The Walkley Magazine

Akira, May 2nd, 2008/Sonny Vandevelde

My AFW story in the current issue of The Walkley Magazine, which is published bi-monthly by The Walkley Foundation (and its trustee the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance) and looks at media issues.


This is the second year in a row the magazine has asked me to write an AFW wrap for its June/July issue. The story is not online this time, so I thought I'd blog it.

And look, it's great that they even consider fashion reportage to be on the legit media radar - as so few in mainstream news and current affairs actually do. It's a double page spread, with backstage pics by Sonny Vandevelde and a couple of other shots by the SMH's Edwina Pickles and Steven Siewert.



"CATWALK CONFIDENTIAL"

Many newspaper editors, truth be told, are only interested in fashion coverage for its potential page 3 pics. But ironically the biggest story of Australian Fashion Week kicked off with an image of a scantily-clad model being shoved up the back of the book in the fashion pages.

Had the editors known what they were sitting on it would have run on page one.

Models, medals, missed scoops – and new media players edging in on the establishment – were the hallmarks of Fashion Week’s 13th annual spring/summer 0809 showcase which wrapped at Sydney’s Overseas Passenger Terminal on May 2nd.

By week’s end, some had dubbed it the “best ever” in terms of quality, size, pace and buzz. Once the media analysts’ tallies come in, the same term may well apply to the scope of its coverage.

The saucy shot in question showed Polish model Monika ‘JAC’ Jagaciak reclining under a Vichy Shower, the top of her white swimsuit moistened by water jets.

The shot was provided as an exclusive to the early-to-bed fashion pages of The Sunday Telegraph by the local arm of the world’s biggest model agency, New York-based IMG Models.

IMG reps Jagaciak - and its parent company owns Australian Fashion Week. Jagaciak was due to be the star face of a contingent of up-and-coming IMG models, who were being flown out to help up the event’s international ante.

On April 5th on my Fully Chic blog on NEWS.com.au, I had reported the names, ages and nationalities of 14 of IMG’s international models, including Jagaciak.

According to the 1994 birth year published on the website of her Polish ‘mother agency’ Gaga, she was either 14 - or still 13.

Given that Gemma Ward was 15 for her AFW debut in 2003 and Tallulah Morton, 13 for hers two years later, it didn’t seem like news at the time.

That was until I opened the following morning’s Sunday Tele and spotted precisely which handout image had been supplied by IMG.

Jagaciak’s age, and the image, were both hosed down by IMG on 7th April when I called. So I called Gaga Models that night to ask her exact birthday.

The agency confirmed it to be 15th January 1994.

On 8th April, I posted the image, together with the headline, “This Polish teenager was 13 when this image was taken? Do you have a problem with it?”. Apparently plenty did. The blog exploded overnight.

By Friday 11th April, Vogue Australia had cancelled a planned cover shoot with Jagaciak. And The Daily Telegraph, by then outraged by JAC’s age - even though its Sunday edition had reported she would be “leading the beauty brigade” at AFW, with “’face to watch’ written all over her” – was by this stage asking “Should Monika Jagaciak be at Australian Fashion Week?”.

By midday Friday, IMG had banned all under 16s from the event.

But minors were not AFW’s only model story – or its only overlooked photop.

On 28th April, on the morning of the comeback show of expat Australian Michelle Jank, The Sydney Morning Herald published a small Jank story on page three - together with a cropped shot showing only the designer.

In the background of the original image, as it appeared on smh.com.au, stood Australian model Stephanie Carta, just back from a “breakthrough” runway season in Paris – with twig-thin arms.

Carta wasn’t the story on Monday, but she sure was by Wednesday, once The Daily Telegraph got wind that Carta’s Sydney agency Chic Management had pulled her from Jank’s 8.00pm Monday night show due to concerns about her weight only to reinstate her for camilla & marc’s show at 9.00am the following morning.

With the story on most news bulletins that day, Chic Management found itself at the epicenter of the very media circus it had tried to avoid. But the exposure didn’t seem to bother Carta, who turned up on the last day of shows in a custom-made Ksubi T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan “I’M RAKING IT IN”.

April 30th was a big day for front page fashion news.

The SMH might have missed the skinny model story, but it didn’t miss the war medals in Kate Sylvester’s “Royally Screwed” show.

Running the Kiwi designer’s styling choice by war vets – who were suitably outraged – the story made page one of the SMH for two days in a row, generating much additional radio and television coverage, with the New Zealand media in meltdown mode by end of the first day.

And the clothes?

Perhaps it’s just as well under-16s weren’t welcome because a record number of breasts were on display this season, as antipodian designers perpetuated the international trend for sheer organza blouses, pyjama pants, dresses and skirts.

Other major trends included florals, the ever-present dress, the blazer, the waistcoat, Techno tribal, lace, the dropped-crotch dhoti pant, wide-legged trousers, leggings, Victorian romance, with some brilliant bursts of colour counterpointed against a dark, Gothic undercurrent.

The event delivered some solid newcomers in the form of designers Ben Pollitt (Freidrich Gray), Karla Spetic and India’s Vineet Bahl.

