Sabatini's It girls

On Friday morning, Sabatini hosted a breakfast at Café Sydney to celebrate 20 years in business in Australia and preview the Spring/Summer 2011/2012 collection. Of course, the third generation New Zealand knitwear company is much older than that – 58 years to be precise (in September, frockwriter visited its headquarters in Auckland). A tightly-edited presentation of just 12 strong looks, with styling by Franco Schifilliti, this was Sabatini’s best ever show. Brother and sister Margi and Tony Milich now run the business, but great to see Margi’s daughter Danielle Evans-Milich, who had her own Milich & Morton label at one point, with more of a hands-on role these days. The showpieces in Friday's capsule collection included a knockout fringed silver cocktail dress with fishtail train which, although perhaps never intended for production, will wind up, we’ll wager, photographed by magazines and on special order. In what is a signal of the calibre of models we can expect this week in Sydney, the cast included Lauren Brown and Alice Burdeu, who recently returned from the northern hemisphere show circuit. Both Brown and Burdeu are among a group of models who were launched out of Sydney’s Priscillas agency and onto the world stage by former Priscillas booker Doll Wright. Wright moved to New York three years ago to work at Priscillas’ US affiliate Elite, but has just resigned from Elite. Although she’s not saying much right now, according to industry whispers Wright is heading to cashed-up competitor Ford – which recently poached Catherine McNeil from the Next agency. And word has it that McNeil might not be the only Australian model to be nabbed by Ford once Wright touches down there.