After an extremely flat morning, which was punctuated by a couple of minor jolts of colour in the shows of Silence is Golden and New Zealand's Cybele, Anna Thomas gave Australian Fashion Week some much-needed CPR.
And look it wasn't the endless suite of trapeze-line shift and sack dresses that bored the pants off most people - this silhouette has already infiltrated the Australian fashion market, just as it hits the northern hemisphere summer, so we expected to see a lot more of it this week.
It was a combination of poor-man takes of big international names, drab fabric, drab workmanship, dull, dull, dull colours. And some really bad shoes. I found myself asking people, "Does this seem really flat to you?". Which question tended to be greeted with a deadpan expression.
Then came Anna Thomas. And I started feeling like I was back at an international runway event - New York Fashion Week to be precise, with AFW's new "OPT" upstairs venue a dead ringer for the medium venue there that was called last season, from memory, The Salon. Not that the same venue felt like it during the earlier Lisa Ho show.
Slick and commercial yet very fresh, Thomas' collection featured a suite of sweet, gathered peasant skirts in graphic black and white polka dots, short shorts - or as the Americans like to call them, "panties" - boxy blazers and one striking pewter sack dress with a voluminous back.
The dresses were particularly strong, notably Thomas' take on what is emerging as another Australian SS0708 season requisite - the shirt-dress - as well as some utterly charming pinafore and shift dresses such as the banded lime green/black/grey sleeveless shift dress and a softly gathered pewter sundress with black contrast bodice and belt.
The collection had grace, polish and a kind of Roman Holiday ease. Ex-Country Road and also Max Mara, Thomas launched her label in 2002 and apart from taking part in the most recent 'transseasonal' AFW shows in Melbourne in September year, this was her first show at the event's biggest showcase in Sydney.
Let's hope it's not her last.
We had a (really) quick chat after the show:
You launched your label in 2002, why has it taken so long to show in Sydney?
Anna Thomas: I guess we've just been really finding our feet and we didn't want to present anything that wasn't really world-class and that we wouldn't want to put on a catwalk in Europe or in New York. I haven't felt confident enough to do it until this point. I was really happy with the collection and the direction that we took for the show, we tried to make a little bit of a departure from the typical thing that people think about an Anna Thomas collection. Everything just felt right this season.
Original post and comments.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Paul Keating and the Veronicas - Fashion Week kicks off
I'm en route to the first show of Fashion Week: camilla and marc down at the Sydney Theatre Company. It's a beautiful day, with still not much sign of winter - except save no doubt for the winter clothes in which I am expecting most will be clad today. Wear current season's winter, watch next season's summer.... yes the crazy fashion locomotive charges forward.
This time last year I was new to blogging - and indeed blogging was relatively new to the event. This is my fourth blog in twelve months and I've noticed that the blogging ranks have started to swell, not just in Sydney but overseas as well. By February we saw The New York Times add a fashion blog to the runway review duties of its chief critic (Cathy Horyn), the latest in a long list of mainstream newspaper and also indie blogs to enter the tents. As with every other sphere that the blogging phenomenon touches, blogging provides a unique viewpoint at fashion shows.
Bloggers have no space limits, usually no sub editors and few rules. We also provide a backbone for dialogue with our readers and this is one aspect of the medium that I am finding fascinating at the moment - the reactions by some designers to the (relatively) unfettered commentaries of the public.
Some, like Alex Perry, say they are "thick-skinned" - and the frequent flack is like water off a duck's back. Others, I can tell you, aren't quite so bolshie. All I can say to them is, deal with it. The public are the end users of what you are showing on these runways, they have a right to their point of view.
Now sitting down inside the venue - one very long, snaking front row that runs from the front to the back of the STC. Too bad Cate Blanchett isn't on deck yet here. It's little consolation I suppose, but I've just brushed past a couple of Oz popettes.
"We could sit you over there next to them - you could be the third Veronica" quipped Lorraine Lock, the wife of Fashion Week supremo Simon Lock.
[Former Australian prime minister] Paul Keating is supposed to be somewhere in the distance. He could be the fourth Veronica.
The show itself is a pretty, and very short ode to the major influences of the northern hemisphere's current spring/summer season, with a soupcon of the new winter's tough chic thrown in for good measure: a suite of A-line, waistless shift dresses with exposed silver and brass zippers, some of them boasting sportif racerbacks.
I liked the cropped, hooded boleros in barely-there flesh tones, the vermillion micro knit dress and the series of cobalt shift dresses, which should provide plenty of party dresses for the Pretty Young Thing customers of this up-and-coming brand.
But while everyone has a trench coat on offer these days, camilla and marc's baggy-sleeved versions looked far too Stella McCartney-esque for my money and the lab coat dresses with grommets, like (very) poor man's Lanvin. Please leave the complete ripoffs to the high street.
Walking out, I spot Keating and manage to grab a few comments:
What did you think about the collection?
Paul Keating: Oh I liked the collection. I liked #1, #3 and #5 for a start. And a number of other single items in there.
What did you particularly like about them?
Well, their chic casualness.
Does it compare to Zegna?
Well that's formal. We don't get around in suits all day, do we?
No that's very true. What do you think about fashion in Australia in general?
Well I think fashion is one of the great arts, one of the great creative arts. One of the places where the endless combinations and permutations of fantasy all mix.
Do you think it gets enough support from the Australian government?
Oh well, I don't know what support it gets, to be honest.
On Saturday night at another show I spoke to Ian Thorpe, who volunteered that he had seen some Dior shows. Have you done Dior - or any other international fashion shows?
I haven't been to any.
Really?
I'm interested in the international fashion shows of the 30s and 40s and 50s when clothing was at its peak.
But that was a bit before your time wasn't it?
Well no style is before one's time.
I meant you couldn't possibly have been at those shows.
Oh I couldn't have been at the shows. But the gear is still around - the great A-line of the 50s, Balenciaga and all those people.
Original post and comments.
This time last year I was new to blogging - and indeed blogging was relatively new to the event. This is my fourth blog in twelve months and I've noticed that the blogging ranks have started to swell, not just in Sydney but overseas as well. By February we saw The New York Times add a fashion blog to the runway review duties of its chief critic (Cathy Horyn), the latest in a long list of mainstream newspaper and also indie blogs to enter the tents. As with every other sphere that the blogging phenomenon touches, blogging provides a unique viewpoint at fashion shows.
Bloggers have no space limits, usually no sub editors and few rules. We also provide a backbone for dialogue with our readers and this is one aspect of the medium that I am finding fascinating at the moment - the reactions by some designers to the (relatively) unfettered commentaries of the public.
Some, like Alex Perry, say they are "thick-skinned" - and the frequent flack is like water off a duck's back. Others, I can tell you, aren't quite so bolshie. All I can say to them is, deal with it. The public are the end users of what you are showing on these runways, they have a right to their point of view.
Now sitting down inside the venue - one very long, snaking front row that runs from the front to the back of the STC. Too bad Cate Blanchett isn't on deck yet here. It's little consolation I suppose, but I've just brushed past a couple of Oz popettes.
"We could sit you over there next to them - you could be the third Veronica" quipped Lorraine Lock, the wife of Fashion Week supremo Simon Lock.
[Former Australian prime minister] Paul Keating is supposed to be somewhere in the distance. He could be the fourth Veronica.
The show itself is a pretty, and very short ode to the major influences of the northern hemisphere's current spring/summer season, with a soupcon of the new winter's tough chic thrown in for good measure: a suite of A-line, waistless shift dresses with exposed silver and brass zippers, some of them boasting sportif racerbacks.
I liked the cropped, hooded boleros in barely-there flesh tones, the vermillion micro knit dress and the series of cobalt shift dresses, which should provide plenty of party dresses for the Pretty Young Thing customers of this up-and-coming brand.
But while everyone has a trench coat on offer these days, camilla and marc's baggy-sleeved versions looked far too Stella McCartney-esque for my money and the lab coat dresses with grommets, like (very) poor man's Lanvin. Please leave the complete ripoffs to the high street.
Walking out, I spot Keating and manage to grab a few comments:
What did you think about the collection?
Paul Keating: Oh I liked the collection. I liked #1, #3 and #5 for a start. And a number of other single items in there.
What did you particularly like about them?
Well, their chic casualness.
Does it compare to Zegna?
Well that's formal. We don't get around in suits all day, do we?
No that's very true. What do you think about fashion in Australia in general?
Well I think fashion is one of the great arts, one of the great creative arts. One of the places where the endless combinations and permutations of fantasy all mix.
Do you think it gets enough support from the Australian government?
Oh well, I don't know what support it gets, to be honest.
On Saturday night at another show I spoke to Ian Thorpe, who volunteered that he had seen some Dior shows. Have you done Dior - or any other international fashion shows?
I haven't been to any.
Really?
I'm interested in the international fashion shows of the 30s and 40s and 50s when clothing was at its peak.
