Australia
Westfield Group 
Trend forecasters and fashion commentators love to tell you that men are becoming – or have become – more fashion conscious. If you believe what they say, you’ll know that men now take more pride in their appearance, wear moisturiser and sit around in beauty salons on Saturday afternoons watching the footy and having their nails done.
For fashion companies chasing growth menswear has become, over the last decade, a necessary market to tap as the women’s market has become mature. But not as far as the Dutch apparel company Oilily is concerned. The company has just opened a massive new flagship store in New York’s SoHo district where boys are all but banned.
“We really believed in making this a girls-only environment, where moms & daughters can experience the shopping experience together,” president of Oilily, Paul Lechlinski, told Women’s Wear Daily. “We do have boys clothes, as well, but that is a relatively small part of our business. About 7% comes from boys.”
When Napoleon Perdis set off to tackle the US market less than two years ago, many in the beauty industry thought he was doomed for disaster in the cut and thrust of the American market. Last week, however, Perdis told US trade paper Women’s Wear Daily that all is going to plan there. So much so that he is in the process of opening five stand alone stores on the West coast. When completed, he estimates total revenue from his US division in 2007 will be $US10 million.
Impressive figures, but still small in comparison to his Australian and New Zealand markets where, according to Perdis, he racked up $65 million in sales for the year ending in June. Perdis told WWD American women could learn a thing or two from Australian women about applying make up. "Americans use more product on their face with the same result that Australians get with less product," Perdis said. "My philosophy is if your forehead is good, then don't over makeup your forehead."
Another day, another celebrity decides they would rather be a fashion designer. Singer Justin Timberlake showed his first runway collection, designed in collaboration with childhood friend, Trace Ayala, last week in Los Angeles. The show, understandably, drew a stellar line up of celebrities, not least of which was Timberlake’s girlfriend, Cameron Diaz. The label, called William Rast after the duos respective grandfathers is basically a denim brand.
The first collection was inspired by the film The Outisders and featured rockabilly preppy looks and 1950s style dresses for women. Skinny dreams reined – perhaps a trend Timberlake picked up on the photo shoot for the cover of his latest CD, FutureSex/LoveSounds where he wears the super skinny Dior Homme.
Victoria Derby Day at Flemington (Saturday, November 4) is not only the second most important day on the racing calendar – although serious racegoers will tell you Derby Day trumps Melbourne Cup Day – it’s also a major fashion event. Those in the know will tell that racegoers go all out when it comes to dressing for Derby Day and leave the novelty dressing for Cup Day. And with so many companies sponsoring marquees in the birdcage area these days, it’s hard work making sure you’re outfit is seen in all the right tents. Then there’s the after parties to consider. This year Westfield Doncaster is hosting an after party at Comme nightclub and has come up with a nifty, not to mention comfortable, invitation – it’s a pair of thongs. Just the thing after a hard day for tired stilettoed feet.
Austrade has previously held trade showcases in cities such as Moscow, London and Los Angeles, the latter called G’day LA, for Australian companies attempted to crack that market. This week the government trade agency is in Shanghai showing off Australian fashion to Chinese fashion editors and buyers at Shanghai Fashion Week.
Taking part in the China assault are designers Jayson Brunsdon, Fashionassassin, High Tea with Mrs Woo and Ess Hoshika. The fashion showcase is part of a much bigger push to increase exports to the world’s fastest growing economy. The Celebrate Australia event, as it’s called, will also introduce Chinese consumers to Australian cuisine, entertainment and, wait for it, Alpacas. Alpaca Connections will also take part in Shanghai Fashion Week with live Alpacas on the catwalk.
Gemma Ward’s face has graced more magazine covers than most of us have had hot dinners. Last year alone she had as many as 10 different Vogue covers internationally. But it seems the face of the Australian modelling sensation that is Gemma Ward is not quite good enough for Vanity Fair magazine. For the magazine’s November issue it chose George Clooney as its cover boy, and paired him with Ward for an eight page photo shoot, but could only manage to put her back on the cover.