Also newsworthy was the return of several well-known names absent for anywhere from one to five years, as they concentrate on their northern hemisphere businesses: Michelle Jank, Easton Pearson, Akira Isogawa and sass & bide jeans queens Heidi Middleton and Sarah-Jane Clarke.

Bubbling away at Fashion Week for the past two years, blogging reached something of a minor critical mass this year, with at least 10 bloggers covering the event – half of them international delegates. A fact which was not lost on traditional media, which duly reported their visibility.

In his colourful outfits, which included a brushed cotton playsuit, teamed with a different luxury handbag each day, flamboyant Filipino blogger Bryanboy became the star of this ‘new media’ old media story.

“Planet Earth’s Favourite Third World Fag”, as he calls himself, this international fashion week virgin, who has zero professional reportage experience but a global fanbase, flew straight from the Third World and into the front row this season (and on his own dime, contrary to several reports).

This fact would no doubt grate on the nerves of some of the event’s previous international media delegates from such august publications as The Financial Times of London and high-profile Nylon magazine - who, in a previous season, boycotted some shows in protest of having been accorded merely “general admission” tickets.

Evidently they didn’t have Bryanboy’s Technorati ranking.

"We don't want you to be anorexic. We just want you to look like you are"

So noted top Canadian model Coco Rocha during her chat to the New York fashion troops at Tuesday’s CFDA model health seminar - relaying instructions she claims to have received by fashion industry professionals. It’s a mere coincidence the meeting took place in the week following our revelations about the Elite Development board – and as far as Fully Chic is aware no reference was made of the latter. The Elite story was nevertheless picked up by the Jezebel blog in New York, The Observer and Independent newspapers in London and The New Zealand Herald. In addition to a number of blogs.

Other notable CFDA meeting quotes include, from casting director James Scully:

“Let’s stop treating models like greyhounds we plan to shoot after a race”.

And from KCD PR consultant Nian Fish:

“I think we have brainwashed ourselves into believing that [Size 0] is beautiful. It’s time to admit that we’ve all been drinking the Kool-Aid”.

On Tuesday Fish told WWD that:

“Things have been happening. There have been several well-known girls that agents took off the runway and gotten help for”.

If girls have been pulled off runways over the past 12 months, Fully Chic would love to know what they looked like.

At the top of this post are images of three of the moment’s most successful international runway models.

The shot of Ukrainian Snejana Onopka (L) is from the SS07 Calvin Klein show in New York, taken in September 2006 – at a time when Onopka’s alarmingly emaciated frame was raising many eyebrows. Onopka is no longer (quite) as thin. According to Fully Chic’s sources, at least one major luxury brand Photoshopped Onopka’s runway images that season to make her look less cadaverous in their promotional material.

This does beg the question of course: why book her for the show in the first place?

Spring forward to February and March this year and the FW0809 season, during which the two right-hand images were taken.

The shot of Norwegian Siri Tollerød is from the Herve Leger by Max Azria show in February – in New York.

It’s true that Ali Michael, who put on 5lbs in between the SS08 and FW0809 seasons, did walk in numerous shows in New York in February, including Anna Sui and Marc by Marc Jacobs. Judging by her comments in this month’s Teen Vogue however - that the industry reaction “was not as enthusiastic as it had been” – presumably she expected to do more, as with previous seasons.

Two weeks later Michael did one show in Paris but left after an icy reception from that city’s casting directors who, she claims, told her that her legs were too fat.

The shot of Belarusian Olga Sherer is from Balenciaga’s FW0809 show in Paris in March. That’s the fashion house for which Oz model Stephanie “raking it in” Carta has been doing a lot of work. Carta, you may recall, returned from her recent stint in Paris looking so emaciated her agency pulled her off the AFW runways.

Sherer, we note, currently appears in the SS08 advertising campaign of the Taiwanese-owned French brand Lanvin. And this campaign appears on at least one ‘thinspo’ website of which we are aware.

One wonders precisely how the Lanvin advertising images sit with the legislation passed in April in France, criminalising those blogs and websites which promote excessive thinness - with a two year prison sentence or 30,000 euro fine penalty.

The legislation could, reportedly, also target magazines, with French Health Minister, Roselyne Bachelot, reportedly telling parliament:

“Giving young girls advice about how to lie to their doctors, telling them what kinds of food are easiest to vomit, encouraging them to torture themselves whenever they take any kind of food is not part of liberty of expression. The messages sent out here are messages of death.”

At Tuesday’s CFDA meeting, Coco Rocha reportedly claimed one agent had instructed her to throw up after meals.

One also wonders if Tollerød, Sherer and others were obliged to provide urine samples for drug testing during a show season, whether they would fail or pass? Rocha also admitted to having used diuretics and there is anecdotal evidence that the drug Clenbuterol (among others) is as equally popular amongst the modelling ranks, as it is in athletic and horse training circles, for its fat-burning properties.

Drug testing would be one way presumably of ascertaining whether these in-demand girls are “naturally” thin – or else an army of doped-up zombies desperate to adhere to the draconian requirements of a fashion elite which has decreed the bag-of-bones look “aspirational”.

Of course were a runway model to collapse from a heart attack in front of a thousand camera crews and photographers in the middle of a high profile fashion show, it would certainly get everyone’s attention.

