James Varley: Chadwick's latest glamour boy

mariah jelena kordzadz, fashion journal via chadwick

Andrej Pejic is in Tokyo, having just wrapped Japan Fashion Week and waiting to find out whether he flies to Paris or New York for a couple of very interesting job options. Meanwhile, he just scored a mention in W's November issue, in the "She's a (fabulous) he" story about fashion's androgynous moment. The story was penned by Hintmag founder Lee Carter, who describes Pejic as "a slender Kate Moss look-alike". But while Pejic's Australian mother agency, Chadwick, waits to see just how prominently the Melburnite features in the November edition of another equally prominent international fashion title, which is days away from release, the agency has just signed another new male model with a similarly androgynous look: 21 year-old James Varley. Modelling for just a few months, this science student's slim CV so far boasts a lookbook for Melbourne label In Mind's Eye, editorial in Fashion Journal 100, Melbourne Street Fashion and indie Melbourne magazine Spook and a few test shots. Frockwriter has little doubt it will soon be expanding. 

photo credits (top to bottom)
1. mariah jelena kordadze/fashion journal via chadwick
2. shauna phoon
3. mariah jelena kordzadze
4. mariah jelena kordzadze
5. mel edwards

Black Cat

Yesterday frockwriter mentioned that Australian supermod Catherine McNeil had just undergone a rather dramatic change of hair and is now sporting a short black bob. Well here are the first images of said do, courtesy McNeil's New York agency Next Model Management. This is all Next would release, ditto the only other info: that it was cut/coloured by "a friend". Which may be code for McNeil's hair having been done on a recent job that has yet to be unveiled. Just as fellow Aussie and Chic/Next stablemate Abbey Lee Kershaw recently had her hair cut by Chanel during the shooting of the Fall/Winter 2010/2011 campaign. It's an interesting look for McNeil. Almost a little Beatle-esque. Or should that be... Bieber-esque?

all images: supplied exclusively to frockwriter by next model management

Illionaire's Ben Woodcock busted on drugs charges, skips the country?

illionaire SS0910. stefan gosatti/getty via zimbio

He called his label Illionaire but it seems co-founder Ben Woodcock may have been too impatient to wait to turn seven figures via a legitimate fashion business. According to The West Australian, on August 19 Woodock was charged with possession of methylamphetamines with intent to sell or supply after being pulled over while driving his mum’s BMW with A$780,000 worth of drugs allegedly stashed in his underpants. And it gets worse. Woodcock failed to appear in court yesterday, is alleged to have fled the country and now has Interpol on his back. Way to go. Needless to say if Woodcock were to be busted with drugs in any number of countries surrounding Australia he could be facing a far worse prospect than a little jail time downunder. Woodcock launched Illionaire in Perth in 2006 with Kat Grace.

Bob's your uncle: Catherine McNeil also gets the chop

nicole bentley, vogue australia september 2010 via TFS

Yes that’s a wig that Catherine McNeil is sporting in this Vogue Australia September 2010 editorial, above. But apparently the world #12 liked the look so much, she’s gone and had it replicated. Well, kind of. By all accounts, McNeil's new do is not a "long, choppy" Abbey Lee Kershaw bob, aka a "Kob", but a bob nonetheless and black to boot. There is as yet no hard photographic evidence beyond a bunch of Facebook photos and the shot, below, published on October 21st on the blog of McNeil’s model mate Stephanie Carta, together with the caption, “Yesterday kitty cut her locks off, Sorry, died them black! Meow”. UPDATED 29/10: HERE ARE SOME FIRST SHOTS. Not even McNeil’s Sydney-based mother agency was up with her hair news when we enquired earlier this week. But after days of buzz on model forums, Stephen Lee at McNeil’s New York agency Next finally confirmed the earth-shattering news to frockwriter overnight: yes, McNeil has definitely cut her hair. Lee added that McNeil has been enjoying a month’s break of “total normality” from the modelling business. 

"It's nice to be able to see how a short break from the business can rejuvenate and revitalize that spark that everyone, no matter what their business, needs" said Lee. 

That’s a second break, presumably, after McNeil already took some time off from the world’s runways late last year and then began to make a return at New York Fashion Week in September, only to mysteriously disappear off the Spring/Summer 2011 circuit in London.