A behind the scenes story in the magazine reveals that Clooney needed to stand on an apple crate to appear taller than Ward in one shot. With Ward making a tilt for a movie career, maybe her star will also be bigger than Clooney’s in the not too distant future.
One of the biggest hits of this year’s Australian Fashion Week was Matthew Eager. From this month his eveningwear-based collection is available exclusively through Myer department stores. Eager started his career in fashion as a Year 10 graduate in 1983, but has in recent years been given a leg up with some celebrity endorsements. In 1996 Vogue Australia put Janet Jackson in a strapless pink gown that was two seasons old and it became an instant bestseller. More recently he’s dressed celebrities such as Jessica Napier and Tracey Spicer for the Logie awards. Myer is also the exclusive stockist of Eager’s diffusion line ME too.
So much for the population getting heavier. When the Daily What worked in the fashion – the 1980s – the smallest size we made was a size eight. Then size sixes started appearing on clothing racks and now, it seems, one of the biggest selling sizes is a zero. And strangely enough it seems to be an American phenomenon. According to the US trade paper Women’s Wear Daily, Zero-sized merchandise is doing so well in American department stores for labels such as Sass + Bide and Nicole Miller that Miller and other designers plan to introduce a subzero size next season for even smaller women.
The new size would be designed for women with a 60 centimetre waist (which is what Victoria Beckham is said to have). But that fact doesn’t mean that the American population is getting thinner. Contributing to the size zero craze is the prevalence of what’s known as ‘vanity sizing’ among some brands. Brands size up their clothes, or make their fit more generous, which means that the customer has to go down a size, and dropping a dress size makes most women happy.
When it comes to getting an interview, Marc Jacobs is a particularly tough nut to crack. I was given an interview late last year after months of jumping through hoops and cancellations – and I had to track him down in Hong Kong to do it. And that was just for a story for a magazine. What lengths would a filmmaker need to go to in order to get fly-on-the-wall access to Jacobs at work? Loic Prigent has been working on such a documentary since June and was granted unprecedented access to Jacobs' working life. The film reveals, among other things, that Jacobs finishes his collections on a diet of energy bars, cigarettes and music. According to reports Prigent, who made a documentary about Chanel last year, called The House of Chanel, has been working on the project with Dominique Miceli. We’re not entirely sure who Miceli is, but she does share the same surname as Jacobs' personal assistant cum muse cum gatekeeper the formidable Camille Miceli. It’s all about connection really.
The world’s biggest fashion brand, Benetton, turned 40 last week and to celebrate the Italian-based company decided to throw a party for 600 people in a giant purpose-built show space on the ground floor of the Pompidou Centre in Paris. Benetton spared no expense with the soiree and flew in journalists from all over the world so they could attend.
Despite working for the company in the late 1980s, The Daily What wasn’t one of the chosen few, but we did have our spies at the party. After a fashion parade that highlighted key looks from the last 40 years guests were treated to an Italian dinner and performances by Youssef Ndour and Patti Smith, who performed a spoken word version of “People Have the Power.” It’s easy to forget that Benetton was, perhaps, the world’s first fashion brand. And with more then 5000 stores worldwide it makes the likes of Zara and H&M pale in comparison.
Sources close to Noll told the Daily What that the boy from Condoblin is about to take a stab at the American market. And to do that Noll has signed with an American-based image consultancy and management, which now approves every item of clothing Noll is photographed in.
The process even extended to Noll’s recent cover shoot for Woman’s Day, which hit the newsstands on Monday. The reason for the Noll story in Woman’s Day was to celebrate the birth of Noll’s third child. For the shoot Noll wore his own Diesel shirt, as well as clothes from Jag and Industrie. Mrs Noll wore Country Road and the baby, just seven days old at the time of the shoot, wore Peter Rabbit from Myer.