There would be no Photoshopping those images.


Original post and comments.

Snubbed by ANTM - booked by Prada and Gucci

Myf Shepherd, as shot - although not literally, we hope - by Douglas Perrett/COACD

We mentioned two weeks ago that the NY hype had already started before Myf Shepherd had even gotten on the bloody plane. But now, a fortnight in the Big Apple and she is already making model waves - christened by no less than Prada and Gucci. All the more amusing therefore to hear from Shepherd’s Sydney agent, Kathy Ward, that the 17 year-old Queenslander was, earlier this year, culled from auditions for the current season of Australia’s Next Top Model because the producers didn’t, ahem, think she had what it takes.

Scouted in January this year on the street in Newfarm, Brisbane by Alexis Elliott, head of Chic Management’s Future Faces Division, Shepherd (nee Myfanwy Amy Shepherd, but previously known as Amy Shepherd) hit the ground running at last month’s Australian Fashion Week, walking in 17 shows in her first show season - more than any other model from the same agency.

Neither Foxtel nor ANTM production company Granada Productions were at press time able to confirm or deny that Shepherd had auditioned for the series.

On November 1st 2007 however, The Gold Coast Bulletin published a story about Shepherd’s hopes for selection in Cycle 4. In the story, ANTM host Jodhi Meares is quoted as saying:

“Definitely, I will be pushing for her to go through. I think she is quite amazing”.

Evidently Meares wasn’t pushy enough.

Shepherd walked in the Prada Resort show earlier this week in New York. According to The Ones 2 Watch, she was also booked for Gucci’s “two-day” resort presentation – although it’s unclear whether this refers solely to Gucci’s lowkey New York showing to editors, or additionally the big Gucci resort runway extravaganza that is reportedly due to take place in Rome on July 8.

Shepherd’s compatriot, and fellow Chic Management fledgling, Sarah Stephens, was also booked for Gucci according to TO2W. Kathy Ward said she was unaware if either model had been retained for anything Gucci-related beyond the New York editors presentations. No news yet on options for the haute couture shows in Paris, which begin in a few weeks. But Shepherd at least heads to Paris early next week for casting sessions.

On Thursday Shepherd popped up in a cameo on the COACD blog of model hypemeister Douglas Perrett, a US casting director (picture and link above^) - and on Friday, on that of Wayne Sterling, aka The Imagist, who is a co-founder of models.com. TO2W also reports that both Shepherd and Stephens are due to appear in a new faces spread in the UK 10 Magazine; that Stephens is booked for Numero and that Shepherd is not only confirmed for the Numero Tokyo option we mentioned two weeks ago, but is also due to appear in an upcoming editorial in Exit Magazine.

And no, the latter apparently has nothing to do with Dr Philip Nitschke – even though one could be forgiven for so thinking in the wake of a comment made by leading casting director James Scully at Tuesday night’s CFDA model health chinwag in NYC:

“Let’s stop treating models like greyhounds we plan to shoot after a race”.

Original post and comments.

Go ask Alice: The real McCall on babies, branding, Bali and why she's not doing AFW

Fashion Week may have a great show lineup but of course you can’t win em all – and regular AFW headliner Alice McCall is sitting this season out. Instead, McCall is opting for lowkey showroom presentations over the next two days in Sydney. Fully Chic can share the next best thing to a show: an exclusive preview of McCall’s ‘High on Rebellion’ SS0809 range which is high on 60s Mod,‘80s pop, the designer’s signature pretty-girl party dresses, shirtdresses, intarsia knits, zippered leggings, boho deluxe beading inspired by her baby’s astrological birth chart and a covetable, oversized, Blondie-nosed bag called ‘Rip Her To Shreds’.

That’s not counting a ‘Thank God For The Salvos’ T-shirt with a fascinating back-story. The shirt features an image from a genuine, and apparently only recently-retrieved, 1979 Salvation Army poster which depicts McCall herself as a child model, barefoot, empty plate in hand - and wearing a floral smock dress. All profits from the T’s sales go back to the charity.

And that’s not the only reveal. In this Q&A, the designer mentions that a line of Alice McCall sunglasses and a New York Fashion Week show are just around the corner….

So why aren’t we seeing Alice McCall at AFW?
Alice McCall: I think that as far as Australia goes we’re covered with our stockists and now what we are doing is managing those accounts. And we do that more on an internal level rather than needing to do Fashion Week. But as far as overseas goes, we want to grow and it’s sort of one or the other: doing a Fashion Week overseas, or doing one here.

You have done London Fashion Week before.
Yeah – we’ve done it three times and always with great success.

So where else might you show?
September – I think we are going to do the US. We’ve got a sales agent in the US now and there’s momentum building. And it seems like it’s the right thing to focus on over there. Whereas in the UK we’ve got the Top Shop [capsule collection] thing and that’s a collaboration that’s ongoing.

New York Fashion Week in September?
Yes. In a month it will be 100percent confirmed but that’s what we’re doing.

On-schedule or off-schedule?
It’s not on-schedule at the moment.