   

Perhaps McNeil was also inspired by the deluge of publicity that followed the recent decisions by compatriot and Chic/Next stablemate Kershaw to not only cut her hair, but later dye it platinum blond. In a business that's all about 'the look', a new haircut could be a great career move.

carta is back

 

Gail Sorronda gets the Dolce e Gabbana treatment

Who needs Roberto Cavalli when you’re being mentored by Dolce e Gabbana? Overnight, Brisbane native Gail Reid popped up in this video interview on Dolce e Gabbana’s Swide website. Reid's five year-old Gail Sorronda label is one of 21 labels that were hand-picked by the Italian luxury titans for their brand new fashion incubator retail concept in Milan, Spiga2. “I love Gail Sorronda. It’s my taste” Stefano Gabbana told The Wall Street Journal last month. It has been a very big year for Reid. In March, she told frockwriter that she was being considered for a freelance consulting gig at Roberto Cavalli’s studio. By July, that had yet to transpire, but that month Reid was one of seven finalists in the 2010 edition of Who Is On Next, an emerging talent showcase in Italy that is jointly organised by Alta Roma and Vogue Italia. Great to see major fashion names supporting newbies although that said, it’s a little odd to see included in the Spiga2 lineup Paris-based Australian expat Martin Grant, who has been showing on schedule in Paris for a number of years. Grant established his label in Melbourne in 1982, when he was just 15.

Was Marion Hume fired from Vogue Australia for putting a black woman on the cover?

Naomi Campbell is never far from the headlines. On Sunday she managed to inadvertently embroil an Australian publisher in one. In a story headlined 'Editor sacked in racism row', Campbell told the UK Telegraph, "One time, I went to Australia. The editor-in-chief of a magazine there told me that she got fired for putting me on the cover. I do remember going there and saying, 'Where's the Aboriginal model? There should be one. They're beautiful women.'" No names are mentioned. But coincidentally, another Brit by the name of Marion Hume edited Vogue Australia for 18 months in the late 1990s, during which time she commissioned Peter Lindbergh to shoot Campbell for the June 1997 cover, above. In 1998 Hume was fired, following a controversial tenure, during which, it should be noted, she did not manage to stem the erosion of circulation and advertising that had begun prior to her appointment with the arrival of marie claire in 1995 and continued with the 1998 rebirth of Harpers Bazaar Australia. From 1995-1999 Vogue lost almost a quarter of its readers and two-thirds of its ad share. In 2002, Conde Nast withdrew from Australian publishing, selling the Vogue license to FPC Magazines, which in turn was acquired by News Limited in November 2006. 

Another British native, Juliet Ashworth, briefly succeeded Hume at the helm of Vogue Australia. She lasted a year.

Industry insiders claim that Hume was responsible for budget blowouts that took current editor Kirstie Clements, who arrived in 1999, years to pay off. One could speculate that had Hume managed to turn the circulation around, Condé Nast might have turned a blind eye to the costs.  

Hume was also criticised for taking the magazine "downmarket". A newspaper-trained journalist and former fashion reporter for The Financial Times, Hume's critical reviews of the thin-skinned designers on show at the newly-minted Mercedes Australian Fashion Week caused a minor uproar in Australia at the time.

But could the Campbell cover really have factored into Hume losing her job?

Frockwriter contacted Hume, Clements and News Magazines earlier today and we are waiting to hear back. Not that News Magazines was involved at the time of course. 

The whereabouts of Peter Gaunt, the former Condé Nast Australia managing director who fired Hume, are unknown. But we are also waiting to hear back from Didier Guerin, the former Condé Nast Asia Pacific president who hired Hume and who is now the president and ceo of the Sydney-based company Media Convergence Asia Pacific.

A former Vogue staffer who worked with Hume said they had never previously heard the racism theory floated with regard to her termination. They did, however, concede that the Campbell cover, which was apparently Hume's first complete issue, did raise eyebrows in the industry at the time.

"I remember it being 'shocking'" they noted. "I do recall people talking about it being controversial, but in a brave kind of way in the fashion industry. I don't remember anyone being aghast".

Being Hume's first complete issue, this also meant that she survived in the job well over a year after the issue was published. 

As part of her settlement with Condé Nast, we understand Hume signed a confidentiality agreement. 

vogue US, september 1989 via we shall overcome in couture

Why would anyone be shocked about a black woman being on the cover of Vogue Australia? 

Because there have been so few black women on the cover of Vogue Australia.