But that was a bit before your time wasn't it?
Well no style is before one's time.
I meant you couldn't possibly have been at those shows.
Oh I couldn't have been at the shows. But the gear is still around - the great A-line of the 50s, Balenciaga and all those people.
Original post and comments.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
'I've done Dior!': Fish-out-of-water fashionisto Ian Thorpe dives into the Fashion Week swim
We have touchdown. Well, celeb touchdown at least. Having now clocked two full OS show seasons and notably, two celeb-infested New York fashion weeks, and after last May's very disappointing "VIP" turnout at AFW, I have to admit I was a tad apprehensive about the prospect of only having the clothes to review next week. I mean, perish the thought of anyone talking about the clothes at a fashion show these days.
But some bona fide celebs are now in our midst - thanks to tonight's MTV Awards and the Fantastic Four premiere, (and if there isn't already an appropriate collective noun, Fashion Season would like to nominate the following to denote same - a paparazzi of celebs, or perhaps even a Fawcett of celebs). Should any of these wind up popping into the fashion tents, we could be in for some fun and games.
Dita Von Teese of course is a shoe-in. Here to promote her involvement with (AFW sponsor) MAC, notably the brand's Viva Glam lipstick - with a fat $100,000 cheque handed to Sydney's Bobby Goldmsith Foundation yesterday - Von Teese will be on deck at at least some shows as the VIP guest editor of Australian Harper's Bazaar. Just as Cate Blanchett, Sarah Wynter and Elle Macpherson etc... have done in years past.
Anyone present at Myer Sydney City yesterday for the cheque presentation couldn't have missed the celeb buzz in the air, with a score of fans turning up for signings and photo ops with the petite, porcelain-complexioned DVT. Judging by the number of Goths I spotted, the Marilyn Manson factor obviously has not rubbed off either, in spite of the fact that DVT and Manson are now estranged.
No major sightings at the Willow presentation at Carthona last night. But the 'show' itself was nevertheless a sight to behold. Quite apart from the rare glimpse inside this harbourside Gothic mansion - and its superb, wild garden - the Helmut Newton-inspired tableaux of Willow lingerie-bedecked models inside a couple of the rooms provided a sumptuous visual feast. I trust the poor girl who had to lie with her back arched against one brocade sofa for an hour's duration won't require the services of a chiropractor today. We shot a preview video of this retro-look luxury lingerie range last week which will go live tomorrow.
Some pieces - notably the black tulle-swathed, white silk high-waisted knickers and bra - seem far too pretty to cover up. With DVT and her old-worlde Hollywood froufrou style thrown into the mix this season, Fashion Week seems, for the moment at least, to be having a bit of a burlesque-nosed moment.
About an hour later, back downtown in Ultimo, I turned up to the Nicholas X Morley show and was intrigued to spot Ian Thorpe. Thorpe has of course had more than his fair share of fashion moments so I was interested to get his take on the subject.
Here's what he said just before and straight after the show:
So, what are you doing here at the Nicholas X Morley launch?
Ian Thorpe: I was invited by a friend who is a model here tonight [Cheyenne Tozzi, apparently]. So I was asked to come along, which I'm more than happy to do. From what I've heard and from what she's told me I think it's going to be great.
You have been involved with a few different fashion projects. Are you still involved with Autore pearls?
Yeah... I'm not designing jewellery at the moment. Still designing underwear and I'm doing a few more things in the future but that's about it at the moment.
Any new fashion projects?
Nothing I can talk about.
Top secret?
Not top secret, because that means it's coming up soon. But something that's definitely on the radar.
[With the recent doping allegations] You have been going through some difficult issues recently.
I'm still going through all of those things. It's all playing out its due course at the moment. I start filming a documentary tomorrow. So things are all on track.
What do you think about fashion in general? I mean obviously you have always had very close fashion ties.
Yeah.... Fashion for me is kind of you know, it comes and it goes, but it always is a great reflection on kind of social issues and what's going on. At that kind of moment in time. The same as what music does and what art does at that particular time. That's what I love about it. It's seasonal and it's cyclical as well. It's great. All of us love some good clothes, it's as simple as that.
You have also had some special 'fashion moments'. A case in point one highly-publicised leather outfit with boots.
Yeah, I was in Paris.
And you copped a lot of flack over that.
Well you know, I wear what I want to wear and I don't care what people think.
The show wrapped. If you haven't seen the video we shot last week, it's a bright, print-heavy streetwear range of T-shirts, jeans, shorts, longline singlets and babydoll dresses, with a small swimwear component. I'm not too crash hot on a couple of the dresses, which seem a bit fiddly with sheer overpanels, but the prints are very strong and the skinny, cropped, lowrider women's jeans with exposed silver zips and microskirts in the signature crossbone print - either white on black or vice versa - as well as some of the fluoro babydoll smock dresses, tops and leggings looked great.
Ditto some of the menswear, a case in point the baggy pants, T-shirt and matching blazer in the white-on-black crossbone print. Although you probably wouldn't want to wear the latter three together, or risk looking like you had just stepped out of a prison scene from Pirates of The Caribbean.
And the Thorpedo's post-show verdict?
"The rave's back" he said.
Will we see you at any other shows this week?
Thorpe: No, I film a documentary starting tomorrow.
So no Fashion Week for Ian Thorpe?
This is it.
Shame, because Fashion Week induced one of your most spectacular fashion moments: the famous pearl mask you wore to one event.
Yeah, it was a masked ball.
It was very dramatic.
Oh OK, yeah.
So we won't be seeing any more moments like that this week - not even in the documentary?
No definitely not.
But you could do a documentary with Ian Thorpe's greatest fashion moments.
Maybe not yet.
I thanked him for being such a good sport and noted that it was great to see him front-and-centre at a fashion show.
"Hey" he quipped, without missing a beat. "I've done Dior shows!".
Original post and comments.
But some bona fide celebs are now in our midst - thanks to tonight's MTV Awards and the Fantastic Four premiere, (and if there isn't already an appropriate collective noun, Fashion Season would like to nominate the following to denote same - a paparazzi of celebs, or perhaps even a Fawcett of celebs). Should any of these wind up popping into the fashion tents, we could be in for some fun and games.
Dita Von Teese of course is a shoe-in. Here to promote her involvement with (AFW sponsor) MAC, notably the brand's Viva Glam lipstick - with a fat $100,000 cheque handed to Sydney's Bobby Goldmsith Foundation yesterday - Von Teese will be on deck at at least some shows as the VIP guest editor of Australian Harper's Bazaar. Just as Cate Blanchett, Sarah Wynter and Elle Macpherson etc... have done in years past.
Anyone present at Myer Sydney City yesterday for the cheque presentation couldn't have missed the celeb buzz in the air, with a score of fans turning up for signings and photo ops with the petite, porcelain-complexioned DVT. Judging by the number of Goths I spotted, the Marilyn Manson factor obviously has not rubbed off either, in spite of the fact that DVT and Manson are now estranged.
No major sightings at the Willow presentation at Carthona last night. But the 'show' itself was nevertheless a sight to behold. Quite apart from the rare glimpse inside this harbourside Gothic mansion - and its superb, wild garden - the Helmut Newton-inspired tableaux of Willow lingerie-bedecked models inside a couple of the rooms provided a sumptuous visual feast. I trust the poor girl who had to lie with her back arched against one brocade sofa for an hour's duration won't require the services of a chiropractor today. We shot a preview video of this retro-look luxury lingerie range last week which will go live tomorrow.
Some pieces - notably the black tulle-swathed, white silk high-waisted knickers and bra - seem far too pretty to cover up. With DVT and her old-worlde Hollywood froufrou style thrown into the mix this season, Fashion Week seems, for the moment at least, to be having a bit of a burlesque-nosed moment.
About an hour later, back downtown in Ultimo, I turned up to the Nicholas X Morley show and was intrigued to spot Ian Thorpe. Thorpe has of course had more than his fair share of fashion moments so I was interested to get his take on the subject.
Here's what he said just before and straight after the show:
So, what are you doing here at the Nicholas X Morley launch?
Ian Thorpe: I was invited by a friend who is a model here tonight [Cheyenne Tozzi, apparently]. So I was asked to come along, which I'm more than happy to do. From what I've heard and from what she's told me I think it's going to be great.
You have been involved with a few different fashion projects. Are you still involved with Autore pearls?
Yeah... I'm not designing jewellery at the moment. Still designing underwear and I'm doing a few more things in the future but that's about it at the moment.
Any new fashion projects?
Nothing I can talk about.
Top secret?
Not top secret, because that means it's coming up soon. But something that's definitely on the radar.
[With the recent doping allegations] You have been going through some difficult issues recently.
I'm still going through all of those things. It's all playing out its due course at the moment. I start filming a documentary tomorrow. So things are all on track.
What do you think about fashion in general? I mean obviously you have always had very close fashion ties.