You launched at AFW five years ago and you have done it every year since then.
Every year and it’s always been fantastic and I’ve always really enjoyed it. But I think what’s happening with our business at the moment is, we’re doing bigger-picture projections and focusing on long-term goals. I’ve done one [year] before where we’ve done Fashion Week overseas and in Australia in the same year and were overstretched. And as a result, I don’t think either one of them was the best we could do.

A lot of resources are required for an international fashion week.
Yeah – I’m a mum now so I’m much more level-headed and you’re practical and you understand you need to plan things. It is exhausting doing a Fashion Week, particularly overseas. And I think it’s really important, particularly when you’re not just the new kid on the block anymore. You get to a stage – and I think it probably is the sort of four-year mark – where the expectations are higher. You can be a commercial label that follows fashion trends and be safe. Or you can be street-y and cutting edge and I think we’re probably in between those two. I really want to evolve as a brand. And the next time that I do a fashion show, I really want to be acclaimed for it.

This AFW is interesting because there are several labels coming back to show after having focused their marketing budgets overseas for a few years.
I think it’s about change. Particularly in the fashion industry where everything is forever evolving and changing. Whether you’re from the UK and you’re coming back to Australia or you’re from Australia and you’re going to the UK, it’s about something new and exciting. So either you need to evolve your own label or you need to change where you’re showing. So each to their own. Particularly in this climate there’s a lot of competition. I think there’s a lot of new labels and you’ve got to offer something new. There’s a difference between when you’re a new label and having hype – to having longevity. And I’ve really learned that.

How do you leverage that hype with running a business and trying to take that brand to the next level?
I think it’s back to range planning and having a sound business structure. That’s got to give you longterm, that’s going to keep you afloat. There’s a lot of talent out there, there really is. But the longevity comes with a sound business planning. As far as hype goes, I think it’s a good thing to do collaborations… I think it’s a balance. We’ve just done Alice McCall for Sunsilk. That’s a very commercial collaboration and it’s absolutely fantastic. Commercials are going to be at the cinema and in all the magazines. But then you want to do sort of cutting edge things as well. You do your sunglasses, working with cool stylists… You need the balance. You need the commerciality and the cool factor.

How far away are Alice McCall sunglasses?
Right around the corner.

Having been buoyed along by hype, inevitably people do criticize you. And they are just opinions at the end of the day, which often vary widely. However you did cop one particularly bad review last year after your AFW show. It kind of summed up the general frustration with the season’s interminable babydoll and smock dresses. Did that factor at all into your decision not to show this time?
At the time I sort of brushed that off. But if you look at it, I think hype’s a word that you absolutely need to attach to fashion and Fashion Week. And at the end of the day a story needs to be topical and it either needs a really positive spin or maybe a negative spin. And I think I did feel that. It’s by no means the reason why I’m not showing at Fashion Week, it’s actually more about growing our brand overseas 100percent. But you know, I think that there is a lot of that in Australia, that negativity. We do talk about the Tall Poppy Syndrome and it does exist. I’m more driven than ever at the moment. I’ve had my baby, she’s six months old and now I’m onwards and upwards. I’ve got my amazing team and I think that the next time we show it’s probably going to be the best show we’ve ever done. Perhaps it gives you more drive. Let’s hope it does.

Marc Jacobs gets bad reviews. Every designer gets bad reviews. From memory one particular dress was singled out – a blue dress with acid lime and silver inset detail. I just have to ask: how did that dress actually go commercially? Did you sell it?
Oh absolutely. We did sell it and quite a few girls wore it out to their 21st birthdays. And had the best night they’ve ever had. I got that comment back.

What is your advice to young designers who are hoping to secure their ‘15 Minutes of fame’ at AFW?
Have a business plan. I remember my first season, I think we picked up over 100 stockists and it was like wow, wow, wow. But if you look at the bottom line, look at your margins, really. Look at the back end. Because the front end, when you’re doing these shows, it is seriously your 15 minutes of fame. But make sure you’re getting a sound margin within your business on at least 50percent of your product.

The other thing I’m not sure newbies who have never run a fashion business, let alone any business, grasp, is that beyond coming up with great product and getting great orders – you have to get paid. Many in fact don’t get paid.
Well that’s exactly right. It’s tough out there. Really, you’ve got to consider yourself as the middle man when you’re the designer. Because you’re paying the producers for the production and then you’re waiting for money from the retailers. So you’re really stuck in the middle, forever chasing money and paying for product before you actually get it and then delivering product when you don’t get paid sometimes for over 90 days.

Or indeed, even in some cases 12 months. So what’s the five year plan for Alice McCall?
It’s really about growing internationally.

Are you feeling any pain with US orders at the moment, as some have mentioned?
We’re not feeling it I have to say. We exceeded our sales budget last season.

You have always been a dress queen. Are you seeing the interest in the dress waning?
No – we went through the baggy dresses and sack dresses and now we’re seeing things that are much more figure-hugging as a trend in general. The dress, the jean… they’ll always be there but it’s really silhouettes that change I think.

So will we see Alice McCall back at Australian Fashion Week?
I wouldn’t say no to that.

Your partner in crime and life [Bali-based Australian designer Nicholas Morley] doesn’t feel the need to show at it.
I think we’re both a little bit left-of-the-middle really. And he’s off-schedule and that suits him to a T. He’s in Sun Studios and on Thursday night [24th April] so he’s in a way, opening.

