Charlotte Rampling, cover girl - at 64

crush via the imagist

We have been talking about older women creeping into high fashion runway shows and advertising campaigns. But as far as frockwriter can recall, fashion magazines are not as yet lining up to put anyone north of 50 on a cover. In fact we can't recall many (if any) that have. Try 64. Not that quarterly US fanzine Crush is a major, or even fashion-dedicated, but interesting nonetheless to see veteran British actor Charlotte Rampling on its latest cover. Below is a short video taken during the shoot. She may no longer be playing the ingénue, but judging by her IMDB page, Rampling is almost as busy now as during her heyday, when she shot to prominence in Georgy Girl, later cementing her position as a major star in The Damned and The Night Porter. The Paris-based grandmother is of course no stranger to the fashion world. Dubbed "the world’s sexiest woman” by British Vogue in 1974, accompanied by a nude Helmut Newton portrait, in September last year Rampling bravely posed nude again opposite models.com’s then world number one Raquel Zimmermann for Juergen Teller and Paradis magazine - and this time full frontal.


crush via the imagist

Vale Richard Bailey

Very sad news about Richard Bailey, who passed away yesterday at the age of 52 from cancer. By all accounts he was working right until the end. Bailey was one of the giants of Australian fashion photography, working with every major local magazine and retailer. Based in New York for 10 years, he also worked with GQ, Vanity Fair, Vogue Italia, Glamour, Grazia and Mademoiselle and his portfolio of advertising work spans The Gap, Victoria's Secret, Anne Klein, Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale's, Macy's, Anne Taylor, Nautica, L'Oréal and Mercedes Benz. But Bailey's biggest showcase was by far Vogue Australia, with which he worked for 31 years. You only have to check his website, to see that the local edition accounts for over half the content of his magazine covers section.

It wasn't all safe, commercial work. Tsubi's controversial 2004 'Death Machine' calendar featured Bailey's colour-saturated images of semi-clad models, including Miranda Kerr and Michelle Leslie, posing provocatively against cars and motorbikes.

The previous year, for a book called 1/1, he shot a series of edgy, black and white images of Chic Management models, to prove the critics wrong that "There are no girls [read: decent models] in Australia".

Bailey of course lived to see Australian models take the world by storm. Many of them will be toasting him tonight.

He is survived by his wife Gillian and children Billie and Jasper.

Vale.








all images/richard bailey.com.au

Zippora Seven gets Romantic with Gen Kay

Gen Kay is one of Australia’s most exciting emerging talents in fashion photography. Sydney-born, Melbourne-raised and -based, for the past seven years she has been commuting between Bleak City and Tokyo - where she spent one year full-time and has clocked up quite an impressive client list. It includes Vogue Nippon, Harper's BAZAAR Japan, Nylon Japan, Vogue Girl Japan, Elle Japan and Madame Figaro Japan, in addition to Lula (UK) and Vogue Australia. Portraiture includes Stella McCartney, Daniel Radcliffe, Paris Hilton and Marianne Faithfull (check her blog for Polaroids and work outtakes). And frockwriter is sure that it won’t be long before some of the savvier fashion marketers start taking advantage of Kay's filmmaking talents, with her site also showcasing a number of moody, personal films shot on Super 8. They feature, you guessed it, models, including Australia’s Jethro Cave. Below is an exclusive preview of Kay’s latest short, starring the upwardly mobile Auckland-based Zippora Seven. She is reading Love's Philosophy from the English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.





all photos: outtakes from 'zippora' by gen kay

Tallulah Morton crams White Sands, Harpers Bazaar and Escada into her art school holidays

russh magazine via tfs


Did we say Tallulah Morton had nixed modelling for art? Yes we did. That didn’t stop her from walking 12 shows at Rosemount Australian Fashion Week last month. And today, comes word from Sasha Strebe that White Sands designer Leah Madden has been photographing a mystery "supermodel" who looks very much like Morton on the Gold Coast. Frockwriter checked with Morton’s mother agency Scene Models, which confirmed that she has indeed booked an ad campaign with the Gold Coast-based swimwear label - its first ever, according to Scene - although that's just a lookbook being photographed today. The main campaign won't be shot for another month, reports Scene. In the interim, Morton won’t be twiddling her thumbs. Next week she will shoot the second of two new Harpers Bazaar Australia editorials, this one on Lord Howe Island. Morton will virtually step off that plane and board another on the 27th bound for Munich, where she has been booked to walk in an Escada runway show. She may also do Berlin Fashion Week, which runs July 7-10. Morton is currently on holidays from TAFE and while in Germany, also plans do an internship with a yet-to-be-named Berlin artist.