Yeah.... Fashion for me is kind of you know, it comes and it goes, but it always is a great reflection on kind of social issues and what's going on. At that kind of moment in time. The same as what music does and what art does at that particular time. That's what I love about it. It's seasonal and it's cyclical as well. It's great. All of us love some good clothes, it's as simple as that.
You have also had some special 'fashion moments'. A case in point one highly-publicised leather outfit with boots.
Yeah, I was in Paris.
And you copped a lot of flack over that.
Well you know, I wear what I want to wear and I don't care what people think.
The show wrapped. If you haven't seen the video we shot last week, it's a bright, print-heavy streetwear range of T-shirts, jeans, shorts, longline singlets and babydoll dresses, with a small swimwear component. I'm not too crash hot on a couple of the dresses, which seem a bit fiddly with sheer overpanels, but the prints are very strong and the skinny, cropped, lowrider women's jeans with exposed silver zips and microskirts in the signature crossbone print - either white on black or vice versa - as well as some of the fluoro babydoll smock dresses, tops and leggings looked great.
Ditto some of the menswear, a case in point the baggy pants, T-shirt and matching blazer in the white-on-black crossbone print. Although you probably wouldn't want to wear the latter three together, or risk looking like you had just stepped out of a prison scene from Pirates of The Caribbean.
And the Thorpedo's post-show verdict?
"The rave's back" he said.
Will we see you at any other shows this week?
Thorpe: No, I film a documentary starting tomorrow.
So no Fashion Week for Ian Thorpe?
This is it.
Shame, because Fashion Week induced one of your most spectacular fashion moments: the famous pearl mask you wore to one event.
Yeah, it was a masked ball.
It was very dramatic.
Oh OK, yeah.
So we won't be seeing any more moments like that this week - not even in the documentary?
No definitely not.
But you could do a documentary with Ian Thorpe's greatest fashion moments.
Maybe not yet.
I thanked him for being such a good sport and noted that it was great to see him front-and-centre at a fashion show.
"Hey" he quipped, without missing a beat. "I've done Dior shows!".
Original post and comments.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Get it while it's Goot: Target stitches up another designer dynamo
We've seen McCartney-mania. Is it time for a Josh juggernaut?
Two months after Target shelves around the country were stripped bare within minutes of the arrival of a Stella McCartney collaboration collection, Target Australia plans to unveil a top secret project with one of Australia's brightest fashion lights, Josh Goot.
UPDATE: 16/05/07
Well don't say we didn't warn you................ Finally today, the worst kept secret in the Australian fashion industry - thanks to this blog's big mouth - was laid out in the open for all to see.
Yes indeedy, Target Australia has stitched up Josh Goot for a special limited-edition collaboration range. It's a lot smaller than the range Stella McCartney did for Target earlier this year - 12 pieces, as opposed to 42 - and it remains to be seen of course whether the Josh Goot name will resonate as well as McCartney's with Australian consumers, and if the latter will scratch each others' eyes out to get a piece of it in "selected" stores when it launches on June 19. As happened in a number of (the 100 designated) Target stores, with the McCartney mania of March 12th.
But with a veeeeeeery similar looking Josh Goot silver trench coat selling at Browns Focus in London right now for GBP290 (A$692), A$129.99 for the Target version looks to be one hell of a saving. The trench is the exxiest item in Goot's Target range, with prices starting at $59.99.
With racerback tanks, leggings, pencil skirts, cardigans, blazers and yes the infamous jersey trench coat in a colour palette of grey marle, silver, navy, black as well as Kelly green and a cobalt blue - all in a Tencel/wool blend, and in sizes from XS-L - Goot is pushing the signature 'tailored comfort' look of his first range shown in Sydney in May 2005.
As evidenced by the new collections shown in New York in February and Sydney a fortnight ago, he's moving on from that ever-so-slightly. That said, the theme of the latest collection was "future Roman sport". Let the Tarjay games begin.
ORIGINAL BLOG: 26/04/07
Target is the principle sponsor of Goot's Fashion Week show on Thursday May 3 at 9.00am - and its logo appears on the invitation. But although neither the Target or Goot camps were spilling any other beans this afternoon, Fashion Season has learned that a Josh Goot/Target collaboration is due be either announced or else unveiled at Target in mid May.
It won't be without precedent of course in this market. Last year Target unveiled several styles from three other Australian labels, Alice McCall, Tina Kalivas and TL Wood, under the Designers For Target umbrella. A Target spokeswoman declined to confirm or deny whether Goot was the only Australian fashion brand involved with this latest Designers For Target project.
"I can't tell you anything other than Target are supporting me on this show" Goot told Fashion Season. "It's great to have their support - I think they've shown a commitment to young Australian designers over the past year".
The Stella McCartney range was sold in 100 Target stores around Australia. The 42-piece collection ranged in price from $29.99 for a scarf to $199.99 for a trenchcoat. Selling out in some stores within minutes, according to a Target source it was the retailer's most successful sales day ever in this market.
So just what might Josh Goot For Target look like? Dripping, most likely, in the designer's signature urban sport aesthetic.
Goot, now 27, made his runway debut at Fashion Week in May 2004 with a print-heavy streetwear brand called Platform. Launched a few months later his eponymous collection boasted a leitmotiv of "tailored comfort", with a simple concept: constructed wardrobe classics of the type normally made from woven fabrics, the trenchcoat, the blazer and trousers etc..., but fashioned instead from cotton jersey T-shirting. The entire, machine-washable collection came in grey marle, charcoal marle and silver. It earned Goot the 2005 Tiffany & Co Young Designer of The Year Award.
Goot's May 2005 Fashion Week show made an impact here and several months later, the front cover of high-profile US industry newspaper WWD. The brand was immediately picked up by prestigious London retailer Browns Focus and then swiftly by other key international retailers, notably the Colette emporium in Paris and Henri Bendel in New York.
In September last year Goot debuted at New York fashion week - with US Vogue later heralding him as the designer who kicked off the SS07 season's urban sport mood.
Goot showed for the second consecutive season in New York in February. He is committed to showing back in New York in September.
"This is the fourth show we've done in a year which is insane and it won't happen again" said Goot of next week's show, his southern hemisphere SS0708/international resort collection. "I felt that I hadn't finished the job here in this market. As far as positioning the brand and expressing the brand philosophy and mapping out our distribution, all these types of things, I think we have a little way to go, and hopefully the show will be another piece in the puzzle".
Apart from whatever promotion Target may be planning for the Goot project in mid May, could next week be the last Josh Goot show downunder?
"I wouldn't want to say that because that's got a lot of finality to it" said Goot. "I really enjoy showing here. It's in a sense much easeir than showing overseas. It's your own backyard. And I know how much of a role the Australian industry played in helping us build this brand. We've enjoyed a lot of support and in a sense I feel like showing once a year [here] is the least we can do to I suppose keep everyone's interest and kind of say thank-you".
Original post and comments.
Two months after Target shelves around the country were stripped bare within minutes of the arrival of a Stella McCartney collaboration collection, Target Australia plans to unveil a top secret project with one of Australia's brightest fashion lights, Josh Goot.
UPDATE: 16/05/07
Well don't say we didn't warn you................ Finally today, the worst kept secret in the Australian fashion industry - thanks to this blog's big mouth - was laid out in the open for all to see.
Yes indeedy, Target Australia has stitched up Josh Goot for a special limited-edition collaboration range. It's a lot smaller than the range Stella McCartney did for Target earlier this year - 12 pieces, as opposed to 42 - and it remains to be seen of course whether the Josh Goot name will resonate as well as McCartney's with Australian consumers, and if the latter will scratch each others' eyes out to get a piece of it in "selected" stores when it launches on June 19. As happened in a number of (the 100 designated) Target stores, with the McCartney mania of March 12th.
But with a veeeeeeery similar looking Josh Goot silver trench coat selling at Browns Focus in London right now for GBP290 (A$692), A$129.99 for the Target version looks to be one hell of a saving. The trench is the exxiest item in Goot's Target range, with prices starting at $59.99.
With racerback tanks, leggings, pencil skirts, cardigans, blazers and yes the infamous jersey trench coat in a colour palette of grey marle, silver, navy, black as well as Kelly green and a cobalt blue - all in a Tencel/wool blend, and in sizes from XS-L - Goot is pushing the signature 'tailored comfort' look of his first range shown in Sydney in May 2005.
As evidenced by the new collections shown in New York in February and Sydney a fortnight ago, he's moving on from that ever-so-slightly. That said, the theme of the latest collection was "future Roman sport". Let the Tarjay games begin.
ORIGINAL BLOG: 26/04/07
Target is the principle sponsor of Goot's Fashion Week show on Thursday May 3 at 9.00am - and its logo appears on the invitation. But although neither the Target or Goot camps were spilling any other beans this afternoon, Fashion Season has learned that a Josh Goot/Target collaboration is due be either announced or else unveiled at Target in mid May.