How much of the year are you spending in Bali?
Nearly half. About 60percent here, 40percent there. We’ve just nearly finished our house. It’s absolutely beautiful.

There’s quite an Australian community over there.
There are lots of Aussies over there. On the fashion level, on the surfing level. Some of the best breaks you get out there – my boyfriend is surfing every morning and every night. It’s six hours away and it’s not too stressful. We’ve got a design studio there. We don’t do any production there any more. But it’s so amazing for creativity.

Just on collaborations – any chance of a Morley McCall fashion collaboration?
You never know. When we paint we call it “Nice McCorley”. [A combo of] Alice and Nick and McCall/Morley. We do a couple of oil paintings over a bottle of red wine. So who knows. We’re definitely creative together.

So what, you might actually exhibit the paintings?
I think it would be a good idea, yeah. There’s already been expressions of interests in as far as buying our paintings.

And [their baby] Wilde Rose Morley McCall – any spark of fashion talent evident yet?
Absolutely. She’s got these little hands that are like an Indonesian dancer’s. She’s definitely creative.

What about Alice McCall stores? They’re aren’t any.
It’s all about brand-building and I think that definitely does come into the equation. So, you know, watch this space on that one.

Original post and comments.

Tall Puppy Syndrome: What do we do with ambitious children?

Bindi Irwin has been a hot button topic in Australia since Steve Irwin’s death. No surprises then perhaps, that most of yesterday’s flack on this blog about Bindi’s new fashion range focused on her age. But any residual controversy surrounding Steve Irwin notwithstanding, the subject of professional or celebrity children is fascinating – if only because of the fact that our intolerance appears to be somewhat selective.

MODELS

Under-16 model bans are gaining momentum in fashion, an interesting off-shoot of the ‘skinny model’ debate. London Fashion Week mooted imposing an under-16 ban on its spring/summer 2008 showcase, from September 15-20. The Melbourne Spring Fashion Festival recently dropped a 15-year-old as its advertising face.

Italy has also floated legislation banning under-16s from its runways. In France, an unofficial under-16 ban exists, however that may be circumvented via a children’s work license and lots of paperwork.

Fashion is a fast-paced business whose primary stock-in-trade is images of women. Many of these images advertise sexually provocative clothing. Sexually provocative poses in even standard fashion imagery are also increasingly common.

There is however plenty of other work which does not require under-16s to ‘sex it up’ for the camera. So, if a young girl wants to model, has the opportunity to do age-appropriate work and is chaperoned, should she be prevented from doing so?

An under-16 ban at London Fashion Week would have precluded both Twiggy and Kate Moss from working there. Both started at 15.

In Milan, it would have prevented 15-year-old Australian Gemma Ward from getting her first big break at the September 2003 shows.

Yes, fashion is a fickle business but it is what it is. Ward was in the right place, at the right time, with the right look. And at 19, she is now a multi-millionaire.

Two other Australians, Tallulah Morton (pictured above) and Samantha Harris, started modelling at 13.

Morton’s mother reports having initially been the subject of much tut-tutting about her daughter’s age – from those concerned Tallulah should have been in school (which she was) and that her mother may have pushed her into it. Amber Morton says she resisted sending Tallulah to an agency for a year – but was eventually worn down by approaches from agents and photographers, and eventually, also Tallulah herself.

ATHLETES

But are those parents who drive their athletically-endowed children to the track, or pool, at 6am each day for training subject to the same criticism? What about the 160 girls aged 7-12 currently in four Australian Institutes of Sport, being groomed for Gymnastics Australia’s elite squads?

The Institute has an under-16 ban in every sport bar women’s gymnastics. This exception was made, according to the AIS, because the international careers of female gymnasts are generally over by the time they are 19 or 20.

ENTERTAINERS

And what about child entertainers like Bindi Irwin? Lindsay Lohan, Drew Barrymore, Macauley Culkin and Michael Jackson all entered the entertainment industry at a very young age – and all subsequently experienced problems.

Nicole Kidman, who started working professionally at 13 and Ron ‘Opie’ Howard, who was younger still, haven’t done too badly for themselves. It’s early days yet for Dakota Fanning.

So is it horses for courses or should all under-16s be banned from every arena for the following ‘sensible’ reasons:

1/ They’re in no position to make an informed choice at that age.
2/ It’s their parents pushing them – and the parents are only interested in the $.
3/ There’s no way minors can handle that type of pressure.

What do we do with ambitious children?


Original post and comments.

Mogul the jungle girl: Bindi’s MAGIC fashion carpet ride

Crocs footwear and the Olsen twins eat your hearts out. Steve Irwin’s nine year-old daughter Bindi Irwin is about to stake her claim on the international fashion market, just one week shy of the one-year anniversary of the death of her wildlife warrior father.

US fashion trade paper Womens Wear Daily reports today that Bindi Wear International will have its global launch at MAGIC in Las Vegas from August 27 – the world’s largest fashion trade show which attracts over 5000 brands and 100,000 attendees. Launching in Australia immediately afterwards, Bindi Wear International is a 200-piece extension of a small children’s line that has been sold exclusively at Australia Zoo and its affiliated boutiques for the past seven years, designed under license by Yatala, Queensland-based company 3 Monsters.

