Julia Nobis gets dark for Jac + Jack Autumn/Winter 2011

This time last year, not many people had heard of Julia Nobis. That was until her international runway debut at no less than Calvin Klein put her well and truly on the fashion map. In the intervening twelve months, the 18 year-old Sydneysider with the cool, Meryl Streep beauty has been quietly building an impressive body of work that has embraced runway turns for many other equally big names, campaigns for Proenza Schouler and Burberry Black and lookbooks for Prada and Alexander Wang. The current advertising face of Australian fast fashion brand Marcs, Nobis has just added a little luxury to her Oz portfolio. Photographed by Stephen Ward, here is a first look at Nobis in the Autumn/Winter 2011 campaign of Jac Hunt’s and Lisa 'Jack' Dempsey’s Sydney-based luxury knitwear label Jac + Jack. 

Knit happens

hand knits for servicemen via micro revolt

Whatever your position on Australian troops in Afghanistan – and this week’s “shit happens” media furore over off-the-cuff comments made to same by Opposition leader Tony Abbott – here is one war-related story that can’t surely be accused of being a beatup. The Queensland Country Womens Association has just dispatched 136 hand-knitted woollen skullcaps to our diggers in Afghanistan to wear under their helmets. Reportedly at the behest of the Australian Defence Forces and with the support of the RSL and Bendigo Woollen Mills, the project involved 20 knitters from the QCWA’s Border Division handcraft group (which has also knitted clothing for babies in Africa). Included with the parcel, which was posted to the ADF in Sydney yesterday, was a sweet letter, which read: “As some of us are old enough to be your grandmothers or great-grandmothers, we felt that our pride in you could not only be knitted into these skull caps; But that you may feel a little of the love and appreciation, which Australians hold for you when you wear them. Be safe.” There is a very longstanding connection between knitting and the war effort, which dates back to at least the American Civil War.

In with the new - David Jones Autumn/Winter 2011

Tuesday's David Jones show felt the same, but different, to previous years' events. There was no Mark McInnes, Colette Garnsey, Miranda Kerr or even sass & bide. With the exception of relatively recent fashion ambassador addition Kerr, all had been front-and-centre at the show for almost a decade, laying the foundations for the "house of brands" into which the department store subsequently evolved. Taking their places and for a variety of different reasons - which ranged from scandal and resignations, pregnancy and defection, all in the space of eight months - was a new management team (albeit one promoted from within) and a swag of new labels, the absolute standout of which on the night just had to be Josh Goot and his colourblocked bodycon dresses and tulip skirts and tops with wildly expressionistic graphics. Not forgetting some highly polished Australian modelling talent, that included girls who have walked for some of the world's biggest fashion brands: Nicole Trunfio, Alexandra Agoston, Myf Shepherd, Stephanie Carta, Tiah Eckhardt and Christina Carey. And some newcomers who may soon follow them. Think Rosemary Smith (above, in Josh Goot), who is off to the European shows with at least one big name in her appointment book. Click (here) for frockwriter's Posterous pic gallery of backstage shots taken before and during the show. 
 

Oyster sells out with Lara Bingle

Australia's longest-surviving indie fashion mag a sellout? Well, newsstand-wise, that could be the end result vis-à-vis Oyster's hot 91st edition which is out on Friday. Here is a first look at its double trouble cover of Shire babe and scandal magnet Lara Bingle, shot by Georges Antoni (above) and Stephen Ward (below). Also up in issue #91: profiles and photoshoots on/featuring Fashion East's Lulu Kennedy, Ryan McGinley, Andrej Pejic, Emma Balfour, Myf Shepherd, Blonde Redhead's Kazu Makino, Ohne Titel and Max Blagg. Looking good.

Meet the new boy, Jack Vanderhart

models.com

On Friday, frockwriter posted about the potentially bumper season of Australian models on New York Fashion Week's runways for the Fall/Winter 2011/2012 season, which commences on Thursday. Three days later, there's already an update. Meet Cronulla's Jack Vanderhart. Modelling for just a few months, the 17 year-old's portfolio includes one editorial in Vogue Australia, two Australian GQ editorials and a campaign for pyjama tycoon Peter Alexander. According to his mother agency EMG Models, Vanderhart is about to add something with a little more international resonance to that list: Calvin Klein exclusive. EMG reports that Vanderhart has just been confirmed for Calvin Klein's menswear show in New York at 2pm on Sunday 13th February. A Calvin Klein exclusive is considered a highly prestigious get for any new model and has the potential to launch their career. Sydney's Julia Nobis scored an exclusive with the womens' show last year.