It won't be without precedent of course in this market. Last year Target unveiled several styles from three other Australian labels, Alice McCall, Tina Kalivas and TL Wood, under the Designers For Target umbrella. A Target spokeswoman declined to confirm or deny whether Goot was the only Australian fashion brand involved with this latest Designers For Target project.
"I can't tell you anything other than Target are supporting me on this show" Goot told Fashion Season. "It's great to have their support - I think they've shown a commitment to young Australian designers over the past year".
The Stella McCartney range was sold in 100 Target stores around Australia. The 42-piece collection ranged in price from $29.99 for a scarf to $199.99 for a trenchcoat. Selling out in some stores within minutes, according to a Target source it was the retailer's most successful sales day ever in this market.
So just what might Josh Goot For Target look like? Dripping, most likely, in the designer's signature urban sport aesthetic.
Goot, now 27, made his runway debut at Fashion Week in May 2004 with a print-heavy streetwear brand called Platform. Launched a few months later his eponymous collection boasted a leitmotiv of "tailored comfort", with a simple concept: constructed wardrobe classics of the type normally made from woven fabrics, the trenchcoat, the blazer and trousers etc..., but fashioned instead from cotton jersey T-shirting. The entire, machine-washable collection came in grey marle, charcoal marle and silver. It earned Goot the 2005 Tiffany & Co Young Designer of The Year Award.
Goot's May 2005 Fashion Week show made an impact here and several months later, the front cover of high-profile US industry newspaper WWD. The brand was immediately picked up by prestigious London retailer Browns Focus and then swiftly by other key international retailers, notably the Colette emporium in Paris and Henri Bendel in New York.
In September last year Goot debuted at New York fashion week - with US Vogue later heralding him as the designer who kicked off the SS07 season's urban sport mood.
Goot showed for the second consecutive season in New York in February. He is committed to showing back in New York in September.
"This is the fourth show we've done in a year which is insane and it won't happen again" said Goot of next week's show, his southern hemisphere SS0708/international resort collection. "I felt that I hadn't finished the job here in this market. As far as positioning the brand and expressing the brand philosophy and mapping out our distribution, all these types of things, I think we have a little way to go, and hopefully the show will be another piece in the puzzle".
Apart from whatever promotion Target may be planning for the Goot project in mid May, could next week be the last Josh Goot show downunder?
"I wouldn't want to say that because that's got a lot of finality to it" said Goot. "I really enjoy showing here. It's in a sense much easeir than showing overseas. It's your own backyard. And I know how much of a role the Australian industry played in helping us build this brand. We've enjoyed a lot of support and in a sense I feel like showing once a year [here] is the least we can do to I suppose keep everyone's interest and kind of say thank-you".
Original post and comments.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Don't hate them because they're beautiful: The politics of glamour
I was looking into the issue of modeling yesterday - as you do when you write about this subject but particularly of course with Australian Fashion Week now five days away.
I wound up having a quick check of www.models.com. Operated by New Yorkers Stephan Moskovic and Wayne Sterling, models.com has become something of an authority on the subject. As per two quotes on its home page, some have in fact dubbed it "the NASDAQ of the modeling industry" (Ivan Bart, Senior VP IMG Models) and "the industry's favorite reference site" (Guy Trebay, The New York Times).
One of models.com's handiest reference components is its rankings of world models into various categories - from "icons" to "sexiest" to the hottest new girls to emerge, to the "Top 50" working models, the latter using as a gauge a model's exposure on major international runways, fashion editorial and covers and advertising campaigns. I do check the site regularly but apparently not regularly enough. Because since the last time I checked the Top 50, and yesterday, Perth's Gemma Ward had graduated to the world number 1 spot. Even more interesting: another Australian has just emerged out of nowhere to sweep aside a swag of high profilers to make her models.com Top 50 debut at number 26. With a bullet. Yes, Catherine McNeil.
Modeling for four years, but only seriously for one, 17 year-old McNeil was completely under the international radar until she met leading international fashion photographer Mario Testino earlier this year and was swiftly picked up by Testino for a six-month exclusive. The Testino "buzz" factor then helped open up an instant spot on the international runway show circuit - and she walked in 35 shows during the recent AW0708 season in Milan and Paris (and one show in London). "Fall belonged to the Australian beauty Catherine McNeil" noted style.com recently - one of the world's highest-traffic fashion websites.
That's right, Catherine McNeil - the very model who became the subject of yesterday's little fash slagfest on this blog, after we happened by chance to include a shot of her in an 'arty', contrived pose from Azzollini's 2007 swimwear catalogue. McNeil wasn't even the subject of the post. The subject was Azzollini's music video clip alternative to a Fashion Week show next week. But after a first, catty swipe at me for being too thin, posters swiftly sank their teeth into the skinny model brouhaha, to the point of declaring McNeil to be "anorexic".
Although obviously the skinny model issue has dominated news headlines over the past eight months sparked by the eating disorder-related deaths of three aspiring South American models, there is nothing new about the debate. It last reared its head in the mid 90s, in the midst of the "heroin chic" controversy and the emergence of the so-called "waifs". They included Kate Moss, Australia's own Emma Balfour but notably Jodie Kidd, runway images of which British teenager's skeletal arms and legs were shocking at the time (with Kidd later blaming her scrawny frame on a bout of glandular fever).
Australian Fashion Week was in fact born into this controversy in May 1996. Some may recall the minor ruckus that erupted at the time over images of Australian model Christy Quilliam, whose ribs visibly stuck out through the holes of her olive green Morrissey Edmiston cutout maillot.
Australian Fashion Week organisers have weighed, pardon the pun, into the current debate by asking model agents and designers to use only healthy-looking women on next week's runways (and this voluntary low BMI 'ban' really worked a treat in Milan in February). They have also asked editors not to go out of their way to use unflattering pictures of models for the sake of sensationalism. Yeah, right.
But while some may go out of their way to capture models in awkward poses so as to exaggerate the image - for example, one recent backstage shot of a topless teenager bending over, which accentuated her ribs or indeed, the first of two Azzollini images of McNeil which appeared in this blog, which accentuated McNeil's shoulders (and who really knows to what degree that image may have also been Photoshopped?) - some model images do not need any assistance at all.
The Jodie Kidd of the mid noughties, 20 year-old Snejana Onopka, alarmed many at the SS07 shows in September last year after dropping what appeared to be at least one dress size. Many of the raw (ie unretouched) runway images of Onopka from that season are just plain ugly and it is in noone's interest not to police this issue. Onopka was nonetheless back at the Milan and Paris shows earlier this year. Whether she had put on weight in the interim or whether the heavier winter clothes, stockings and the season's popular ultra-long gloves perhaps merely disguised her previously stick-thin arms and legs, Onopka appears to have escaped further scrutiny for the time being.
Anorexia nervosa is clearly a major health concern. According to The Eating Disorder Service, a 12-year research program at the Westmead Children's Hospital, one in 200 girls between 15-19 will be diagnosed with anorexia nervosa in Australia - or 0.005% of the population.
According to the program's medical director, Dr Michael Kohn, there is no evidence that anorexia nervosa rates are increasing in Australia, however those diagnosed with the disease are getting younger.
Interestingly, Kohn does not blame the fashion industry for all of Australia's self-starvation woes.
"China has a very longstanding history of anorexia nervosa - from the 1600s - anorexia nervosa has been described for hundreds of years, around the world, but the fashion industry as we would recognise it as such has not been" says Kohn, whose research points to genetic and family factors and pressures as major contributing factors.
He added, "It's easiest to scapegoat the fashion industry, but this is a pattern of behavior that occurs from a range of societal pressures and it oversimplies the issue to pick out one and put the blame for eating disorders in that one realm".
Obesity is demonstrably a far bigger issue than anorexia nervosa. A 1999-2000 study cited on the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare website indicated that over seven million adult Australians aged 25 years and over (60%) were overweight, of which over two million (21%) were obese.
But here is where we get into slippery territory.
There are those who seek to blame not just the problem of women starving themselves on 'unrealistic' fashion images - they appear to want to pin every last pigout on fashion as well. This of course lets the fast food industry, socio-economic factors and the increasing accessibility of home entertainment technology, from computers to widescreen tv, completely off the hook.
I recall once being interviewed about the fashion/body image subject by an Australian radio talk show host. Even though I had been armed with obesity and eating disorder statistics, she had made up her mind on the subject long before I had even been put through to talk to her. Her theory was that the population's frustration with the unattainable ideals depicted in contemporary fashion imagery is the inexorable cause of yo-yo dieting and, so it apparently followed, asses so big that they require supersized ambulance beds and toilet seats.
Anyone with any hard evidence as to the direct link between images of skinny women and the obesity epidemic please feel free to chime in here. Kohn reckons there isn't a heap of it.