The extreme cheek of Italian Vogue

screen cap vogue italia

Frockwriter loves the fact that the late Alexander McQueen finally did what more than one scifi makeup artist must have dreamed of doing for his Spring/Summer 2010 ‘Plato’s Atlantis’ show last October: use prosthetics in runway makeup. But we really didn’t anticipate that the alien-esque look would be adopted quite so literally by the fash pack. Imagine our surprise, then, to check into Vogue Italia’s website and spot the headline, The Now Idea - Focus on cheekbones, accompanied by a gallery of backstage images from the show, a video and the following instructions, which naturally squeeze in as many plugs for Vogue advertisers as possible:

“A rebuilt face, yes, but just for one night. Implants become toys you put on your cheeks to change your features and live a special night as if you were a creature from outer space or a nymph who escaped from the forest. In a soft version they are more structured types of foundation that create a smoothing and reconstructive effect, while soins help features to get lifted.

Cheekbones Volumizer by Pupa acts with a lipo-filling cosmetic action which increases volume thanks to Volufiline and Kio Pulp Complex V10. You will already see the effect after a few applications.

For the treatment of the whole face, there's the Recompacting High Definition Foundation SPF10 with anti-wrinkle action by Collistar. The special formula extends your features and strengthens the facial contours, while the marine collagen acts in the tissues giving you a long compacting action”.

alexander mcqueen SS10/vogue.it

Hilariously, the story sits directly opposite a second beauty story entitled Beauty Victim, which warns about the dangers of too much plastic surgery:

“Cosmetic surgery can dramatically improve our physical appearance. But be careful not to go in for too many operations in an attempt to achieve an impossible model of aesthetic perfection. Don't become a beauty victim.

This is what happened to American socialite Jocelyn Wildenstein, also known as Catwoman, who spent four million dollars on plastic surgery. The outcome? Her face was radically altered, giving her a grotesque, unnatural look”.

Miranda Kerr definitely hooked up with Balenciaga last week - and that's definitely not her Twitter account

The Balenciaga plot thickens. This morning frockwriter mentioned the mystery surrounding a new photo of Miranda Kerr. According to the @MirandaMayKerr Twitter account, it was just taken during a Balenciaga Resort collection shoot. Well Kerr's personal publicist, Carlii Lyon, who just spoke with Kerr in New York, tells frockwriter that the shot was definitely taken during a Balenciaga "event" in New York last week. What was Kerr doing there and why is the makeup she's wearing identical to that seen on Balenciaga's models in these photographs of the collection which were published on Style.com and wwd.com on June 9? Lyon said she was unable to elaborate on the nature of Kerr's involvement with the brand, other than to say she was definitely working with it in some capacity. Nor does Lyon - or indeed Kerr, she claims - know who took the photo. One thing Lyon could confirm was that @MirandaMayKerr is a fake account. Lyon said that she and Kerr are attempting to have it shut down - as they have done with several others. Lyon confirmed that @MirandaKerr is the only bona fide Miranda Kerr Twitter account. Unfortunately, it's not particularly active at the moment. Nor has it been verified with Twitter, which doesn't help. They're working on it, says Lyon.

Miranda's Balenciaga hat trick?

@mirandamkerr

Well that new "cardinal rule for models" (ie do not leak information from jobs on social media) might not apply to Miranda Kerr. In what is either an elaborate fake Twitter account ruse - or the real deal - "@MirandaMKerr" left several Twitter clues from the set of a "Balenciaga Resort" shoot yesterday. "Back from Balenciaga Resort, It was awesome moment. Always fun to work with talented people" they noted, before posting an autoportrait showing an interesting winged pink smokey eye beauty look - identical to that sported by Balenciaga's models in these images of the same collection that were published last week on Style.com. But is this in fact Miranda Kerr? The account has not yet been verified by Twitter and there have been fake Miranda Kerr accounts before. Frockwriter is checking with her agents in Sydney and New York. If it is a ruse, then at least one bona fide supermodel Twitterer has been sucked in by it - fellow Victoria's Secret model Selita Ebanks - whose Twitter account has been verified by Twitter - is following @MirandaMayKerr. See updated post: It's a fake Twitter account, but that's definitely Kerr at Balenciaga last week.

It seems like a lot of trouble and expense to go to for a lookbook. Campaign? If the photos do emerge, then they would represent the third consecutive Balenciaga gig for Kerr, who walked in the French brand's Spring/Summer 2010 and Fall/Winter 2010/2011 runway shows.

It would also be the latest coup in Kerr's quest to refashion herself from a purely "commercial" star of Victoria's Secret lingerie fame, to high fashion ice queen, a trajectory that has also seen her book campaigns for Prada and Jil Sander, walk for Prada and model for edgier publications such as French Numéro and Britain's i-D.

Frockwriter can't help thinking that this is definitely a two-way street, with some of those far less accessible high fashion brands hoping for some commercial ruboff in the prevailing challenging economic climate.

