Flynn Bloom likes the limelight, Miranda Kerr thinks her drug-free labour was "a bit crazy"

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Miranda Kerr is in town, as you know, spruiking David Jones. Below is a quick video chat backstage after last Wednesday’s runway show starring Kerr, in which she concedes that she found the prospect of doing the DJs' show in a swimsuit just seven months after giving birth “a little nerve-wracking” and confirms that she will be back on Victoria’s Secret runway later in the year. When asked what is the best thing about motherhood, Kerr notes “Everything, I just love it. There’s no word that could describe the joy and loveliness that it is to be a mother”. Undergoing a 27 hour labour without drugs may have given the supermod pause for some reflection however. She told frockwriter, “I was kind of a bit crazy not to but you know, I’d made my mind up and I’ll probably just see how I go next time”. As for Flynn, arguably the most overexposed baby on the planet right now, Kerr reveals that it’s a tough job trying not to give paps their money shots whenever she’s been out and about with Flynn in recent months. “You try your best to avoid it but it’s inevitable. And he was really into it. I tried to like, protect him but he comes around [flicks her head around, mimicking Flynn] because he likes the light”.

Rock on - David Jones Spring/Summer 2011/2012

Miranda Kerr has done rather a lot since she headed offshore to try her luck on the international fashion stage in 2005, like so many other eager Aussie hopefuls before her. The following year, after scoring a Maybelline contract, she landed what would evolve into a highly lucrative deal with US intimate apparel giant Victoria’s Secret. Kerr returned to the Australian market in 2008 in a big way as the new face of Australian department store David Jones, an astute marketing investment that is presumably costing DJs much less today than it is currently worth in media coverage. In the eighteen months since Kerr last walked DJs' biannual runway showcase, she has emerged as a truly global star – not just one of the world’s highest-paid models, but a household name whose every move is charted by the paps. Sure, the marriage to Hollywood heartthrob Orlando Bloom hasn’t hurt her profile, ditto the birth of their beautiful baby boy Flynn in January. So refreshing, then, to see Kerr backstage at DJ’s Spring/Summer 2011/2012 showcase on Wednesday night, hamming it up as just another one of the girls. 

Frockwriter was backstage for the show’s duration and watched Kerr's antics with her old runway mates like Tiah Eckhardt, Stephanie Carta and Annika Kaban, as well as the crop of new girls who are rapidly rising up in Kerr and co's wakes (backstage portfolio of 73 shots, below - best viewed on the blog). Names such as Samantha Harris, Amanda Ware, Emily Wake – whose identical, non-model twin sister Elyse was standing backstage throughout the show, prompting more than one double take – and of course Rose Smith. 

At last season’s DJs show in February, Smith had yet to work internationally. In the interim, she has been cast in no less than three Chanel shows (ready-to-wear, cruise and haute couture). 

Another rising star on DJs runway: Claire Collins, whose modelling experience prior to July’s haute couture shows in Paris was one Australian fashion show. Collins was one of four Australian models booked by Chanel for its Fall/Winter 2011/2012 haute couture show, alongside Smith, Julia Nobis and another newcomer, Caitlin Lomax. 

It might be the toughest Australian retail climate in half a century – with David Jones itself issuing a shock profit downgrade last month – but the runway and backstage vibe was upbeat. Setting the mood: some psychedelic, boho de luxe offerings from Sydney-based caftan queen Camilla Franks and Jets' sensational, colour-blocked swimwear. Shots of a pneumatic Kerr in Jets’ foxy collared maillot with plunging neckline were beamed across the world.

Also in the lineup: a few of DJs’ 60 fresh brand additions, including Lover, Carl Kapp and Ksubi’s new Kustom range of customised luxury denim pieces that are festooned with studs and graffiti - arguably the smartest business decision that the bad boys of Australian jeanswear have made in quite some time. The world’s economies are going to hell in a handbasket, but with luxury sales booming – and über efficient fast fashion powerhouses such as Zara giving consumers runway trends at killer prices - cash-cautious consumers, it seems, are more than happy to open their wallets for merchandise that they consider special.

