Indie mags lead the RUSSH to social media

It's fascinating to witness the pace at which some are diving into social media. Not surprisingly perhaps, when it comes to Australian fashion magazine publishing, it's the independents who are leading the way. Without the resources of massive online portals such as ninemsn.com.au and news.com.au, to which the biggest titles have access, the indies are thinking outside the square. Here is a video just-posted by RUSSH magazine on its day-old Tumblr blog. It's a "vidflip" of issue 29. The blog and Vimeo account are on top of Facebook (4,349 fans) and MySpace (10,538 friends) pages, as well as a Twitter feed (1,451 followers). Coincidentally, the launch of the RUSSH blog follows five days after a release from indie fashion rival, frankie, entitled, "Frankie doesn't freak out in face of new media".

In the press release, magazine retailer Sahil Merchant, from Mag Nation, talks up the title:

“Just think about how many people chat about a frankie article over coffee. The magazine becomes almost a social lubricant, which elevates it beyond a mere collection of words and images.

"The same cannot be said about lots of other magazines, which are simply content in print. These are the ones that don't get the new media environment we are in, and will ultimately disappear”.

The release also quotes frankie's social media chops:

frankie.com.au (37,287 unique visitors/month)
Facebook (17,760 fans)
MySpace (13,962 friends)
Twitter (4,600 followers)

That's on top of, the release notes, the magazine's 29,135 audited readers.

The Roberto Cavalli scuba pant - and the model who dropped 30 pounds to squeeze into it

robert cavalli uomo SS10/wwd.com

Overnight, a number of key menswear collections showed up on the Milan SS10 runway. Among the trends of note, a glut of eye-popping red suits at Dirk Bikkembergs, Salvatore Ferragamo, Enrico Coveri and Trussardi. Plaid at Alexander McQueen and Marc Jacobs. And muscle shirts at Prada, Calvin Klein and Trussardi. And just as Sunday's Gucci show was reportedly inspired by '70s flick The Deep, Robert Cavalli came up with a a scuba-inspired collection, whose hero garment was a curious trouser with a high, foldover waistand that resembled a surfer’s wetsuit with the top rolled down. Frockwriter is dubbing it the scuba pant. But more interesting than the clothes was The New York Times revelation that top 22 year-old Arab American model A. J. Abualrub (pictured above and below, right) dropped 30 pounds (13.64 kilos) for the season.

Abualrub told NYT journalist Guy Trebay that his natural weight is closer to 200 pounds, that he sees a nutritionist, that it was a challenge to take the weight off - but that he wound up booking more Milan Fashion Week shows than he had anticipated.

Noted Abualrub:

“I only eat, like, maybe twice a day”.

There has been much talk over the past week about the shrinking sample size in the womens’ fashion market, with Alexandra Shulman and Kirstie Clements, the editors of the British and Australian editions of Vogue, lamenting the tiny sizes of womens' current fashion samples.

Frockwriter has two observations to make here.

Firstly, anecdotally, the average age of a female runway model would appear to be younger than it was 15 years ago. Up to a decade younger.

And furthemore, the past 15 years has also reportedly witnessed a reduction in the mens' sample size, as part of what has been referred to as "the Hedi Sliminization" of the mens' fashion market.


robert cavalli uomo SS10/wwd.com

The creative director of YSL Rive Gauche Homme from 1997-1999 and then, notably, Christian Dior Homme, from 2000-2007, Hedi Slimane is credited with launching, among other silhouettes, the skinny jean trend which revolutionised both the menswear and womenswear markets.

Slimane's choice of ultra skinny models for his runway shows, and his muses - notably Brit rocker Pete Doherty, a longtime heroin user who pleaded guilty to heroin possession earlier this month - led to the widespread use of the term "heroin chic" to describe Slimane's aesthetic.

One might well ask just how much influence Slimane has wielded over the womens’ market in general.

As mentioned on this journalist's last blog Fully Chic last year, during one of several discussions about body image and model weight, over the past two years several reports have been published about the shrinking male sample size.