And indeed even on the cover of the American edition. Some may recall that when flicking through old issues of US Vogue in The September Issue documentary, editor Anna Wintour paused at her September 1989 edition, that was covered by Campbell (above), and made a point of noting "that was a very controversial issue".

It is unclear just how many times women of colour have graced the covers of Vogue Australia since the publication's 1959 launch.

In terms of indigenous Australians, there have only been two in 51 years: Elaine George in September 1993 and Samantha Harris in June this year:

vogue australia june 2010 via TFS

It was tricky tracking down a complete Vogue Australia cover archive, but certainly on the seven year cover archive on vogue.com.au's website, Harris appears to be the first non-Caucasion to have made page one since 2003.

Diversity of all kinds is currently a hot button issue in the fashion business at the moment. 

In terms of ethnic diversity in the modelling business, longtime black inclusion activist Bethann Hardison told The New York Times in 2007 that “It’s the worst it’s ever been”.

Campbell has also been extremely vocal on this issue, claiming in 2007 that she had never once appeared on the cover of her home town edition of Vogue, ie Vogue UK.

It subsequently emerged that Campbell had in fact been on the cover of Vogue UK eight times in 20 years. So really, how credible is her testimony?

Someone call security: How [frockwriter] got blacklisted by Google

Welcome to the blog that you have when you're not having a blog [NB This post was published simultaneously on frockwriter's Posterous, to circumvent security issues]. Just a quick headsup about the security ballsup that has gone down today on the frockwriter main blog. As anyone other than RSS and email subscribers may have noticed, since approximately 1144 AEST today, visitors to the site have been greeted by a great big red alert sign with the noticification: “Reported Attack Page! This web page at frockwriter.blogspot.com has been reported as an attack page and has been blocked based on your security preferences”. Together with a nifty little security guard icon holding a stop sign. Having been Google spoofed in April, I immediately assumed that a one-on-one hack job was not beyond the realm of possibilities. On closer inspection, however, it emerged that the issue was affecting several other Australian sites: Pages Digital and at least three other sites, the city-centric digi hipster guides, Two Thousand, Three Thousand and Five Thousand. What’s the common link? UPDATED: NOW OBVIOUSLY BACK ON THE AIR. SEE EXPLANATION AT THE END OF POST. 


 
PagesDigital is frockwriter’s advertising partner and while there is currently no campaign on frockwriter, PagesDigital created and managed the little flash animation that linked through to our recent New Zealand Fashion Week coverage. It in turn was connected to Pages Digital's OpenX-powered ad server. 

OpenX claims to be the world’s leading independent provider of digital advertising technology, serving 350 billion ads per month across 150,000 websites in 10 countries.

According to Pages Digital, an OpenX security issue has been identified and an update was released today and installed.
Having utilised Google’s Webmasters Diagnostics service, I can report that no malware is currently detected on frockwriter. To be on the absolute safe side, I removed the flash animation.

However the fact of the matter is that none of this is going to assist anyone immediately remove themselves from Google’s blacklist, as the site review request process can, according to Google, take WEEKS.


Obviously RSS and email subscribers won’t know what’s going on because they’re simply accessing a feed. And of course while subscribers are fantastic, they don’t contribute to daily traffic which, in frockwriter’s case, has really tanked today. I have been referred to Australian agency Feel Creative which reportedly set Pages Digital up with OpenX (and possibly the Two Thousand crew as well). So far noone at Feel Creative has felt very communicative and gotten back to me. So will keep you posted.

One of the questions I’d like to ask Feel Creative is: was there a new OpenX security update launched after the one that was released on September 14? Because that appears to be the last time that OpenX in fact issued a security update. Or did someone simply forget to tell the Australian publishers?

Oops. 


UPDATE 2130: Yes indeedy, someone did forget to tell the Australians - and thousands of other publishers that were affected overnight according to Feel Creative's Chris Hang, who just got back to me. Hang reports that only today did Feel Creative head to the OpenX site to track down the security update [OpenX 2.8.7] that was released on September 14. Why didn't Feel Creative have the new security patch prior to today? Hang didn't have an answer for that. But he did say that it would be the last time his company uses OpenX. "This is a dealbreaker" he told me.