According to WWD, 100 per cent of proceeds from the range will go directly to support the Australia Zoo’s conservation programs.

“My daddy was working to change the world, so everyone would love wildlife like he did” Bindi told WWD. “Now it is our turn to help”.

“It’s a full fashion collection” Bindi Wear International co-designer Palmina Martin told Fully Chic.

She added, “It’s got boys, babies, girls, accessories, bags, wallets, socks, a footwear line, hats.... tops, hoodies, jumpers, jackets, pants, skirts, jeans. There are four stories, each centred around a different topic, such as awareness of an animal. One T-shirt slogan says ‘Green is the new black’. There’s also ‘Save me, plant a tree’. There’s a Warrior story, with ‘Go wildlife!’ on the front and bird wings on the back. Or ‘Extinct stinks’”.

Martin was at pains to point out that the slogans are “cute”, not kitsch.

“It’s by no means in your face, and it’s not done to look like tourist T range” she said. “It’s a fashion line. There’s a really cute croc camo – a camo print made out of different crocodiles blended into each other. That’s in the Jungle Safari story”.

And Bindi was apparently hands-on in this design process. Martin told Fully Chic Bindi came up with many of the slogans herself. Her handwriting also features on the T-shirts and she had final approval on the collection.

“She changed a couple of little things – pockets on a dress, that sort of thing” said Martin. “She’s great, very entertaining”.

One thing the Bindi Wear International camp wouldn’t be drawn on however was the awkward proximity of the MAGIC mega launch to the anniversary of Irwin’s death.

“We’re not allowed to talk about it” said Martin.

Little chance of that happening in Vegas we imagine, once Team Irwin touches down and is besieged by the US media.

Original post and comments.

Dressing to the Left: Old Socialists don’t fade away - they spruik luxury goods

dailymail.co.uk

For anyone still acclimatising to the recent images of the former Secretary General of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Mikhail Gorbachev, reclining like a pimp in the back of a limo advertising handbags for French luxury goods giant Louis Vuitton, get ready for the September edition of US Men’s Vogue. Who’s the cover boy? Former British PM Tony Blair.

The cover story - “TONY BLAIR: THE MAN WHO MADE BRITANNIA COOL TAKES ON THE WORLD’S TOUGHEST JOB” - is promoted as an “Exit interview exclusive”.

Blair was interviewed by New York Times/International Herald Tribune correspondent Roger Cohen and photographed by Norman Jean Roy in South Africa in May, during his controversial “farewell” world tour.

However it’s not ongoing controversy over that purported “vanity” tour, which was causing tongues to wag in London yesterday - but rather, a mini debate over whether or not the British Labour Party’s longest-serving Prime Minister might have had ............. a little digital ‘work’ done in the cover shot. Stop the press.

Is it just my imagination or is some kind of pattern forming here? And if it doesn’t work out for Kevin Rudd in the election, might we be seeing him trotted out in the menswear section of the next David Jones store wars parade? Mark Latham flogging his own line for Autore Pearls? Who knows? In the interim, we can but reflect on a few memorable Blair-isms.

“I believe that, at its best, socialism corresponds most closely to an existence that is both rational and moral - It stands for cooperation, not confrontation; for fellowship, not fear. It stands for equality” Blair noted in his maiden speech in the House of Commons on 6 July 1983.

And on the occasion of the sharemarket collapse of October 1987: “The City whizz-kids, with salaries only fractionally less than their greed, now seem not only morally dubious, but incompetent”.

No idea if Blair spotted the previous edition’s health feature - “Manual labor can build a stronger, better body than the usual gym routine” - but on the September issue he does share cover billing with three other glossy Men’s Vogue exposes, that are headlined:

“THE OILMEN, THE DRUG RUNNERS AND A TRIP INTO A FORBIDDEN JUNGLE”

“FINANCIAL TIME - A WATCH IN SYNCH WITH THE WORLD’S MARKETS”

“JAGUAR’S FASTEST CAT”

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Talking the talk: Sydney and Melbourne gasbag their way into top world fashion rankings

Many maintain that Australians have little interest in fashion. Just last year AC Nielsen purported that we think designer brands are a load of bunkum. But now, as Media Monitors tallies the media impact of last week’s store wars for its clients David Jones and Myer, comes news that Sydney and Melbourne have just both ranked in the top 15 of the inaugural Top Fashion Capitals list.

A San Diego-based not-for-profit, Global Language Monitor tracks and analyses words and phrases across global media. Founded in 2003 by word analyst Paul JJ Payack, it deploys 100s of “Language Police”, as well as a proprietary algorithm called the Predictive Quantities Indicator which trawls print and electronic media, as well as the blogosphere, taking into account long-term trends and short-term changes. Payack, aka the “WordMan”, frequently pops up in the mainstream media as expert buzzword talent.

For the past four years GLM has been monitoring fashion capitals. This is the first year it has published its findings and Sydney is ranked the world number 12 on the Top Fashion Capitals 2007 list behind New York, Rome, Paris, London, Milan, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Las Vegas, Singapore and Berlin. Melbourne is ranked 15.