The show goes on for David Jones... without sass & bide

 

As per David Jones' famous advertising slogan, there used to be no other department store in Australia for sass & bide. But after days of rumours, it is now confirmed that David Jones' arch rival Myer will become the brand's exclusive Australian department store partner moving forward, having just acquired a 65percent stake for A$42.25million plus a performance bonus based on fiscal 2011 sales results. David Jones, which has winter 2011 sass & bide stock on its hands and features the brand in its winter 2011 "brand book" catalogue (above), has responded with its own Australian Stock Exchange announcement this morning that it is ending its 10 year association with sass & bide following David Jones' decision not to acquire a stake. Oh and it wasn't doing very well anyway, added DJs (at least at DJs - Myer reports that sass & bide overall delivered 50percent year on year sales growth for the past two years). Noted ceo Paul Zahra, “We did the calculations and could not justify the price paid for the business, particularly given the lack of growth in our sass & bide business with sales and gross profit in FY10 at approximately FY05 levels". This is fascinating, given that David Jones gave sass & bide its prestigious finale spot in the Autumn/Winter 2010 show one year ago. What the Myer decision ultimately means for the sass & bide brand remains to be seen. Not surprisingly perhaps, the brand has been yanked altogether from tomorrow's lineup, David Jones has confirmed to frockwriter.

Andrej Pejic on Sunday Night

neil barrett FW1112 backstage/sonny vandevelde

Gird your loins, Andrej Pejic fans. Next Sunday, on Australia's Seven Network, the first comprehensive television profile of Pejic will go to air on the Sunday Night program (6.30pm). A Sunday Night crew embedded themselves with Pejic during his most recent tour of fashion duty at the Paris mens shows - during which he walked for a number of designers, but was notably cast by Jean Paul Gaultier as James Blond and then the following week, as the traditional bride of Gaultier's haute couture show. From castings to fittings, photoshoots, backstage, front-of-house and interviews with some of the world's leading fashion commentators, it's going to be a fly-on-the-wall look at a pretty fascinating fashion moment. Sunday Night just ran an in-show promo at the end of its first show back on air tonight after the summer hiatus (video and screen grabs below). Relieved to finally be able to talk about this after several weeks of intense work.

Australia's next top models plot a New York Fashion Week takeover

elite via models.com

As far as frockwriter can ascertain, there is not a single Australian designer due to show during New York Fashion Week's Fall/Winter 2011 season, which officially kicks off on February 10th. Kit Willow Podgornik will shoot her Fall/Winter 2011/2012 lookbook in New York on February 9th, but that's a private event. This is a big change, of course, compared to five years ago, when up to seven Australian labels were showing their wares there. But this does not mean that there won't be any Australians on New York's runways. In fact, FW1112 is shaping up to be a bumper season for antipodian models in The Big Apple. The world number 5, Abbey Lee Kershaw, won't be among them, however, as she will skip New York Fashion Week this season. Although due to head to Milan and Paris, prior to those legs Kershaw will be tied up in London with a "personal music project" [telling her mother agency, Chic Management, this will involve a performance with "my band" - read Our Mountain, the band of Kershaw's boyfriend Matthew Hutchinson, with whom Kershaw has previously performed on stage). 

Amanda Ware gets her bouffant on for Nicola Finetti Pre Fall 2011/2012

Since being crowned runnerup to Australia's Next Top Model Cycle 6 in September - and then moments later, in dramatic fashion, named as the competition's real winner - Amanda Ware has yet to make her entree onto the international fashion market. That could change after next week, should Ware hit the runways of New York Fashion Week's Fall/Winter 2011/2012 season, which kicks off on February 10. In New York right now for castings, Ware has a better than even chance of getting noticed. Not just thanks to the ANTM win, but also inadvertently thanks to ANTM host Sarah O'Hare, news of whose live tv gaffe in announcing the wrong winner spread swiftly around the world, giving the show far more attention than it usually garners. Good timing then for Australian fashion designer Nicola Finetti in nabbing the still under-the-radar Ware for his Pre Fall 2011/2012 campaign and lookbook. Here is an exclusive preview of both below.

Gemma Ward delivers a video address, calls in a favour from Mario Testino

mario testino for vogue paris via TFS

 
The furore of global coverage sparked by the news that Gemma Ward had broken her silence (well, kind of) on her relationship with Heath Ledger in Perth’s Sunday Times newspaper over the weekend sounds like nothing compared to the media circus the Perth Theatre Company can expect once Ward rocks up for rehearsals later this month. Ward mentioned Ledger during an interview to promote her involvement with the company’s new production of The Ugly One, which will run from March 22-April 9, with three previews starting on March 18. Last night, Ward lent yet another helping hand to the official launch of the company’s January-June season at the new WA State Theatre Studio Underground, addressing the invited guests in a prerecorded video which was reportedly filmed on her laptop from her New York bedroom. The YouTube version, needless to say, is likely to go ballistic once the company eventually puts it online.