Here is one story from The Independent from February 2007, which mentions a book written by former male model, and recovered anorexic, Ron Saxon.

Here is another from The New York Times from November 2007, discussing the very fashion-obsessed Japanese market.

And here is yet another from February 2008, also from the NYT - and coincidentally also written by Guy Trebay.

Trebay began that February 2008 story with the following words:

“CREDIT Hedi Slimane or blame him”

In that story, Flaunt magazine’s Long Nguyen recounted that when he first entered the magazine business in 1994, the typical sample was an Italian 50. Six years later, reported Ngyen, it had shrunk to 48. By 2008, it was 46.

Nguyen told the NYT:

“At that point you might as well save money and just go over to the boy’s department”.

Model family

the selby


Just-posted on US home style blog The Selby: a glimpse into the Bondi backyard and life of Renaissance waif Emma Balfour, who recently reignited her modelling career at 40. And given the photogenic progeny produced by Ward and Andrew Cowen - their sons Bruno and Elliot - you have to ask if it's just a matter of time before we see a second generation of Balfours on the runway.

Beau geste: Did the dog eat Versace's social media homework?

doug ordway for versace

Overnight Versace showed its SS10 menswear show in Milan. Inspired by the French Foreign Legion, the hallmark looks of the largely desert-toned collection were the safari suit, a series of loose djellabah shirts, many of them dip-dyed, and the now de rigueur manbag. In Versace’s case, this included both the megatote and the duffle bag, right down to small, square leather purses, worn belted at the hip. Below is a video of the collection from, once again, the good folk over at LA Times blogs. And just as well that someone had their eye on the social media ball at Versace, because in spite of the suggestion that Versace was “fully embracing the digital era”, including the promise of "doggie cam" - that's right, a camera-enabled pooch - Versace’s so-called exclusive live-streamed backstage access turned out to be rather confusing.

Is there anything at all on the Versace website? No.

Instead, there is a series of uncaptioned photos on the Twitter feed of Doug Ordway.

Who is that exactly? Ordway is a photographer who says he does a lot of work for Versace.

A few images of the hair & makeup stage were posted on Twitter prior to the show. The bulk of the images were however posted long after the show had wrapped - with no captions whatsoever.

Ordway also shot three maximum 30 second backstage videos backstage which also went up after the event (see below).

Another site called Ftape, which calls itself the "Ultimate Online Fashion Resource" - and whose connection to Versace is unclear – appeared charged with the role of promoting Ordway's coverage via its website and Twitter.

And at least Ftape has done a good job of aggregating all of Ordway's photos and video together in the one spot. But you had to really know what you were looking for to find it.

Perhaps the doggie-cam - and also touted model-cam - footage is to be used at some later date.

Memo to Versace: YouTube is not live-streaming video. Nor is uploading a gazillion photographs hours after the event.

It’s great that more and more fashion companies are interested in getting into social media and providing their audiences with content.

But try taking a leaf out of Dolce e Gabbana’s book.

Dolce e Gabbana manages to aggregate all its content under the Dolce e Gabbana umbrella.

The company does have a spinoff, magazine-style website - Swide - which pumps out a lot of exclusive content. Granted, the site has a rather baffling name - which, judging by its low Twitter follow count may confuse people. But at least Dolce e Gabbana is serious about social media and has dedicated resources to it.

And furthermore, of course, Dolce e Gabbana actually live-streams its runway shows to the net as they happen.

Bottega Veneta rocks the cropped pant

Here is a just-posted video from the LA Times blogs of the Bottega Veneta SS10 menswear show in Milan, which took place four hours ago. It features one of the biggest early trends of the season, that has been seen in a number of collections, including Dolce e Gabbana, Missoni and the just-wrapped Gucci: the cropped trouser. See the complete Missoni and Gucci collections on wwd.com.