In what appears to be a miraculously fast turnaround from Google [and many thanks to the efforts of Feel Creative] at time of writing the security warnings had been removed from both Frockwriter and Pages Digital. They still affect Two Thousand, Three Thousand and Five Thousand [UPDATE 25/10 - the three latter sites are now back on the air as well]. 

photo: cheeseburger.com/BBBella

Stolen Girlfriends Club has ordered 1000 jam jars for its Sydney party, but there won't be any Stolen Generation T-shirts

stolen girlfriends club AW11/kent vaughan

Next Thursday, Auckland hipster collective Stolen Girlfriends Club will stage its second Sydney shindig in five months, this time to unveil a new short film shot by renowned Kiwi snapper Derek Henderson, to promote SGC’s new Heavy Metal jewellery line. The film stars photogenic Kiwi lovebirds Dempsey Stewart and Jasper Seven modelling the inaugural collection, We Are Ugly But We Have The Music (below). Frockwriter has previously documented SCG’s predilection towards serving alcohol in jam jars at events and next week will be no different with, we are told, 1000 jam jars ordered for the occasion. One thing we won’t be seeing at the event, however, is an “I belong to the Stolen Generation” T-shirt, as appeared on SGC's runway in Auckland last month. 

After frockwriter asked just how well the T-shirts would go down in the Australian market – where the term The Stolen Generation refers to the generations of Aboriginal children removed from their parents by the Australian government – co-founder Marc Moore later told us that he and his partners Dan Gosling and Luke Harwood had previously been unfamiliar with the term and were horrified to learn what it meant in Australia. 

 

According to Moore, he and his brand-mates had originally been inspired by the iconic American “non-smoking generation” logo, down to the same font. 

The Stolen Generation T-shirt slogan has been canned reports Moore. The T-shirts will now read “I belong to the Broken Generation”.

Says Moore: 

“We changed it because it would have been incredibly insensitive to run it. Australia is one of our main markets and it’s close to home, so we want to make friends – not enemies. Sure our brand can be cheeky at times, but only as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone”.

Well, as long as you don't count those two pesky assaults after the last SGC show in Auckland....

screen cap 'heavy metal' by derek henderson for stolen girlfriends club

backstage, stolen girlfriends club AW10 show, auckland, september 2009

front-of-house at the stolen girlfriends club AW11 show, auckland, 23rd september 2010

Sydney and Auckland street style in WWD

Street style photography is an enormous component of the fashion blogosphere, which has in fact launched blogging empires (The Sartorialist and Jak + Jil to name but a few). This photoreportage genre however definitely predates the net. Bill Cunningham’s first street style shots were published in The New York Times in 1978, but he first began documenting the fashion choices of ordinary people on the street during WWII. British style magazine i-D has a 30 year archive of its signature street style shots - aka “Straight-Ups” - on its website. And WWD, where Cunningham worked briefly, has had its own longstanding series of street style shots called They Are Wearing. As the paper's Australasian correspondent since 1996, I have shot quite a few “TAWs” in Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, Seoul and Taipei for WWD FAST and (Fairchild News Service's now defunct menswear paper) DNR. During the Spring/Summer 2011 show season WWD kicked off a series of global TAW galleries in the 'Eye Scoop' section and yesterday two of mine went up, both shot last month. Here is the Sydney gallery and here is the Auckland one, which was shot around Vulcan Lane during New Zealand Fashion Week. Not including this random shot, above, which was taken for WWD FAST at Sydney's Glenmore Road, Paddington intersection in May this year. Perhaps you might recognise some of your mates. 

The lovely bones: Julia Saner

elite paris via models.com

Have been toying with the idea of starting a couple of photo series. Thin models is one of them. And yes, this is quite possibly one of those lose-lose scenarios in which you can't please anyone, with body image zealots accusing you of providing thinspiration for those with mental health problems and model fanatics accusing you of “sensationalism” and hating on their favourites. But here goes. Frockwriter is well aware that pretty much everyone outside the fashion business thinks that everyone in it has an eating disorder. That is not the case. Being thin is however most definitely a job requirement for most models, it always has been and particularly at the top end of the industry. Just as it is for ballet dancers and elite athletes - that's what world number 5 Abbey Lee Kershaw claims in this interview. Incidentally Kershaw, who happens to be the daughter of a retired elite athlete, footballer Kim Kershaw, looked like this in 2005. There is a fine line however, pardon the pun, between thin and painfully thin. In spite of navel-gazing and industry initiatives over the past three years, including the best efforts of French MP Valérie Boyer to outlaw websites and fashion advertising that promote anorexia and to provide health warnings on Photoshopped images, images continue to pop up which make you do a double take. Case in point, this shot of 18 year-old Swiss newcomer Julia Saner. 