She's no scientist of course, but British-born model Gail Elliott has an interesting take on the subject. Elliott now calls Sydney home for eight months of the year, with not just an Australian husband but a burgeoning Sydney-based fashion business (Little Joe by Gail Elliott). While she may eschew the "supermodel" tag, Elliott was most definitely part of the high profile 1980s model crew that included Linda Evangelista, Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell. Now mostly in their 40s, all of these women are still modeling - even if they have other business projects.
Elliott says she has noticed a marked difference in the industry's entry level age compared to when she first joined the business.
"I think they're definitely skinnier now, but they're teens - the little young Russian girls and Brazilian girls, are 13 and 14 years old" Elliott told Fashion Season.
She added, "Naomi was only the young one, she was probably 18 or 19 but we were all 24-ish, 25-ish. So we were grown up already. I think that's a got a lot to do with it. These girls are really young and young girls are skinny. And yes a couple of girls have died, that's terrible. But the other thing is there's so much more competition now. Everyone's a model. And you'll see girls at the shows and you probably won't even know their names and the next season they won't be around. Whereas we did the shows for ten years straight. We did all those shows, every year, every season.
"I think it's changed a lot, it's become very fickle. Editors want more, more, more, new, new, new. There are so many more designers. I remember doing 27 shows in Milan and I probably did all the shows in Milan at the time".
Elliott makes a good point about increased competition. To give you an idea of the pace of this industry, models.com doesn't calls its hottest newcomers category "Of the moment" but, Of The Minute. Does the industry put pressure on models to be thin? Of course - because that's what sells. Australian models tend to be larger than those in the northern hemisphere - that is, until they travel overseas for work.
"Sure girls have to be small to fit those small sample sizes, like a doctor needs to have a degree and seven years of university behind them, it's as simple as that" says Joseph Tenni, a booker with Chadwicks Models in Sydney, who for several years has penned a modelling industry column called Model Mania on New York fashion website hintmag.com. "Knowing that the maximum measurement that they [in New York] would really accept is a 90cm hip, I let girls be aware of that and then it's up to them to make the decision whether they're prepared to do that".
As for the common complaint that models don't look like real women, Tenni notes, "They're models. They look good and clothes look good on them. It's not about 40 year-old businesswomen who can afford the clothes. They want to see models as well. There's still an element of aspiration to it".
But just who are these taste arbiters who determine which of the thousands of newcomers to the industry are "so hot right now"? Who defines the current canons of modeling beauty?
The editors, photographers, stylists and casting directors of influence.
"What propels a girl's career is one influential person and then everybody copies" says Tenni. "If [Paris Vogue editor] Carine Roitfeld says someone's fabulous, everyone wants that girl".
Industry sources estimate that Catherine McNeil probably earned over A$100,000 last year in Australia - and that she stands to make US$1million over the course of the next. Yes she walked at Australian Fashion Week this time last year - under the radar. But McNeil was also shot for a substantial volume of Australian fashion magazine editorial, as well as campaigns for Azzollini, Watersun and Cue. She went to New York armed with a very good book.
The world number one, Gemma Ward, made her runway debut at Australian Fashion Week in May 2003, debuted at the SS04 Milan shows in September that year in a Prada exclusive and six months later was the hottest new girl of AW0405, walking in numerous shows.
Prada casting director Russell Marsh may have given Ward her big international break, but Australian editor/stylist Mark Vassallo also played a significant role, choosing Ward for the cover of his now defunct niche fashion magazine Mark earlier that year.
Similarly "blessed" by Vassallo, in May 2005 the then 13 year-old Tallulah Morton was scouted and flown to Sydney from the Gold Coast to open Josh Goot's Australian Fashion Week debut. Since this time Morton - and not McNeil - has been widely tipped as the next most likely Australian to follow in Ward's footsteps.
But after having been signed to the "Development" board of the world's biggest model agent early last year, IMG, shortly afterwards shooting some editorial with photographer David Sims and a Benetton campaign, Morton did a few New York shows in September but in the end was not booked for any European shows.
Morton's age (by that stage 14) might not have been the only determining factor. Yes it is harder for an under-16 model to work in Europe, due to recent industry crackdowns, however it is not impossible and there are several girls much younger than Morton who are on the circuit.
According to casting sources however, the real reason Morton failed to takeoff at the SS07 shows was because she was "too chunky". Yes it's a brutal industry.
An Australian is more likely to take the latter news with a pinch of salt and head to the beach - Morton, who remains one of Australia's most popular and high-profile models, recently dropped out of school to study multimedia and graphic design at TAFE. However a girl from a developing country in say South America or Eastern Europe - with a family to feed, and with her beauty as her only ticket out - might not be quite so nonchalant. Perhaps it's more than a coincidence that the three models who died as the result of eating disorders last year were South American. Snejana Onopka hails from the Ukraine.
"I'm not going to lie, it is a cutthroat industry and the girls who make it are the determined ones" says Tenni. "And there are plenty of girls who would love a door to open and the door doesn't open. It's not like they're doing anything wrong. They could look fabulous, they could be completely professional. But it's just not their time.
"When a girl doesn't book a job, you just take her off the option, you don't overanalyse it. But as well as having the right look, you do need to have the right mind for this business to be able to handle it all - to handle the rejection and to have the ambition. It is an industry where you will be scrutinised, no matter what. And it's a choice to be in this industry as well".
Like most other Sydney agencies, Chadwicks has several "hot" new girls on its books for next week. They include Emily C (16) who has done one previous Fashion Week, but who is, says Tenni, generating a great deal of buzz this year.
As for total Fashion Week neophytes, girls who have never walked a runway but who could be looking at multimillion dollar modelling careers should the stars align and their moment be "right", Chadwicks' tips are Pip Bingham from Perth (16) and Adelaide's Vanessa Milde (15), who is already placed with IMG's Development board in New York.
Noone has ever heard of either of course.
"But", predicts Tenni, "they will after next week".
Original post and comments.
I wound up having a quick check of www.models.com. Operated by New Yorkers Stephan Moskovic and Wayne Sterling, models.com has become something of an authority on the subject. As per two quotes on its home page, some have in fact dubbed it "the NASDAQ of the modeling industry" (Ivan Bart, Senior VP IMG Models) and "the industry's favorite reference site" (Guy Trebay, The New York Times).
One of models.com's handiest reference components is its rankings of world models into various categories - from "icons" to "sexiest" to the hottest new girls to emerge, to the "Top 50" working models, the latter using as a gauge a model's exposure on major international runways, fashion editorial and covers and advertising campaigns. I do check the site regularly but apparently not regularly enough. Because since the last time I checked the Top 50, and yesterday, Perth's Gemma Ward had graduated to the world number 1 spot. Even more interesting: another Australian has just emerged out of nowhere to sweep aside a swag of high profilers to make her models.com Top 50 debut at number 26. With a bullet. Yes, Catherine McNeil.
Modeling for four years, but only seriously for one, 17 year-old McNeil was completely under the international radar until she met leading international fashion photographer Mario Testino earlier this year and was swiftly picked up by Testino for a six-month exclusive. The Testino "buzz" factor then helped open up an instant spot on the international runway show circuit - and she walked in 35 shows during the recent AW0708 season in Milan and Paris (and one show in London). "Fall belonged to the Australian beauty Catherine McNeil" noted style.com recently - one of the world's highest-traffic fashion websites.
That's right, Catherine McNeil - the very model who became the subject of yesterday's little fash slagfest on this blog, after we happened by chance to include a shot of her in an 'arty', contrived pose from Azzollini's 2007 swimwear catalogue. McNeil wasn't even the subject of the post. The subject was Azzollini's music video clip alternative to a Fashion Week show next week. But after a first, catty swipe at me for being too thin, posters swiftly sank their teeth into the skinny model brouhaha, to the point of declaring McNeil to be "anorexic".
Although obviously the skinny model issue has dominated news headlines over the past eight months sparked by the eating disorder-related deaths of three aspiring South American models, there is nothing new about the debate. It last reared its head in the mid 90s, in the midst of the "heroin chic" controversy and the emergence of the so-called "waifs". They included Kate Moss, Australia's own Emma Balfour but notably Jodie Kidd, runway images of which British teenager's skeletal arms and legs were shocking at the time (with Kidd later blaming her scrawny frame on a bout of glandular fever).
Australian Fashion Week was in fact born into this controversy in May 1996. Some may recall the minor ruckus that erupted at the time over images of Australian model Christy Quilliam, whose ribs visibly stuck out through the holes of her olive green Morrissey Edmiston cutout maillot.
Australian Fashion Week organisers have weighed, pardon the pun, into the current debate by asking model agents and designers to use only healthy-looking women on next week's runways (and this voluntary low BMI 'ban' really worked a treat in Milan in February). They have also asked editors not to go out of their way to use unflattering pictures of models for the sake of sensationalism. Yeah, right.
But while some may go out of their way to capture models in awkward poses so as to exaggerate the image - for example, one recent backstage shot of a topless teenager bending over, which accentuated her ribs or indeed, the first of two Azzollini images of McNeil which appeared in this blog, which accentuated McNeil's shoulders (and who really knows to what degree that image may have also been Photoshopped?) - some model images do not need any assistance at all.