Jethro Cave's Gumby earring is apparently bigger than Costume National

COACD

First spotted dangling off the ear of Australia's next top male model Jethro Cave during a photoshoot for the top model industry blog Confessions of a Casting Director a fortnight ago, Cave's Gumby earring must have appealed to the stylists over at Italian brand Costume National. Because there it was, still on Cave as he walked the show overnight in Milan. Cave is second out in this video below. That said, it's hard to imagine a huge gob of Kelly green rubber being easily adapted to the vision of most luxury brands, so one wonders if there's a chance that Cave simply refused to cooperate? It's not like it went with anything else in the collection. As was observed by the good folk over at The New York Times, who seemed quite perplexed when they noted on Twitter: "An inexplicable Gumby earring hanging off the ear of a model at Costume National". Cave is of course the son of rock legend Nick Cave and has of late become well-connected in the fashion biz. So perhaps noone tells him to lose the Gumby.

The man clutch at Dolce e Gabbana

Yes the Spring/Summer 2010 menswear shows are off in Milan and thanks to a couple of social media-savvy brands that showed on day one – Dolce e Gabbana and Burberry – here is a closer look (just try a Google News search on Burberry, Dolce e Gabbana, Missoni, Jil Sander or any other brand which showed yesterday and see how much mainstream media coverage comes up right now - nada). Both Dolce e Gabbana and Burberry personally invited our buddy Bryanboy to see their shows and both companies very quickly provided images. Dolce e Gabbana deserves special mention for setting the social media agenda in the luxury world, by being the first major brand to live stream all its shows. Kollektor and frockwriter were among many to watch the company's show last night, the highlights of which – as we noted live – included compact clutch purses being carried by almost every model (who included Madonna squeeze Jesus Luz), glitzy jacquard smoking jackets over cropped trousers, bejewelled tuxedos, singlets with Marlon Brando graphics and a platoon of buffed muscle boys in heavily-distressed jeans (which, according to D&G's online alter-ego Swide, are lined in pyjama silk). More images after the jump. For complete coverage, from runway to backstage, head to Dolce e Gabbana’s website.










all images: Dolce e Gabbana

The canvas megatote at Burberry

As noted by Bryanboy from the trenches on day one of the Milan Spring/Summer 2010 menswear shows, it was hard to miss Burberry’s canvas megatotes overnight. Entitled “British town and country under British rain and sun” the collection also featured bondage-like straps on lightweight trenches in shower-proof waxed heritage cotton, waxed linen and waxed cotton canvas – the best in eye-popping ‘uniform red’ and ‘sou’wester yellow’ - cashmere gilets and cardigans and vintage cable knits. More pics after the jump.






all images: courtesy Burberry

Gaga for V

A sneak peek inside the engine room of a Lady Gaga fashion shoot, this just-posted video shows preparations and vignettes from an upcoming editorial in the 60th edition of edgy US fashion title V magazine. Styled by Nicola Formichetti, it was shot by Argentinian Sebastian Faena - who recently transformed Australians Catherine McNeil and Abbey Lee Kershaw into campy 60s horror heroines for another V editorial, entitled 'Hell's Bellas'.

Hunter + Kollektor

Just wanted to draw your attention to a great new blog. Launched by Sydneysider Paul Hayes, it's called Kollektor and is designed as a repository for news about Australian artists, designers and thinkers. This is not Hayes’ first foray into blogging – he’s been dabbling with this Blogspot blog for a couple of years, in additional to Tumblr. But Kollektor has a slick magazine feel and with Hayes’ demonstrated (via Twitter) news foraging skills and taste for eclectica, frockwriter is betting this new blog could make waves - especially if he injects some of that rapier wit. A former film editor at ABC TV, production editor at Ad News and, from 2005 until a couple of weeks ago, the editor of News Limited’s City Weekly and ALIVE Sydney, Hayes is taking a year off to travel, contemplate his navel and blog/Tweet a great deal. Less well–known is the fact that Hayes spent over a decade as a drag artiste in Melbourne and latterly, Sydney, under the stage name of Miss Victoria Bitter. Miss VB to her intimates.