Now we are willing to concede that the lighting, pose and direction could all be contributing factors, making the model in question look thinner than she or he actually is. 

But that’s kind of the point here. Images such as this are not just candid shots. They are created, manipulated and used by industry power players to promote their talent. 

This image of Saner was published by influential modelling industry website models.com on October 13, under the site’s “Top 10 Newcomer” series for the Spring/Summer 2011 show season. Notes MDC:

“With a show run that spanned Gucci, Fendi, Chanel, Lanvin, Givenchy, Vuitton and the opening slot of Valentino Julia was the girl model watchers were buzzing about in Paris. Now that the booking sweepstakes have turned from shows to editorials and campaigns expect Julia to be one of those must-book girls on all those call sheets”.

The shot appears to come straight off Saner's portfolio on the website of Elite Paris. 

Coincidentally, two years ago, Elite’s New York division was responsible for publishing these shocking images of a young American model, which prompted quite some international commentary.

Approximately four comments on the models.com post note how alarmingly thin Saner looks.

Another 30 applaud her look, with some noting her “killer” and “to die for” body.

The post has so far been “liked” by 157 people on Facebook. 


 

The real McCall: Alice McCall hangs out her first shingle

Exciting news for Alice McCall fans. Six years after the MTV stylist turned Buddhist Punk womenswear designer and sass & bide staffer launched her now cult eponymous label, which is stocked by over 160 stores in 10 countries, McCall is two weeks away from opening her first bricks-and-mortar store. Frockwriter can reveal that the first Alice McCall flagship will open on November 1st on South Dowling Street in Sydney's Darlinghurst, with a launch party slated for December 8th. 'The Accordion Girls' Spring/Summer 2010/2011 collection will be on the racks. But here is a preview of McCall's '70s-inspired  'Birds of a Feather' Autumn/Winter 2011 collection, that will be showcased in-store via this new branding campaign starring Tallulah Morton, that was produced by Little Hero, shot by Jordan Graham and styled by Jolyon Mason, with innovative graphics courtesy artist Sydney artist Techa Noble (of The Birthday Suit). Earlier today we caught up with McCall by phone from her Bali home, that she shares with partner, designer Nicholas Morley, and their three year old daughter Wilde Rose Morley McCall.

You launched in 2004. Why wait so long before opening a boutique?  
Alice McCall: Really I think the brand grew so quickly and then without proper sort of business planning and structure, I’ve been focussing on just setting up the right team and the infrastructure. Now the business runs so smoothly and efficiently. We’ve got a great gm and we’ve got a great team and it’s just the right time now. I think six years has really gone quite quickly and we’re in the position now where everything’s really planned and strategised. And that’s when we had the shop pencilled in for in the business plan. We’ve found the perfect location, so now it’s happening really quickly.

After Sydney, what’s next on the retail rollout agenda?
My plan would be do another one in Sydney after this. In either of the [two] Westfields. Then I would say Melboune. Definitely just focussing on the Australian market. But look, everything’s just going so well with the label at the moment, particularly with the last collection that we did, 'The Accordion Girls'. What I’ve been doing is really focussing on doing great product – the aesthetic of the product as well as the quality. And our products are amazing - it’s selling out. We’ve had reorders on mycatwalk.com.au before we’ve even dropped the product from The Accordion Girls into store. Twice. They’re substantial, massive reorders.

You have your own online boutique as well don’t you?
Yes we do and it does really, really well, so that was a great indication that a store is going to do fantastically, because our online boutique is going over target every week.

What percentage of your sales would be from online?
It could be about 10-15percent. David Jones is still a really big account. Our biggest international market is Japan. We’ve really maintained that cult following in Japan. We sell to Barneys and have 30 key accounts in Japan.

What percentage of your overall business is Australian?
Most of it is in Australia. And will remain so, because our retail expansion is only focussed on Australia. I think it’s about 70percent.