The Jodie Kidd of the mid noughties, 20 year-old Snejana Onopka, alarmed many at the SS07 shows in September last year after dropping what appeared to be at least one dress size. Many of the raw (ie unretouched) runway images of Onopka from that season are just plain ugly and it is in noone's interest not to police this issue. Onopka was nonetheless back at the Milan and Paris shows earlier this year. Whether she had put on weight in the interim or whether the heavier winter clothes, stockings and the season's popular ultra-long gloves perhaps merely disguised her previously stick-thin arms and legs, Onopka appears to have escaped further scrutiny for the time being.
Anorexia nervosa is clearly a major health concern. According to The Eating Disorder Service, a 12-year research program at the Westmead Children's Hospital, one in 200 girls between 15-19 will be diagnosed with anorexia nervosa in Australia - or 0.005% of the population.
According to the program's medical director, Dr Michael Kohn, there is no evidence that anorexia nervosa rates are increasing in Australia, however those diagnosed with the disease are getting younger.
Interestingly, Kohn does not blame the fashion industry for all of Australia's self-starvation woes.
"China has a very longstanding history of anorexia nervosa - from the 1600s - anorexia nervosa has been described for hundreds of years, around the world, but the fashion industry as we would recognise it as such has not been" says Kohn, whose research points to genetic and family factors and pressures as major contributing factors.
He added, "It's easiest to scapegoat the fashion industry, but this is a pattern of behavior that occurs from a range of societal pressures and it oversimplies the issue to pick out one and put the blame for eating disorders in that one realm".
Obesity is demonstrably a far bigger issue than anorexia nervosa. A 1999-2000 study cited on the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare website indicated that over seven million adult Australians aged 25 years and over (60%) were overweight, of which over two million (21%) were obese.
But here is where we get into slippery territory.
There are those who seek to blame not just the problem of women starving themselves on 'unrealistic' fashion images - they appear to want to pin every last pigout on fashion as well. This of course lets the fast food industry, socio-economic factors and the increasing accessibility of home entertainment technology, from computers to widescreen tv, completely off the hook.
I recall once being interviewed about the fashion/body image subject by an Australian radio talk show host. Even though I had been armed with obesity and eating disorder statistics, she had made up her mind on the subject long before I had even been put through to talk to her. Her theory was that the population's frustration with the unattainable ideals depicted in contemporary fashion imagery is the inexorable cause of yo-yo dieting and, so it apparently followed, asses so big that they require supersized ambulance beds and toilet seats.
Anyone with any hard evidence as to the direct link between images of skinny women and the obesity epidemic please feel free to chime in here. Kohn reckons there isn't a heap of it.
She's no scientist of course, but British-born model Gail Elliott has an interesting take on the subject. Elliott now calls Sydney home for eight months of the year, with not just an Australian husband but a burgeoning Sydney-based fashion business (Little Joe by Gail Elliott). While she may eschew the "supermodel" tag, Elliott was most definitely part of the high profile 1980s model crew that included Linda Evangelista, Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell. Now mostly in their 40s, all of these women are still modeling - even if they have other business projects.
Elliott says she has noticed a marked difference in the industry's entry level age compared to when she first joined the business.
"I think they're definitely skinnier now, but they're teens - the little young Russian girls and Brazilian girls, are 13 and 14 years old" Elliott told Fashion Season.
She added, "Naomi was only the young one, she was probably 18 or 19 but we were all 24-ish, 25-ish. So we were grown up already. I think that's a got a lot to do with it. These girls are really young and young girls are skinny. And yes a couple of girls have died, that's terrible. But the other thing is there's so much more competition now. Everyone's a model. And you'll see girls at the shows and you probably won't even know their names and the next season they won't be around. Whereas we did the shows for ten years straight. We did all those shows, every year, every season.
"I think it's changed a lot, it's become very fickle. Editors want more, more, more, new, new, new. There are so many more designers. I remember doing 27 shows in Milan and I probably did all the shows in Milan at the time".
Elliott makes a good point about increased competition. To give you an idea of the pace of this industry, models.com doesn't calls its hottest newcomers category "Of the moment" but, Of The Minute. Does the industry put pressure on models to be thin? Of course - because that's what sells. Australian models tend to be larger than those in the northern hemisphere - that is, until they travel overseas for work.
"Sure girls have to be small to fit those small sample sizes, like a doctor needs to have a degree and seven years of university behind them, it's as simple as that" says Joseph Tenni, a booker with Chadwicks Models in Sydney, who for several years has penned a modelling industry column called Model Mania on New York fashion website hintmag.com. "Knowing that the maximum measurement that they [in New York] would really accept is a 90cm hip, I let girls be aware of that and then it's up to them to make the decision whether they're prepared to do that".
As for the common complaint that models don't look like real women, Tenni notes, "They're models. They look good and clothes look good on them. It's not about 40 year-old businesswomen who can afford the clothes. They want to see models as well. There's still an element of aspiration to it".
But just who are these taste arbiters who determine which of the thousands of newcomers to the industry are "so hot right now"? Who defines the current canons of modeling beauty?
The editors, photographers, stylists and casting directors of influence.
"What propels a girl's career is one influential person and then everybody copies" says Tenni. "If [Paris Vogue editor] Carine Roitfeld says someone's fabulous, everyone wants that girl".
Industry sources estimate that Catherine McNeil probably earned over A$100,000 last year in Australia - and that she stands to make US$1million over the course of the next. Yes she walked at Australian Fashion Week this time last year - under the radar. But McNeil was also shot for a substantial volume of Australian fashion magazine editorial, as well as campaigns for Azzollini, Watersun and Cue. She went to New York armed with a very good book.
The world number one, Gemma Ward, made her runway debut at Australian Fashion Week in May 2003, debuted at the SS04 Milan shows in September that year in a Prada exclusive and six months later was the hottest new girl of AW0405, walking in numerous shows.
Prada casting director Russell Marsh may have given Ward her big international break, but Australian editor/stylist Mark Vassallo also played a significant role, choosing Ward for the cover of his now defunct niche fashion magazine Mark earlier that year.
Similarly "blessed" by Vassallo, in May 2005 the then 13 year-old Tallulah Morton was scouted and flown to Sydney from the Gold Coast to open Josh Goot's Australian Fashion Week debut. Since this time Morton - and not McNeil - has been widely tipped as the next most likely Australian to follow in Ward's footsteps.
But after having been signed to the "Development" board of the world's biggest model agent early last year, IMG, shortly afterwards shooting some editorial with photographer David Sims and a Benetton campaign, Morton did a few New York shows in September but in the end was not booked for any European shows.
Morton's age (by that stage 14) might not have been the only determining factor. Yes it is harder for an under-16 model to work in Europe, due to recent industry crackdowns, however it is not impossible and there are several girls much younger than Morton who are on the circuit.
According to casting sources however, the real reason Morton failed to takeoff at the SS07 shows was because she was "too chunky". Yes it's a brutal industry.
An Australian is more likely to take the latter news with a pinch of salt and head to the beach - Morton, who remains one of Australia's most popular and high-profile models, recently dropped out of school to study multimedia and graphic design at TAFE. However a girl from a developing country in say South America or Eastern Europe - with a family to feed, and with her beauty as her only ticket out - might not be quite so nonchalant. Perhaps it's more than a coincidence that the three models who died as the result of eating disorders last year were South American. Snejana Onopka hails from the Ukraine.
"I'm not going to lie, it is a cutthroat industry and the girls who make it are the determined ones" says Tenni. "And there are plenty of girls who would love a door to open and the door doesn't open. It's not like they're doing anything wrong. They could look fabulous, they could be completely professional. But it's just not their time.
"When a girl doesn't book a job, you just take her off the option, you don't overanalyse it. But as well as having the right look, you do need to have the right mind for this business to be able to handle it all - to handle the rejection and to have the ambition. It is an industry where you will be scrutinised, no matter what. And it's a choice to be in this industry as well".
Like most other Sydney agencies, Chadwicks has several "hot" new girls on its books for next week. They include Emily C (16) who has done one previous Fashion Week, but who is, says Tenni, generating a great deal of buzz this year.
As for total Fashion Week neophytes, girls who have never walked a runway but who could be looking at multimillion dollar modelling careers should the stars align and their moment be "right", Chadwicks' tips are Pip Bingham from Perth (16) and Adelaide's Vanessa Milde (15), who is already placed with IMG's Development board in New York.
Noone has ever heard of either of course.
"But", predicts Tenni, "they will after next week".
