockwriter was both interviewed for the story and invited to the round-table but unfortunately was unable to attend due to work commitments – and an accelerating flu. But here is the thrust of CHOICE's findings, which touch on vanity sizing and the perennial dearth of larger sizes in the designer end of the market. CHOICE concludes that clothing size irregularities highlight the need for a national sizing strategy. Update 28/05: and here is the complete report, now live on CHOICE's website.

Bloggers/journalists in attendance this morning were Helen Lee, Natalie Smith (The Vine), Jenna Dunne (The Grand Social), Ragtrader editor Tracey Porter and Melissa Hoyer.

Key points from the CHOICE story (as per a press release):

• There have been no uniform sizes for women or men’s clothing since the previous standard was dropped two years ago. Despite a heavier population the most recent data collected for the women’s sizing standard was in 1975.

• The fashion industry currently bases its sizing on previous sales history and marketing hunches about the size and shape of customer they feel best reflects their brand.

• Sizing irregularity is also affecting the online shopping market with retailers saying Australia lags behind the United States, United Kingdom and Europe in this area.

• “Vanity sizing” is also a well-known practice in the $2.8 billion dollar industry, with generous sizes designed to entice the consumer into buying the garment because they feel flattered to fit into a size smaller than their usual one.

• Some fashion designers admit they are reluctant in some cases to make their labels available in larger sizes. The industry body, Council of the Textile and Fashion Industries Australia (TFIA), says this policy can send negative body image messages to younger consumers.

• Men generally have it better than women when it comes to clothes shopping because their clothing is generally measured using specific waist and neck measurements in inches. There is a standard for children’s clothing sizes currently used in Australia.

Coupla points.

First up, as I outlined on Twitter earlier today, the figure of A$2.8billion seems out of whack.

CHOICE is citing manufacturing – as opposed to retail – figures. In frockwriter's opinion, given that we’re taking about a bunch of retailers who are selling clothes to consumers – a high percentage of whom either didn’t make the clothes they are selling, or did not make them in Australia – it seems a little pointless to be quoting the manufacturing output figure.

CHOICE’s source for this figure is the Building Innovative Capability report, which was released by the TCF Review Committee in September 2008.

The report was commissioned by the federal government and the analyst was Professor Roy Green from the Macquarie Graduate School of Management.

According to the report, Australian TCF (textile, clothing, footwear) output is worth A$2.8billion, with exports of A$1.6billion. The value increases by A$7.5billion once you add in retailing and wholesaling. The two figures together provide a much more realistic picture of the Australian retail clothing market – as reflected by an independent analyst such as IBISWorld, which predicts the market will reach A$11.39billion this year.

CHOICE also mentions that the recent federal budget embraced plans to seek advice from the National Measurement Institute on the costs and benefits of forming a voluntary industry sizing standard. This was in fact one of the recommendations of the TCF Review Committee.

The clothes size debate has the potential to be quite controversial, especially when you factor in the ongoing brouhaha over the “average” Australian size, not to mention broach the subject of larger sizes and the reluctance of (most) designers to cater to this market. Why are designers reluctant to cater to larger sizes? Because the so-called “plus size” clothing market has traditionally been very separate to the high end fashion market and up until now, never the twains have met.

I looked at this subject on two specific occasions last year on my Fully Chic blog on NEWS.com.au.

The first was on March 14th, a post which included an interview with US designer Zac Posen, who had just delivered a capsule collab collection to Australian Target.

I noted the fact that Posen's Target range did not extend to a size 16, citing Target’s experience with the previous Stella McCartney range. Target found that the larger sizes just didn’t sell well. Much was made at the time of the leftover McCartney stock. Anecdotally, most of that leftover stock did indeed appear to be the larger sizes.

“So much for the continual complaints by larger women that there is no fashionable clothing in their sizes” I noted – a comment which prompted a minor backlash, with several women claiming that my tone had been “snarky”.

Yet others admitted that they are so fed up with stores not stocking fashionable clothing in larger sizes, that they just didn’t bother checking out Posen’s Target range.

One week later, I wrote a post about Australian designer Leona Edmiston doubling her dress size range to a 24 - for her online boutique only.

The post included an interview with Edmiston’s husband and business partner Jeremy Ducker, who revealed that the chief reason why they were only making the larger sizes available online was because their research indicated larger women felt uncomfortable going into fashion boutiques (a sentiment which was certainly borne out in several reader comments – because, some women claimed, they feel as if shop assistants are looking down on and belittling them).

The comments on that second post exploded and the debate became quite vitriolic.

Edmiston went to ground, declining all other interview requests. I learned at the time that she was nervous about being labelled a “plus size” designer.

There have been several small initiatives since this time including Sydney fashion label Billion Dollar Babes designing two collaboration collections for City Chic, a chain which specializes in larger sizes.

Femmes fatales

3-way kiss/terry richardson


Should leading Australian model agency Chic Management perhaps think about renaming itself Sapphic Management? Frockwriter surely can’t be the only one starting to wonder. On February 21st, speaking about the recent friendship between Chic's latest superstar Myf Shepherd and Dutch supermod Nimue Smit – and following reports about “McBeha”, the much-discussed romantic hookup between an even bigger Chic Management girl, Catherine McNeil and Denmark’s Freja Beha Erichsen - frockwriter quipped, do we have a new power couple on our hands? We were joking at the time. But as many may already be aware, much was made of Shepherd’s female dalliances earlier this month during RAFW – her fairly public dalliances.

Firstly, it was reported that Shepherd had been holding hands with one woman at the sass & bide party.

Several days later, Shepherd was papped - and apparently from the footpath, which of course is a public thoroughfare - whilst apparently kissing MTV Australia VJ Ruby Rose Langenheim at the appropriately-titled Kings Cross restaurant, Jimmy Liks.

The shot was published in one Australian gossip magazine and the series of images, owned by Tito Media, has since been widely circulated online.

Interestingly, Langenheim - who is openly gay - was once also repped by, you guessed it, Chic Management.

Langenheim came runnerup in the 2003 Girlfriend Model Search competition, beaten by... Catherine McNeil.

Sadly frockwriter hears that McBeha may either be on the rocks – or no more.

But that hasn't put a stop to the buzz about the duo from within the top echelons of the modelling industry.

Wayne Sterling is the co-founder of the high profile, New York-based online model resource models.com (which ranks McNeil and Erichsen the world's number 8 and 9 working models, respectively).

On April 13th, on his personal blog The Imagist, Sterling teased readers with the following snippet, which has prompted quite some speculation:

“TI wants to know which Modeling Super-Couple has splintered yet once again with one half of the duo successfully macking the other beauty's best mate on the set of that luxury ad campaign last week...Expect a punch-up at the wedding...”

Coincidentally, the Gucci Fall/Winter 2009/2010 campaign was shot the previous week in Europe.

And as revealed by frockwriter, the campaign features two Australians: Myf Shepherd and Abbey-Lee Kershaw. They were photographed for the campaign alongside several other high profile models, including Freja Beha Erichsen.

Both Shepherd and Kershaw are repped by Chic Management. However we have it on good authority that only one of them is best friends with McNeil.

And it’s not Shepherd.