If you’re a fledgling designer, then having a celebrity wear one of your designs can catapult you into the big league. The bigger the celebrity, the greater the publicity, or so the logic goes. And it’s not just the goal of new designers either. The Daily What learned that recently a publicist representing a very well known – and already successful – Australian designer approached a stylist who was in the process of dressing another well known Australian for a particular event. Garments were delivered to the stylist with a note attached “If you can get INSERT NAME to wear this, then there will be a big gift for you.” The stylist informs us that the client didn’t wear it, so we can’t tell you how big the gift was
The theory being that everything a designer touches will turn to gold. Or in the case of Karl Lagerfeld, it’s everything he listens to. Last week Lagerfeld launched his CD titled “Les Musiques que J’aime” or “My Favourite Songs”. The CD contains 23 tracks ranging from the British pop group The Pipettes to work by Stravinsky and was produced in collaboration with Paris Vogue.
There are two ranges that have been styled by Klum. The Star Collection reinterprets the brand’s distinctive two-strap style in a range of bright colours. Nothing too earth shattering in that. But it’s the so-called Graffiti collection that is a little more, well, out there. The range, which as you might expect is decorated in graffiti, was apparently inspired by the lyrics of Klum’s favourite songs by her husband, the singer/songwriter Seal. Like all designs from Birkenstock, the Heidi Klum range are orthopaedically supportive. Given that Louis Vuitton handbags decorated with graffiti were such huge sellers a few years back, the Daily What thinks Klum might just be onto a winner.
In the original James Bond books by Ian Fleming, Bond always wore a Rolex watch. For the last few Bond movies, however, 007 has kept time with an Omega. Apart from being one of the most successful movie franchises ever, the marketing geniuses behind the films have been extremely cunning when it comes to merchandising and product placement.
This time around the merchandising has ramped up before the film has even wrapped. Omega has just released the Seamaster James Bond Limited Edition watch. The dial features the James Bond logo and the second hand has the 007 gun logo on one side. The stainless steel watch has an automatic movement and is in a limited edition of 10,007 pieces. No doubt it will have its own close-up in the new James Bond movie, Casino Royale, starring Daniel Craig as agent 007.
According to Racing Victoria Club, the gross economic impact of last year’s Melbourne Cup Carnival was $524 million, with more than $20 million spent on fashion. Not surprisingly, one of the biggest spending categories was millinery, which was up 37 per cent on last year, making Melbourne arguably the millinery capital of the world.
The action on the track might be the main attraction, but the competition in the fashion stakes is just as high. This year’s total prize pool for the Myer Fashions on the Field competition is a whopping $350,000 and for the first time there will be a specific millinery award. To reflect the significance of fashion to the Spring Racing Carnival, the television telecast Fashions on the Field competition is getting more screen time and will be hosted by Sonia Kruger.
Last month the Daily What revealed that Target had been working with three Australian fashion designers to produce more affordable collections to be sold exclusively in Target stores. Well the wait is over … today collections by Tina Kalivas, Alice McCall and TL Wood go on sale at Target, under the banner of Designers For Target.
Each designer has come up with a small capsule collection and there’s a big emphasis in each on the garment of the season – the dress. With prices ranging from $149.99 for a chiffon print dress by Tina Kalivas to $129.99 for a print silk dress by Alice McCall to $69.99 for a cotton and linen vest and $89.99 for the matching skirt by TL Wood don’t expect them to stay in store for too long.
Not only is Speedo no longer an Australian-owned brand, but the “speedo” as we know it is fast becoming a relic of the past. As part of its spring-summer 2006 range Speedo has launched its largest collection of men’s boardshorts, or watershorts as Speedo calls them, ever. Speedo has concentrated on making the shorts more stylish and comfortable this season to compete with the traditional surfwear brands. One of the best features of the shorts, however, is the new waterproof pocket on selected styles. The traditional Speedo is still available for swimmers who like something a little more brief.