You literally just signed the release and will open in a fortnight. That’s a mighty fast bump in.
It’s going to be a very quick bump in! What I really like about that area is... There’s Désordre next door which sells Ellery and Fernando [Frisoni]. Nick Tobias, the architect, has sort of bought up the street and is really planning to make it the next Glenmore [Road, Paddington]. They’re really tidying up the street. So it’s great to be a part of that movement which is happening down there. The new stores that are popping up, there’s a new restaurant popping up and then just on Oxford Street you’ve got Shag and Sportsgirl and South West Trader. So it’s great, I’m very happy to be there.

What will the store look like?
It’s really just going to be completely white. I’ve got some amazing art from photographer Emma Summerton, a friend of mine. I’m going to be putting up her prints - the Polaroid series that she did of herself. Then it’s going to be all white piping rails, that look like old industrial piping. And then just really focussing on the product again and the art that I’ll be showing.

Is any particular architect involved in the fitout?
No, not at all. I’ve been working with a graphic designer, Techa Noble. So the exciting thing is, we have this wall on one side of the building that’s two storeys high that we’re going to be able to use as an art wall, to advertise or do whatever we want. So I’m going to be doing different art projects. You can see it from Oxford Street. So definitely, there will be that feeling of art-meets-fashion, with Emma Summerton’s work and using Techa for the great art wall outside.  

You are known for your killer dresses. They’re really a key component of each collection aren’t they?
The percentage is about 65-70percent dresses. It is the bread and butter of the business, absolutely. And whenever we range plan from the beginning, dresses are the thing that we’ll focus on. It’s interesting, Kylie Minogue has just been wearing our stuff and as a result we’ve had requests from Dannii Minogue and I’ve just had an email from [UK stylist] Edward Ennniful from i-D requesting clothes for an Emma Summerton shoot. So the whole PR thing is really gaining momentum at the moment.

What is the DNA of the Alice McCall brand?
I think it’s the colour, the print and the attention to detail, which has I guess a youthfulness and a sense of fun.

You have already shown on international runways, would you do it again?
I showed in London three times and I’ve also shown in New York once. I would show in London again, definitely. Short-term is Australia, again, which goes in line with opening our retail. And then after that, London.
 
Where is home for you at the moment exactly?
Half and half. I’ve just been in Australia for two months. And now I’ll be here for six weeks. Here is where I start my design and then I go back to Australia and perfect my patterns there with patternmakers. We do about 50percent of our production out of China, 40percent out of Bali and then 10percent in Australia. But I design here and I get a lot of creative freedom here.

Do you hang out with the Australians in Bali or are you too busy working?
Sure I do. Jessie White from Shakuhachi, who is doing so well, is one of my best friends. She’s just down the road. Lou [Iselin], who used to be [South Dowling Street boutique] Capital L and is now Please Louise... I’ve got a handful of Aussies that I see.

photographer: jordan graham
graphic design: techa noble
styling: jolyon mason 

makeup: natasha severino for MAC

hair: pete lennon

both images: supplied exclusively to frockwriter by alice mccall

Cassi van den Dungen and Olivia Thornton haunt Ellery's Spring/Summer 2010/2011 'Horreurscope' campaign

All’s been quiet on the Cassi van den Dungen front for months. At least on the publicity side, which is probably the way van den Dungen’s managament likes it, given how many dramas there have been since she was crowned runnerup of Australia’s Next Top Model Cycle 5 in July 2009. Of course there was this Daily Telegraph story on August 6th – which frockwriter has on good authority came about after the paper was knocked back for an interview with the 18 year-old and then just simply did what’s known in the tabloid world as a “doorstop”: turned up regardless at her front door, camera in tow. On the work front, however, van den Dungen has been head down, booked almost every day of the week according to her mother agency Work Agency (which is now van den Dungen’s only Australian representation, having recently left Camerons in Melbourne). 

We mentioned her Style Stalker and Myer gigs, others include campaigns for Leonard St,  Mink jewellery and, notably, a mini profile in issue 36 of RUSSH magazine, which described her as “candid, blithe, impossibly gorgeous... confident, easy to work with and fun”. Not a bad rap from a magazine that is dripping in cool and which happens to have a lot of creative credibility overseas.