If you’re as perplexed as Fully Chic on, at the very least, the Las Vegas front, it’s worth remembering that Vegas is experiencing a mini fashion retail boom. It’s also a vibrant American trade show hub.

See below for the complete list. One wonders if the line “Gold Coast is golden for fashion” next to Melbourne is a mistake – or whether the PQI is in need of recalibration in favour of Brisbane.

But with the spring/summer showcase of Australian Fashion Week regularly experiencing significant year-on-year media growth according to Media Monitors – and Melbourne boasting not only AFW’s autumn/winter showcase, but the Melbourne Fashion Festival, the Spring Fashion Festival and the fashion-heavy Spring Racing Carnival – clearly all that coverage adds up.

According to GLM New York displaced Paris as the world fashion capital four years ago.

While many might dispute this, in pure media coverage terms, Fully Chic has its suspicions that this has a great deal to do with the 2001 acquisition of 7th on Sixth, New York’s centralized Fashion Week, by the world’s largest sports/lifestyle marketing company, IMG – and the subsequent media explosion that that event has experienced.

Also of note, IMG now operates major fashion events in eight of the 25 cities on the list. Yes, including AFW. Sydney and Melbourne first popped onto GLM’s radar three years ago and have steadily risen. According to Payack, Sydney enjoyed a 150 per cent spike in citations in the past seven months and, Melbourne a 250 per cent spike – although from a much lower base – so they may rise higher still.

Payack is adamant that GLM’s opinion cannot be bought – “It’s all to do with mathematics”, he told Fully Chic.

But can the same be said for the media outlets from which GLM gleans its data? Last month one Australian newspaper ran a large page three story about IMG’s new Berlin Fashion Week, without disclosing the trip was a junket.

“Could they rig it?” mused Payack, of aspiring fashion capitals, before conceding,"If let’s say Budapest wanted to be ranked, they’d have to spend at least $100 million to get there”.

1. New York—Far and away No.1 by every index
2. Rome—Beats out Paris, London and Milan
3. Paris—Heartbeat of the fashion world
4. London—Pulsing with creative energy
5. Milan—Perennial contender for No.1
6. Tokyo—Gaining global influence
7. Los Angeles—Will Posh Spice impact Ranking?
8. Hong Kong—No.1 in South Asia
9. Las Vegas—Emerging as vibrant fashion center
10. Singapore—Strong regional hub
11. Berlin—Big fashion push & its working
12. Sydney—Oz scores two in the Top 20
13. Barcelona—Regional center grows in stature
14. Shanghai—China breaks into the Big Time
15. Melbourne—Gold Coast is golden for fashion
16. Moscow—Lenin would not be amused
17. Bangkok—Realising its dream
18. Mumbai—Indian fashion influences globe
19. Santiago—Major strides for a proud nation
20. Rio de Janeiro—More than Carnivale and Ipanema
21. Sao Paolo—Money and fashion DO mix
22. Buenos Aires—Seat of Classic Beauty returns
23. Johannesburg—A first for Africa
24. Dubai Dubai?—Yes, Dubai,
25. Krakow—Neo-Bohemia thrives

- source: GLM

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The Erica factor: fashion to the maxi

So the first SS0708 “store wars” shot has been fired and with the dress continuing to be the biggest fashion story in the world right now, it was perhaps no surprise to see myriad dress styles last night on the David Jones runway at Fox Studios.

My personal faves included Willow’s cobalt blue evening gown with intricately draped bodice – which really did look magnificent when it emerged on another one of the fashion world’s hottest stories at the moment, 18-year-old Australian model Catherine McNeil.

Also of note the knit dresses by New Zealand label Sabatini in their first sortie in DJs’ summer showcase (Sabatini has only ever previously appeared in the winter show – some may recall the label’s silk velours peacock ponchos from a couple of seasons ago, as ripped off pronto by Charlie Brown, among others), Easton Pearson’s fresh white shift dress with bead embellishment and a particularly striking tiered, bugle-beaded, pewter cocktail dress by Collette Dinnigan.

But amongst all the dress styles on DJs’ runway, it was interesting to see just how quickly the ‘maxi’ dress has been so heartily embraced here this season.

Yes of course it has been big news in the northern hemisphere this summer past and I did recently muse that what goes up inevitably comes Downunder so I don’t why I was surprised. And it’s not like there weren’t any of these floor-length neo boho frocks on the Australian Fashion week runways in May. Think Kirrily Johnston’s acid lime versions – one example of which had a star turn last night in Johnston’s section of the show.

The maxi, or ‘patio’, dress has also been on the horizon for several seasons. Leona Edmiston has had them in her dress-dedicated repertoire for quite some time. Some may also recall the Australian Fashion Week solo catwalk debut of up-and-coming Sydney label Milich & Morton in May 2005. That show closed with a fab, finely-striped blue and white maxi dress – which the designers later told me was snapped up in multiples as bridesmaids’ dresses for a wedding. A fortnight later Paris Hilton looked fresh and uncharacteristically demure at the Cannes Film Festival in a fruit print Roberto Cavalli maxi dress.