Shoppers at Westfield Bondi Junction were treated to an Elle of a time on Thursday night. The supermodel of supermodels, Elle Macpherson, was there to promote ModelCo’s Erase Those Fine Lines, for which she is the face. Dressed in a short black lace cocktail dress by Morrissey and beige patent Versace heels Macpherson completely charmed the crowd. A queue a mile long formed when Macpherson agreed to sign the ModelCo product for anyone who bought it.
Like any woman concerned about her image, Macpherson had her stylist for her 48 hour visit, Ken Thompson, at her side. Thompson says some keen fan even had what appeared to be a child’s toy for her to autograph. “She was as sweet as pie,” says Thompson. “She was modern and sexy and gorgeous – just like I always thought she’d be.” Of the more than 100 outfits Thompson picked out for her three appearances she chose to wear only Australian designers (minus the shoes, of course). For lunch on Thursday Macpherson sported a short strapless number by Toni Maticevski and at breakfast she wore Sass and Bide jeans and an Elle Macpherson Intimates camisole.
The mining resources boom might be the engine room of the Australian economy at the moment, however with some local fashion designers working with Australian Wool Innovation we might just see a return to the economy riding on the sheep’s back.
AWI, a research and development body owned by Australian woolgrowers, has been supporting some Aussie design talent lately such as Josh Goot, Tina Kalivas, Akira Isogawa and Easton Pearson with the aim of developing new wool fabrics. And this is no run of the mill fabric we’re talking about here. In Goot’s most recent collection, shown in New York last month, he included garments made from a light weight Merino wool produced from fine 17 micron wool which had been blended with viscose then coated with transparent coating to retain its light weight ‘drapy’ feel.
Fashion journalists are often accused of being of hand-in-glove with their employer’s advertisers and, therefore, not exactly impartial. Then there’s the issue of accepting freebies from designers with the implicit hope that it will garner a positive review of their collection. Two journalists covering the recent Milan shows showed that not every fashion writer is on the take and suffered the consequences for it.
Sarah Mower from Style.com was banned from the Dolce & Gabbana show, presumably for writing a negative review of the D&G line the previous season. And The New York Time’s Cathy Horyn was also banned from the Dolce & Gabbana show (she was banned from Carolina Herrera’s show in New York as well) for similarly speaking her mind. However, the banning didn’t stop Horyn from writing a review of the Dolce & Gabbana show – she saw the collection online – and, you guessed it, it was a negative review.
Lenny Kravitz told journalists in Paris at the weekend, where he was attending a fashion show with his daughter Zoe, that he was putting the finishing touches on a men’s and women’s ready-to-wear collection. He said he hoped to show the collection at the next round of fashion show’s, and hopefully in Paris.
At a time when most people are thinking about winding down their professional life – if they haven’t already – Giorgio Armani is in expansion mode. The 72 year-old designer recently inked a deal with Christina Ong and her Singapore-based company Club 21 to rollout the Armani Exchange brand globally.
To date the bulk of the Armani Exchange business has been done in the US. The new deal will see the number of Armani Exchange stores around the world double over the next two years, with at least two more planned for Australia. The young, urban label has been described as the distillation of Giorgio Armani’s more upmarket labels.
The original supermodel is heading home to spruik a new anti-wrinkle cream by Modelco and will be dressed for her official engagements by the stylist Ken Thompson. Her official engagements total three in the two days she’s here, but that hasn’t stopped the perfectionist Thompson from calling in outfits from 22 different designers, some of which, he told the Daily What, have sent several options. That’s a lot of clobber for Macpherson to chose from – if only us mere mortals had such choice each time we left the house.
Alicia Richardson has worked in fashion media for the past 12 years. The first five were spent as part of the editorial team at Australian Elle Magazine, she then moved to New York in 1999. Based in Manhattan for the following five years, she worked on American Elle Magazine and www.elle.com (covering fashion, the New Yorks shows and beauty) and helped to launch the Bloomingdales fashion title, B Magazine, where she remained Beauty Editor until 2004.
Now back in Sydney and Editor of What's What, Alicia is able to immerse herself in both local and international fashion to keep you up-to-the-second with all the news and inspirational trends.
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