Another great new get: Kim Ellery’s Spring/Summer 2010/2011 Horreurscope campaign shot by Holly Blake and co-starring Viviens' Olivia Thornton (who looks like she could be Catherine McNeil’s little sister in these images). A couple of images have been up on the Ellery website for the past week, but here is a selection of as yet unseen shots from the same series.

all images: holly blake for ellery, supplied exclusively to frockwriter by ellery

Cash for comments: The fashion blogosphere's liquid bonanza

stella mccartney for target australia launch, sydney, october 1st/little black book

They are literally throwing money at bloggers at the moment in Australia. Not in the traditional advertising sense, whereby a marketer pays to take out clearly-delineated advertising space in your publication. In fact it’s almost impossible to find many, if any, bloggers who are earning a living out of legitimate display advertising. No, affiliate marketing (pay per click or pay per buy) and sponsored, advertorial posts are the way of the world right now (although not on frockwriter, just to clarify once again). Westfield is currently recruiting a blogger for a 12-month, $100,000 contract. One of the finalists is 19 years old. That’s an extraordinary salary for a teenager. We mentioned the recent Target Stella McCartney launch for which six bloggers (pictured above, details below) were flown to Sydney and paid to write approved copy. 

Remuneration in these situations usually depends on web traffic, but in general terms frockwriter understands there are Australian fashion bloggers earning up to $900 per sponsored post under these sorts of deals (and just to clarify, there is usually a sponsorship disclosure eg "Sponsored by Nuffnang" at the top of the posts). With your average blog post not exceeding 400 words, many a mere 200 words, that’s potentially $2-4 per word. The average freelance journalist would be lucky to get $1/word for work in Australia at the moment, with even some prestigious newspapers offering as little as 50c/word for the privilege of having your byline in their publication. 


The latest blogger cash bonanza is a project called Lustable from online payment service PayPal. According to PayPal, five Australian bloggers including Matt Jordan, Phoebe Montague and Candice DeVille are each being given $1,000 cash a week for 12 weeks to spend at their discretion on PayPal – and to talk about it on the Lustable website. 


The bloggers are not, we understand, under any obligation to write about the project on their blogs.

PayPal is referring to the bloggers as "editors", disclosing that it has "cashed them up" and that there is no copy approval.

The money is being deposited into their PayPal accounts and we understand that what the bloggers purchase, they get to keep. What happens if they don't spend all the money and siphon some of the funds out of PayPal into their bank accounts, like a salary? Good question. Apparently there is nothing in writing stopping them from doing this.

But just a reminder that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

PayPal will presumably be writing your names down on its books as suppliers and the ATO will presumably regard this as income. And needless to say, if you were to blow 12K on non legitimate business expenses such as clothes, cosmetics, jewellery and accessories, then you could ostensibly wind up with a hefty tax bill on the other side. That will of course be of little concern to PayPal.

Happy shopping.

Main image: L to R: Style Melbourne, Fashion Hayley, Little Black Book, Drop Stitch, Sassi Sam, Karen Cheng.

Inception via Twitter? Black nail polish-wearing ABC anchor dreams of Freddie Mercury duet

As the anchor of ABC’s prestigious late-night current affairs bulletin Lateline and the network’s former Washington and National Security correspondent, Walkley Award-winning Australian journalist and author Leigh Sales has covered some big stories. What’s her dream job? Noted Sales on Twitter this morning, “I had the coolest dream last night that I was playing a grand piano with Freddie Mercury. Real life seems a bit greyer today”. Now it's unclear if Sales has always been a Freddie Mercury fangurl - or just how well she was previously versed in Mercury’s pioneering efforts vis-à-vis the black nail polish beauty trend. Coincidentally, however, on August 23rd, two days after Sales played a key on air role during the ABC’s federal election coverage – wearing black nail polish - we Tweeted the following (tongue in cheek) observation: “top marks BTW go to abc #ausvotes anchor @leighsales for doing more for the visibility of black nail polish than freddie mercury on sat”. We know Sales spotted it, because she immediately replied via Twitter:  

“It was unexpected that I also ended up in a black suit. Didn't mean to look quite so emo”. 

Pushing our luck, we had the temerity to ask which brand? To which Sales responded:

“I don't know actually, whatever the nail place uses”.

Now Frockwriter has lost count of the number of stories broken on this blog, that have wound up in mainstream media outlets. Yesterday, The Australian Financial Review picked up the MJ Bale/P Johnson cartoon ad campaign fracas. And The Daily Telegraph today names Jasper Glavanics as the photographer whose eight year-old nude images of 18 year-old Miranda Kerr have been shopped around to the highest bidder - four days after frockwriter named him, while The Tele's own Sunday edition published two of Glavanics' Kerr images but withheld his name at his request.  