Original post and comments.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Video killed the runway star: Azzollini's sex-on-legs swimwear supersizes up to the big screen
You've got to hand it to Michael Azzollini and Kate Nicholes. They create some of the most eye-popping swimwear on the market and from day one in 2003 just happened to align themselves with a sleeper celebrity: their mate, and star model, Michelle Leslie. Last year Azzollini made front page news around Australia when Leslie appeared in the brand's off-schedule show the week before Fashion Week - her first runway appearance since flying back into a Sydney media storm following her release from Bali's Kerobokan Prison. This year Azzollini is back on schedule, this time with a twist: by swapping a traditional runway show for a four-minute clip directed by one of the music video world's hottest new directors.
Azzollini and Nicholes have spent the past three days careering around a dozen locations in Sydney with eighteen models, 14 hair and makeup stylists, two choreographers, a muscle man, a contortionist and a 12-strong film crew from Sydney design and film collective Collider in tow.
The latter has been helmed by Don Cameron, a London-based Australian music video director who hails originally from the Blue Mountains and whose videography boasts work for headliners such as The Pet Shop Boys ('Minimal'), Garbage ('Androgyny'), Moloko ('Indigo') and Simply Red ('Sunrise'). Shot in various beach, harbourside and gym locations on a $29,000 shoestring budget - with undoubtedly tens of thousands of further dollars of favours pulled in from mates - the clip references Olivia Newton John's 1981 hit 'Let's Get Physical'.
We haven't seen the finished clip however given the calibre of Cameron's work - and connections - and Azzollini's knack for courting publicity, this could represent the brand's biggest break. In terms of international retail, they currently cite just Henri Bendel and Elizabeth Charles in the US, Lane Crawford Hong Kong and Figleaves in the UK as stockists. Fashion Season's was the only other video camera allowed on the shoot so stand by for an exclusive preview.
Yesterday Broadway's Pioneer Studios was awash with models kitted out in a sportif red, navy and white striped story from Azzollini's SS0708 collection. We filmed them performing a series of step aerobics routines and floor exercises such as bicycles and pelvic thrusts - a kind of horizontal version of The Time Warp from The Rocky Horror Picture Show's ballroom scene.
The clip is due to be screened at 5pm on May 2nd at the Dendy Cinema, Circular Quay, just around the harbour from Fashion Week's main Overseas Passenger Terminal location. It will feature a small live component with a few models in the collection, which also includes a stretch denim story, a tuxedo shirt-style maillot, some signature graphic prints - including a quirky take on the Redhead match print - and, surprisingly for Azzollini, a bit more cover than usual.
Azzollini is well-known not only for its intricately-cut maillots and bikinis but also for its sexed-up campaign images with models in hyperglamorous poses - such as last summer's campaign lensed by Troyt Coburn and featuring Australia's hottest new modeling export, Catherine McNeil (see above).
Although featured in the video, as is Leslie, 15 year-old Sydney model Tallulah Morton was not part of yesterday's 'gym' shoot and we are informed that she was not involved with any overly-provocative poses (as have been some other Azzollini models in campaigns past, notably Leslie).
On the differences between shooting a regular campaign and a four-minute video clip involving a cast and crew of 50, designer Michael Azzollini told Fashion Season, "I think I've bitten off more than I can chew!"
Original post and comments.
Azzollini and Nicholes have spent the past three days careering around a dozen locations in Sydney with eighteen models, 14 hair and makeup stylists, two choreographers, a muscle man, a contortionist and a 12-strong film crew from Sydney design and film collective Collider in tow.
The latter has been helmed by Don Cameron, a London-based Australian music video director who hails originally from the Blue Mountains and whose videography boasts work for headliners such as The Pet Shop Boys ('Minimal'), Garbage ('Androgyny'), Moloko ('Indigo') and Simply Red ('Sunrise'). Shot in various beach, harbourside and gym locations on a $29,000 shoestring budget - with undoubtedly tens of thousands of further dollars of favours pulled in from mates - the clip references Olivia Newton John's 1981 hit 'Let's Get Physical'.
We haven't seen the finished clip however given the calibre of Cameron's work - and connections - and Azzollini's knack for courting publicity, this could represent the brand's biggest break. In terms of international retail, they currently cite just Henri Bendel and Elizabeth Charles in the US, Lane Crawford Hong Kong and Figleaves in the UK as stockists. Fashion Season's was the only other video camera allowed on the shoot so stand by for an exclusive preview.
Yesterday Broadway's Pioneer Studios was awash with models kitted out in a sportif red, navy and white striped story from Azzollini's SS0708 collection. We filmed them performing a series of step aerobics routines and floor exercises such as bicycles and pelvic thrusts - a kind of horizontal version of The Time Warp from The Rocky Horror Picture Show's ballroom scene.
The clip is due to be screened at 5pm on May 2nd at the Dendy Cinema, Circular Quay, just around the harbour from Fashion Week's main Overseas Passenger Terminal location. It will feature a small live component with a few models in the collection, which also includes a stretch denim story, a tuxedo shirt-style maillot, some signature graphic prints - including a quirky take on the Redhead match print - and, surprisingly for Azzollini, a bit more cover than usual.
Azzollini is well-known not only for its intricately-cut maillots and bikinis but also for its sexed-up campaign images with models in hyperglamorous poses - such as last summer's campaign lensed by Troyt Coburn and featuring Australia's hottest new modeling export, Catherine McNeil (see above).
Although featured in the video, as is Leslie, 15 year-old Sydney model Tallulah Morton was not part of yesterday's 'gym' shoot and we are informed that she was not involved with any overly-provocative poses (as have been some other Azzollini models in campaigns past, notably Leslie).
On the differences between shooting a regular campaign and a four-minute video clip involving a cast and crew of 50, designer Michael Azzollini told Fashion Season, "I think I've bitten off more than I can chew!"
Original post and comments.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Sibling revelry: Fashion Week openers Camilla and Marc crack page one
Sydney's brother-and-sister fashion act Camilla and Marc Freeman are on a roll. First they scored the highly-coveted opening spot at Australian Fashion Week: 9am on Monday April 30th. And now they've made the cover of one of the world's most influential fashion publications: US fashion trade 'bible' Women's Wear Daily.
The Freemans are part of a double-page story inside Tuesday's edition about up-and-coming labels in the US market, from which their image was selected for page one - with their names, a brief backgrounder and stockist CV splashed all over same.
And while they are not the first antipodians to make WWD's cover - Collette Dinnigan was the first back in 1996, followed more recently by a handful of other names notably Josh Goot, Dinosaur Designs and Lover and Kiwis Trelise Cooper and Karen Walker - it's a pretty significant coup, not to mention a great leadin to their Fashion Week show.
"Marc and I are really excited that camilla and marc has made the cover of WWD, hopefully this is a positive sign of things to come for the label in the USA" Camilla Freeman told Fashion Season.
"We have also just confirmed [high profile UK- and now also US-based online retailer] net-a-porter.com as a stockist, which is great news as they are such a respected online store. All this good news has made the hard work involved in our RAFW show that much easier!"
I'm not going to pretend that was a first-hand quote.
You may get to hear from Alber Elbaz, Miuccia Prada, Marc Jacobs et al while Fashion Season is on the road but back in Sydney we have to make do with statements from twentysomething designers' publicists. Such is life. Australian designers are clearly busy bees these days. So much of the world to conquer, so little time.
But look, the Freemans have a charming, feminine signature, a great story and I wish them well. I mean come on, how many brother-and-sister fashion acts are there? Well OK, maybe Gianni and Donatella Versace and Christopher and Tammy Kane and then of course Rebecca Davies and her brother and Belinda Seper and her Joburg-based bro..... but that said, it's fairly unusual you have to admit. Camilla, 25, is a graduate of the Whitehouse Institute of Design and Marc, 27, has, I kid you not, an engineering degree from the University of NSW.
What else can I tell you? They will open Fashion Week down at the Sydney Theatre Company - using one long front row stretched along the STC boards between the Hickson Road entrance and the restaurant. The collection, in a muted palette, is described as "a strong collection of modern directional silhouettes paired back with feminine timeless fabrics".
Bring it on.
Patty Huntington is a contributor to Women's Wear Daily.
Original post and comments.
The Freemans are part of a double-page story inside Tuesday's edition about up-and-coming labels in the US market, from which their image was selected for page one - with their names, a brief backgrounder and stockist CV splashed all over same.
And while they are not the first antipodians to make WWD's cover - Collette Dinnigan was the first back in 1996, followed more recently by a handful of other names notably Josh Goot, Dinosaur Designs and Lover and Kiwis Trelise Cooper and Karen Walker - it's a pretty significant coup, not to mention a great leadin to their Fashion Week show.
"Marc and I are really excited that camilla and marc has made the cover of WWD, hopefully this is a positive sign of things to come for the label in the USA" Camilla Freeman told Fashion Season.
"We have also just confirmed [high profile UK- and now also US-based online retailer] net-a-porter.com as a stockist, which is great news as they are such a respected online store. All this good news has made the hard work involved in our RAFW show that much easier!"
I'm not going to pretend that was a first-hand quote.