Gemma Ward proves her moment is far from "over" by snagging a role in Pirates of the Caribbean 4

steven meisel via trendnista

Yesterday's lead story in The Sunday Telegraph's gossip pages reported that Gemma Ward is about to embark on her fourth film role, having scored a small speaking role as a mermaid in Pirates of The Caribbean 4. No source was cited beyond a “friend” – who was not actually quoted confirming the role, just stating that "Gemma's focus is definitely on acting. She's spent the past year studying the craft full time in New York." In spite of the fact that neither IMDB’s Pirates of the Caribbean 4 nor Gemma Ward pages had any reference, the story whipped across the net. Not that frockwriter would presume to cast aspersions on The Sunday Telegraph's sources (well, apart from perhaps those involved in the Pauline Hanson photo debacle), but we did want to make an effort to check things out before putting digit to keyboard. And an extremely well-placed business associate (who we can’t name either unfortunately) confirmed it's true - Ward has definitely signed on for a role in the film.

The Pirates of the Caribbean news follows four months after a source at Ward’s US model agency IMG told The New York Post "Her moment's over. She's not coming back".

The comments were made in A Supermodel Betrayed , an extensive feature which recounted the story of Ward’s rise and fall in the fashion business, following weight gain (the latter of course being prominently documented by The Sunday Telegraph in a front page story last year).

Boots and all: Kirsten Carriol plans to bring back lanolin, one lipgloss at a time

Australia might not be a world leader in the beauty business (yet) but it is the globe's largest wool producer. Now Kirsten Carriol is aiming to harness both industries, with her line of lanolin-based beauty products. The following story ran as a full page feature in last Saturday's Daily Telegraph newspaper here in Sydney. Although Lanolips is a year old this month, the new news peg was Carriol's UK distribution deal, which will see this by all accounts hugely successful beauty startup take its first international steps in September. The shot of Carriol, above, was taken in May last year during her last visit to her family's Corryton Park property in South Australia. The shot below shows her mother and uncles as children on the property, with her grandmother and a wool harvest. Head to the Lanolips website to learn more about the products.



A young Polish immigrant by the name of Helena Rubinstein founded a cosmetics empire in Melbourne with a lanolin-based moisturiser. A century on, Sydney mother of two Kirsten Carriol aims to be the next Australian beauty entrepreneur to find fortune off the sheep’s back.

Carriol did not launch her company with face creams but rather, a small line of tinted lip balms called Lanolips.

The products are made using a top-of-the-line medical grade lanolin and Carriol refers to the products as “lip ointments”.

But while her key ingredient might be expensive, Carriol made her price points deliberately accessible – $13.95 each for five tinted balms up to $17.95 for the plain, ultra medical grade multi-purpose 101 ointment that she uses on her children’s faces and rashes.

“My plan was to bring lanolin back as an ingredient - to be the person to do it and to show everybody in the entire world…because noone in the whole world has a good quality lanolin brand that’s kind of a little bit cool to use” says Carriol. “Also I’m really proud to be bringing an Australian and New Zealand ingredient to the world market and to be flying that flag”.

Lanolips currently sells through 900 Australian retail outlets, ranging from pharmacies up to department stores David Jones and Myer. Priceline is her biggest customer, where Lanolips sells through 300 doors.

And selling it has been. Carriol has just secured distribution through UK pharmacy giant Boots, which has over 1400 outlets in the UK. Boots will trial the brand in its 22 top stores from late September and also offer it online. If sales in Australia are anything to go by, Carriol could be in for windfall.

Launched in June 2009, Lanolips rucked up $1million in sales in Australia within eight months reports Carriol, which is almost unheard of in this market.

“I haven’t seen that sort of figure before with of the clients I’ve worked with in the cosmetic sector – it’s phenomenal growth” says Austrade senior export advisor Denise Eaton.

She adds, “The overseas cosmetics sector is incredibly competitive, but every week there seems to be a new brand coming to me saying that they’re looking at exporting. I’m always surprised at a point of difference that these brands are continually coming up with. Their innovation is amazing”.

Carriol is part of a rapidly expanding contingent of export-focussed Australian beauty entrepreneurs that has emerged over the past 15 years and whose products generated $363million in export sales in 2009 according to Austrade – up 3.39percent on 2008. Lest you wonder what percentage of that figure could be comprised of raw ingredients such as essential oils, according to Austrade branded products account for 97percent.

Among those taking their beauty products to the world are skincare specialists such as Aesop and Jurlique and makeup brands including Napoleon, Bloom and ModelCo.

Carriol’s idea was, however, a little riskier than most.

A natural, greasy substance found in wool, the first use of which is believed to date back to 1,600 BC, lanolin began being widely adopted by the cosmetics industry in the 1880s. Older Australians would remember a time when every household had a tube of Fauldings lanolin cream.