I guess one of the chief distinguishing factors – and for the less confident, key worries – of this look is that it’s a full-length dress that is really designed to be worn in the middle of the day as, in spite of its full-length hemline, it’s really a bit too casual for eveningwear.

To this end I can’t help feeling that our very own Erica Baxter (pictured above by Edmond Terakopian) may play a significant part in what could well emerge as the SS0708 Australian mainstreaming of the maxi dress. Who didn’t see the images of Baxter in her Kelly green/turquoise/white scarf print Roberto Cavalli maxi, striding along the boardwalk outside the Cote d’Azur’s Hotel du Cap Eden Roc, en route to the Paloma Beach party, the day before her wedding to Australian billionaire James Packer? Let’s call them the “Jerica” nuptials.

In one of those fascinating moments of sartorial synchronicity, the Cote d’Azur just happens to be the theme of DJs spring/summer campaign launch and as Megan Gale told Fully Chic last night backstage before the show, the DJs team was in fact holed up on the Cote d’Azur at exactly the same time as the Jerica wedding – a stone’s throw from the Hotel du Cap Eden Roc, apparently, because Gale said she could see Packer’s Arctic P boat moored nearby. A shot of Paloma Beach - sans TomKat generously smiling for the world’s paparazzi at the end of the pier, sadly - also appeared on the DJs show invite.

The average Australian would no doubt prefer to spend six figures on an apartment, as opposed to a Christian Dior haute couture wedding frock, as did Baxter, but look, at least they can have the next best thing – a maxi dress from DJs (although by everyone other than Roberto Cavalli, as that’s a brand DJs doesn’t stock). Although hilariously dubbed a “Gunnedah tablecloth” in The Sunday Tele a few days after the wedding, Baxter really did look a billion dollars in hers.


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Spring sprung! Fashion gets fully loaded on NEWS.com.au

Well hello. You’re looking at the first post in the first day of the life of Fully Chic.

Does the world need another fashion blog, I hear you ask? Good question. We’re about to find out, I imagine. To the many of you who don’t know me from a bar of soap, I’m a Sydney-based fashion journalist (and the Australasian correspondent for Women’s Wear Daily in the US) and I was first inducted into the blogging ranks last year. Greetings to all of you, both serious fashion watchers and fashion dabblers.

Everyone’s opinion counts so please, don’t be shy. Feel free to make comments and sink your teeth into the topics. Many of these comments will no doubt inspire future discussions. To those of you who do know me, nice to see you again. I look forward to hearing all of your views and comments. I can’t promise that the fashion industry is going to be thrilled with everything that goes on in here. But I can guarantee they will be checking in - and that we’re going to have fun.

This is a great time, in fact, to be kicking off a new fashion blog. For Australian readers tonight marks the kickoff of a veritable spring/summer odyssey. Yes I know we first saw the Australian/New Zealand spring/summer 07/08 collections at Australian Fashion Week in Sydney in May. But with buyers having picked the eyes out of those and other ranges, from tonight we’re going to see what trends the big retailers actually backed. I’m talking of course about Australian department stores. Thanks to Sydney’s hilarious, and clearly neverending, “store wars”, the David Jones and Myer parades over the next few nights will give us a peek at what’s going to be in store.

Most of which merchandise both stores of course dearly wish you’ll rush in to grab at full price. But some of which realistically - global warming and Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie and Lindsay Lohan’s prolific, highly influential wardrobe malfunctions notwithstanding - is going to be marked down on those sale racks faster than you can say: “They weren’t my jeans officer”.

September 4 of course, just four weeks away, sees the launch of the northern hemisphere’s spring/summer 2008 shows. The madness! The egos! The wheeled-out, and occasionally also clapped-out, celebrities! Oh yes, and of course, the fashion. Starting in New York, the season then rolls on to London, Milan and Paris. Will we be there? Just try and keep us away.

Fully Chic has already had two test runs of the unabridged northern hemisphere shows circuit and we’re addicted. Stand by for your ringside seats at the world’s greatest fashion circus.

Then for the first time and in a move that’s going to surely test the mettle of anyone who is covering the Paris shows sur place, our very own fashion week supremo (IMG Asia Pacific managing director) Simon Lock, has decided to repatriate his “Transseasonal” Australian Fashion Week showcase from its five-year base of Melbourne – where, let’s face it, the younger, originally autumn/winter-branded AFW barely had a pulse - to Sydney, the birthplace of the event’s now 11-year-old, bursting-at-the-seams spring/summer showcase.

Yes we all know the real reason is because the Victorian Government decided not to renew its five-year contract with IMG. That’s hardly surprising - Melbourne already has enough fashion events.

But the big questions now of course are, does the industry need a second collections showcase? Will more people participate if this event is held in Sydney? And will those who stayed for the last – and traditionally, biggest – day of the Paris shows, October 7th, be able to keep their eyes open once AFW’s three-day, newly-rebranded “Transseasonal” showcase commences two days later at Sydney’s Overseas Passenger Terminal? The good news is of course that for once, Australians will be able to blame any show nod-offs on chronic jet lag.

Gladiators and gladiatrixes of the fashion blogosphere, I welcome and salute you. Let the shenanigans begin…


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