You may get to hear from Alber Elbaz, Miuccia Prada, Marc Jacobs et al while Fashion Season is on the road but back in Sydney we have to make do with statements from twentysomething designers' publicists. Such is life. Australian designers are clearly busy bees these days. So much of the world to conquer, so little time.
But look, the Freemans have a charming, feminine signature, a great story and I wish them well. I mean come on, how many brother-and-sister fashion acts are there? Well OK, maybe Gianni and Donatella Versace and Christopher and Tammy Kane and then of course Rebecca Davies and her brother and Belinda Seper and her Joburg-based bro..... but that said, it's fairly unusual you have to admit. Camilla, 25, is a graduate of the Whitehouse Institute of Design and Marc, 27, has, I kid you not, an engineering degree from the University of NSW.
What else can I tell you? They will open Fashion Week down at the Sydney Theatre Company - using one long front row stretched along the STC boards between the Hickson Road entrance and the restaurant. The collection, in a muted palette, is described as "a strong collection of modern directional silhouettes paired back with feminine timeless fabrics".
Bring it on.
Patty Huntington is a contributor to Women's Wear Daily.
Original post and comments.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Not to put too Finetti a point on it: Fashion Week is upon us
Long time, no blog. But here we are some six weeks after the wrap of the northern hemisphere's AW0708 season only to find ourselves back in Sydney, staring SS0708 in the face. It's a scary thought. On it rolls however, the unstoppable fashion circus. The next destination is Australian Fashion Week, which runs April 30-May 4 at Sydney's Overseas Passenger Terminal.
Who's coming out? So far the most high-profile name mentioned is someone who is better-associated with no clothes at all: burlesque diva, MAC spokeswoman and the recently-estranged wife of Marilyn Manson, Dita Von Teese.
The whole event has, say organisers, been reconfigured so stay tuned to see what that looks like - hopefully a better deal for all those exhibitors who have been hitherto stuck upstairs at The Source trade show. Unlike Fashion Week's previous home Fox Studios, where the trade show was the central hub of the entire event - through which everyone had to pass to get to the runway venues - the configuration of the OPT has not so far endeared itself to the AFW exhibitors.
But I hear The Source is likely this year to be back down on the ground level. The one thing I can share with you right now is a preview of the draft schedule. Although subject to change (read pullouts - at 10 shows a day on most days I'm not sure how they would include many addons), this is not yet on the official website. As you can see, it's pretty jam-packed.
Monday 30 April
9am Camilla and Marc
11am Lisa Ho
12pm Cybele
1pm WRTW1: Dhini, Silence is Golden, Leonard St, High Tea with Mrs Woo, Showoff
3pm Anna Thomas
5pm WRTW2: Valerie Tolosa, Stephanie Cranford, Joveeba, Rachel Gilbert
7pm Melanie Cutfield
8pm Alex Perry
9pm Dita Von Teese & M.A.C
Tuesday 1 May
9am Kirrily Johnston
10am Zimmermann
11am WRTW3: Bec & Bridge, Maurie & Eve, Milk & Honey, Sewn
12pm LifeWithBird
2pm Jayson Brunsdon
3pm Tina Kalivas
4pm Zambesi
5pm sass & bide accessories
6pm Stephanie Conley
7pm Frisoni Finetti
8pm FashionAssassin
9pm Bowie
Wednesday 2 May
9am c & m - Camilla and Marc
10am WRTW4: Davis Eyes, United Constructions, The Cassette Society
11am Ginger & Smart
12pm Shakuhachi
2pm State of Georgia
3pm Fleur Wood
4pm MRTW/WRTW: Thousand Reasons, Trimapee, Vicious Threads, Xenheist
5pm Azzollini
7pm Arabella Ramsay
8pm Nicola Finetti
9pm Gail Sorronda
Thursday 3 May
9am Josh Goot
10am Fashion Design Studio, TAFE NSW - Sydney Institute
11am WRTW5: Annah Stretton, Brigid McLaughlin, Dev r Nil, Gavin Rajah
12pm Matthew Eager
1pm Alice McCall
2pm WRTW6: Melly, Constance and Violet, One Fell Swoop, Rahul & Firdos
4pm Jessie Hill
6pm Madame Marie
7pm Anna & Boy
8pm Ksubi
9pm Hallican Boodie
Friday 4 May
10am New Generation - Annie Who, Blanc + Delta, Amar, Gina Kim, Tu, George Wu
11am Lee Matthews
12pm Romance Was Born
1pm New Generation - Piper Lane, Artsu, Subfusco, Bam Bam, Kornered, Fischer von Meszlenyi
2pm Marnie Skillings
3pm Nevenka
8pm Alba Fan Club
So there you have it folks. Some good names - and a lot to see.
If you're wondering what the hell Frisoni Finetti is, it's the new menswear line that urban style snapper - and erstwhile Gretel Killeen stylist - Fernando Frisoni has done with Nicola Finetti. Interesting that it's not being just called Nicola Finetti Man or some such.
Can't speak for the new range as yet, but I have to say Finetti is looking great. He walked up to me in the middle of the Rue Saint Honore Miu Miu store in Paris last month and I did a double-take. Can't quite put my finger on it - he's been working out, changed his skincare regime, something.
Perhaps menswear is the new fountain of youth.
Original post and comments.
Who's coming out? So far the most high-profile name mentioned is someone who is better-associated with no clothes at all: burlesque diva, MAC spokeswoman and the recently-estranged wife of Marilyn Manson, Dita Von Teese.
The whole event has, say organisers, been reconfigured so stay tuned to see what that looks like - hopefully a better deal for all those exhibitors who have been hitherto stuck upstairs at The Source trade show. Unlike Fashion Week's previous home Fox Studios, where the trade show was the central hub of the entire event - through which everyone had to pass to get to the runway venues - the configuration of the OPT has not so far endeared itself to the AFW exhibitors.
But I hear The Source is likely this year to be back down on the ground level. The one thing I can share with you right now is a preview of the draft schedule. Although subject to change (read pullouts - at 10 shows a day on most days I'm not sure how they would include many addons), this is not yet on the official website. As you can see, it's pretty jam-packed.
Monday 30 April
9am Camilla and Marc
11am Lisa Ho
12pm Cybele
1pm WRTW1: Dhini, Silence is Golden, Leonard St, High Tea with Mrs Woo, Showoff
3pm Anna Thomas
5pm WRTW2: Valerie Tolosa, Stephanie Cranford, Joveeba, Rachel Gilbert
7pm Melanie Cutfield
8pm Alex Perry
9pm Dita Von Teese & M.A.C
Tuesday 1 May
9am Kirrily Johnston
10am Zimmermann
11am WRTW3: Bec & Bridge, Maurie & Eve, Milk & Honey, Sewn
12pm LifeWithBird
2pm Jayson Brunsdon
3pm Tina Kalivas
4pm Zambesi
5pm sass & bide accessories
6pm Stephanie Conley
7pm Frisoni Finetti
8pm FashionAssassin
9pm Bowie
Wednesday 2 May
9am c & m - Camilla and Marc
10am WRTW4: Davis Eyes, United Constructions, The Cassette Society
11am Ginger & Smart
12pm Shakuhachi
2pm State of Georgia
3pm Fleur Wood
4pm MRTW/WRTW: Thousand Reasons, Trimapee, Vicious Threads, Xenheist
5pm Azzollini
7pm Arabella Ramsay
8pm Nicola Finetti
9pm Gail Sorronda
Thursday 3 May
9am Josh Goot
10am Fashion Design Studio, TAFE NSW - Sydney Institute
11am WRTW5: Annah Stretton, Brigid McLaughlin, Dev r Nil, Gavin Rajah
12pm Matthew Eager
1pm Alice McCall
2pm WRTW6: Melly, Constance and Violet, One Fell Swoop, Rahul & Firdos
4pm Jessie Hill
6pm Madame Marie
7pm Anna & Boy
8pm Ksubi
9pm Hallican Boodie
Friday 4 May
10am New Generation - Annie Who, Blanc + Delta, Amar, Gina Kim, Tu, George Wu
11am Lee Matthews
12pm Romance Was Born
1pm New Generation - Piper Lane, Artsu, Subfusco, Bam Bam, Kornered, Fischer von Meszlenyi
2pm Marnie Skillings
3pm Nevenka
8pm Alba Fan Club
So there you have it folks. Some good names - and a lot to see.
If you're wondering what the hell Frisoni Finetti is, it's the new menswear line that urban style snapper - and erstwhile Gretel Killeen stylist - Fernando Frisoni has done with Nicola Finetti. Interesting that it's not being just called Nicola Finetti Man or some such.
Can't speak for the new range as yet, but I have to say Finetti is looking great. He walked up to me in the middle of the Rue Saint Honore Miu Miu store in Paris last month and I did a double-take. Can't quite put my finger on it - he's been working out, changed his skincare regime, something.
Perhaps menswear is the new fountain of youth.
Original post and comments.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)