Lanolin fell out of favour, however, as a mainstream cosmetic ingredient after a 1953 European study claimed it caused allergies.

The latter findings have since been refuted by other studies, but still lanolin has remained a no-no in the mainstream beauty industry – in spite of the fact that medical grade lanolin is widely used in hospital burns units and maternity wards in nursing creams.

“It’s safe for the mouths of newborn babies - you can’t even say that about water” says Carriol. “It’s so safe and yet the cosmetic world has promoted this myth that lanolin is an allergen, therefore stay away. Their loss is my gain.

“We don’t actually make a lot of money from this product because my view is, for anyone to buy lanolin again it has to be at an affordable price - I knew people wouldn’t pay a premium for lanolin, it had such a bad name” says Carriol, who knows a thing or two about sheep.

The Adelaide native spent all her school holidays on a sprawling 800 hectare sheep and cattle property called Corryton Park located in Lucindale, near Mount Gambier in South Australia. The property was sold last year just before the Lanolips launch. Sadly, Carriol’s grandfather passed away on the day that Corryton Park moved out of the family’s hands.

In addition to her farming background, Carriol also hails from a family of scientists.

Her father is Professor Leigh Burgoyne, a molecular biologist with Adelaide’s Flinders University – who praised the virtues of lanolin for years.

“Dad always says to me the molecular structure of lanolin most closely resembles your skin lipids” says Burgoyne, whose mother Judy Burgoyne was a scientist with the CSIRO for 30 years.

Sister Laura is an anaesthetist and her brother Mark, a chemical engineer.

“I always felt like the dumb one” quipped Carriol, who studied communications and marketing before launching her own successful beauty-specialist PR agency in Sydney called Buzz Consulting, where she employs four fulltime staff and two casuals.

Carriol’s in-laws haven’t harmed her chances of success either.

Carriol is married to Jean Marc Carriol, the son of Michel-Henri Carriol, who moved to Australia from France in 1966 as a trade attaché at the French embassy. In 1973, in Sydney, he founded Trimex, now one of Australia’s biggest cosmetic distributors, which controls some of the world’s best-known cosmetic and fragrance brands in this market, including Clarins, Versace, Prada, Thierry Mugler and Nina Ricci.

Not only is Lanolips now part of the Trimex portfolio in Australia, Jean Marc, who is a director of Trimex, has also consulted on the brand’s international distribution.

In what sounds like a scene from an upcoming instalment of Sex And The City, the beautiful, blonde Sydney PR girl and her French beau married in 2004 in a French chateau. They live in Sydney’s eastern suburbs with their two young sons, Casper and Dalphin.

In spite of having access to some of the best advice in the business, it nevertheless took six years to bring Lanolips to market, with Carriol in negotiations with six factories in Australia and also Italy. Many were reluctant to take the product on.

“They wanted to substitute it all with chemicals and recommended using five percent lanolin so I could say it had lanolin in it. I wanted to use 70 percent” says Carriol, who considered giving up the project at one point. “There were many tears”.

Now that Lanolips is a roaring success, Carriol’s biggest hurdle right now is juggling motherhood and running two businesses – her PR agency and Lanolips, which is growing rapidly. Body and hand/nail creams were added to the range this month. Later in the year Carriol will also launch a new organic lemon oil-based lip ointment and body range.

“Being a mother is the hardest job in the world. Being a working mother is even harder. Having your own business and being a mother at the same time is incomprehensibly hard - 10 times harder than working for someone else” says Carriol, who does the school run every morning and afternoon.

She adds, “I always say to the girls in my office, beware if you want it all because you have to do it all.”

Nutbush City Limits: Romance Was Born's "granular" film collab with Kris Moyes

Last night in Sydney, Romance Was Born's Anna Plunkett and Luke Sales unveiled City Limits, a short film directed by Kris Moyes. Shot over one day in Sydney and starring local model Tanja Gacic, it's a fantastic - and hilariously camp - little collaboration that was designed to showcase RWB's Autumn/Winter 2010 Nightmare on Wall Street collection (but which will now be shopped to the film festival circuit by production company Revolver Films). A little less Freddy Krueger than you might anticipate - and a little more Blade Runner-meets-Kill Bill-meets-The Rocky Horror Picture Show - City Limits portrays Gacic as a DayGlo Spandex-clad corporate assassin who goes postal at a cocktail party. Best moment: Gacic clubbing Guy Pearce-lookalike Matthew Charleston with a decapitated head. The impressive crew includes cinematographer Danny Ruhlmann (Little Fish) and 1st AD Deb Antoniou (Where The Wind Things Are). Below are a few screen caps. But click here to see frockwriter's Posterous pic gallery of location shots (images courtesy Kris Moyes/Revolver). And click here to watch the film itself.