But inception via Twitter is getting a little ridiculous surely?


 
photoshop composite + captions: frockwriter. original abc screen cap: ruby goes/flickr

Village of the glammed

x-cape fw1011/fashion served via tfs

 

Frockwriter's favourite male model was conspicuous by his absence during the Spring/Summer 2011 womens show season, turning up on just one runway: London's KTZ show. Since he first emerged on the world stage at the Paris menswear shows in July and our last post on Pejic in August, regarding his starring role in a 12-page Mert + Marcus editorial for Vogue Paris, he has nevertheless continued to co-define fashion's androgynous moment (alongside Brazilian Lea T). Cases in point, editorials in Vogue Hommes Japan and the second issue of Candy, both shot by Karim Sadli (the latter calling itself "the first Transversal Style Magazine... dedicated to celebrating transvestism, transsexuality, cross dressing and androgyny"). Not to mention this intriguing Fall/Winter 2010/2011 campaign for Italian streetwear brand X-Cape shot by Erminando Aliaj (above, below), in which Pejic models both menswear and womenswear - in the latter shots managing to look like a dead ringer for Ukrainian supermod Snejana Onopka.

Over the northern summer Pejic also kicked back with his maternal grandmother Danica Savic in her Serbian village, located two hours from Belgrade.

While there, he was profiled by a local tv station. See below for the clip, which includes commentary by his proud grandma and various village locals (see update below), as well as a fantastic runway recreation on a local bridge.

But Pejic's best work could be just around the corner.  

Frockwriter previously mentioned he was shot by a major name for the November edition of a major international title opposite a top female cast. Still can't say what that is unfortunately, but we can reveal Pejic's co-stars for the shoot were Freja Beha Erichsen, Iselin Steiro, Iris Strubegger and Alla Kostromichova.

Pejic arrived in Tokyo yesterday, en route back home to Melbourne, where he is due to touch down next month.



UPDATE 13/10: Some Serbian-speaking readers (x 3) kindly provided a translation of the Serbian tv report which, on closer inspection, almost dehumanizes Pejic as a curiosity. With homophobia apparently rampant in Serbia, perhaps there's no surprise there. Here's a transcript:

REPORTER: Straight from Paris and London runways, this model goes back home to his village to visit his grandmother.
 
GRANDMOTHER: "I'm proud of him. He's gone off into the world and I wish him luck."
 
REPORTER: "Does Danica (grandmother) have a grandson or a granddaughter?"

GRANDMOTHER: (laughing) "I have both"
 
ANDREJ: "From birth I was a 'he' but now there is a balance between these two halves....."
 
REPORTER: Looks like nature has taken its course with Andrej or either he was not comfortable with himself in a man's body...

REPORTER: ...So he decided to make some changes. He started dying his hair and wearing makeup and from the age of 13...
 
REPORTER: ...stopped worrying about what others thought of him......but in his village, everyone seemed interested in him.
 
MAN IN HAT: "At five or six years old he was a great kid, then he went with his mother to Australia and something happened there".

GUY IN WHITE: "He was here last night with two girls from Australia. They were here drinking".
 
GIRL IN RED: "First time I saw him was on the bus and I had to keep looking cause I wasn't sure if it was a man/woman".
 
GIRL IN RED: "And then I realised it was a man".

LADY IN BLACK: "What's in the pants? How do we know?" (laughing)
 
ANDREJ: "I've never had any operations. I'm 18 yrs old, I'm not opposed to any plastic surgery but until now I haven't had any".
 
REPORTER: But who knows, maybe he will soon ...until then, Does Andrej have a boyfriend or girlfriend?
 
ANDREJ PEJIC: "Well now about my sexual orientation... I could talk about it... Maybe both attract me... But a comment is not relevant"
 
REPORTER: Let's look at a boy/girl closet (Camera is looking at clothes)....

REPORTER: He loves flip flops and high heels although he doesn't wear them often except during parades....

REPORTER: His grandmother is now showing us photos of him as a boy. He was very cute.
 
GRANDMOTHER: “Whatever he is like, he's ours and I wish him happiness and luck in his life”.
 
REPORTER: His life now revolves around working with the most famous fashion creators and he'll be doing both mens' and womens' parades.
 

all images: x-cape fall/winter 2010/2011, fashion served via TFS