Bath party: Marcs' five faces of Spring/Summer 2011/2012

Australian sportswear brand Marcs has been producing some cool advertising campaigns of late. Nabbing new Australian modelling superstar Julia Nobis was a good start of course. Nobis co-starred in the Spring/Summer 2010/2011 and Autumn/Winter 2011 campaigns with Broed Dilleward and Nick Hinman, respectively. Here is a first look at the SS1112 campaign, for which Marcs' creative director Rachel Allen has upped the ante with not two but five rising Australian stars: Chic's Rachel Rutt and Nicole Pollard, Viviens' Rosie Tupper, Priscillas' Andy Smith and EMG Models' Jack Vanderhart (who made his international debut at New York Fashion Week in February, with a Calvin Klein exclusive). Shot by Steven Chee, the campaign also showcases one of Australia's most beautiful sea baths: the heritage-listed Wylies Baths in Sydney's Coogee.

creative director: rachel allen
photographer: steven chee
art director: nikki hillier
stylist: kim payne
hair: max may
makeup: victoria barron


all images supplied exclusively to frockwriter by MARCS

Krystal Glynn for Zambesi Spring/Summer 2011/2012, designers line up for NZFW

We mentioned that new Australian face Krystal Glynn had recently shot the Spring/Summer 2011/2012 advertising campaign for New Zealand brand Zambesi. Above and below is a first look at the campaign, which stars Glynn alongside Kiwis Josh Skelton and David Kemp and was lensed by Marissa Findlay (makeup by Amber D for MAC, hair by Jason Chong Li for Stephen Marr). Expect to see Glynn front and centre at Zambesi's runway show at the upcoming New Zealand Fashion Week, which runs from August 29th to September 2nd at brand new digs, the Viaduct Events Centre. Zambesi is one of nearly 60 brands that NZFW organisers announced earlier this week would be joining their Autumn/Winter 2012 showcase. Other headliners: World (which frockwriter hears is closing the event), Trelise Cooper, Helen Cherry and Workshop Denim, Jimmy D, Stolen Girlfriends Club and Miranda Brown. Solo debuts include newcomers Celine Rita, Ingrid Starnes and Whiri. Hats off to the resilience of two Christchurch-based labels that are joining this year's lineup: the very well-established luxury eco label Untouched World and newbie MisterR, whose Christchurch store was destroyed during February 22nd's devastating earthquake which claimed 182 lives.  

photography: marissa findlay
hair: jason ching li for stephen marr
makeup: amber D for MAC


all images: supplied to frockwriter by zambesi

First look: Jacquetta Wheeler for Jigsaw Australia Spring 2011

Anthony Cuthbertson is a busy guy. Not only is the Brit import the new creative director of Australian sportswear brand David Lawrence, as it emerges he is also the creative director of Jigsaw Australia (which, like David Lawrence, is owned by the Sydney-based M Webster Holdings). The British high street brand celebrates its 20th anniversary downunder with the upcoming ‘Cool Britannia’-inspired Spring/Summer 2011/2012 collection of smart coats and sweet dresses, which launches in store at the end of this month and includes a capsule collection of swimwear, dresses, tops and skirts in Liberty of London’s iconic micro florals. To mark the occasion, Cuthbertson cast English rose Jacquetta Wheeler as the face of Jigsaw’s Max Doyle-lensed Spring 2011 campaign. Spotted by Mario Testino at age 16 in 1998 and named “model of the millennium” by The Face magazine in 1999, Wheeler's 13-year career has embraced advertising campaigns for the biggest names in the fashion business, including Gucci, Calvin Klein, Givenchy, Prada, Valentino, Ralph Lauren and Roberto Cavalli. 

Previous Jigsaw Australia faces have included Jandra Dziaugyte, Alice Rausch and, last season, Australia’s upwardly mobile Rosemary Smith - who walked in the Chanel haute couture show in Paris on Tuesday, her third Chanel runway show since March after the French luxury brand's Ready-to-Wear and Resort shows.

all images: supplied exclusively to frockwriter by jigsaw australia

creative director: anthony cuthbertson
art director: kasia wydrowski 

photographer: max doyle 

retoucher: samantha hawkins
 

Wild orchid - Emma Balfour tones it up for David Lawrence Spring/Summer 2011/2012

David Lawrence evidently has a thing for women of a certain age. The 33 year-old Australian sportswear brand has chosen iconic fortysomething Australian model Emma Balfour as its campaign face for the second consecutive season. Herewith an exclusive preview of the Spring/Summer 2011/2012 advertising campaign shot by Australian fashion photographer Georges Antoni at one of the penthouses of Sydney bar/restaurant complex The Ivy. This is the second brand campaign orchestrated by new David Lawrence creative director Anthony Cuthbertson and his first full collection for the brand, which is owned by M Webster Holdings and has 101 stores across Australia and New Zealand. Cuthbertson brings considerable design experience to the job. The UK-born graduate of Leicester's De Montfort University and London’s Royal College of Art has spent a decade working as either creative director or designer at such well-known brands as Max Mara and Sportsmax, Moncler, Daks (creative director 2000-2006), Workers for Freedom, Burlington, Rene Lezard and Amanda Wakeley.

“The campaign itself and the collection both have a lot of jewel colours and I wanted to bring in a feeling of holiday in the evenings, taking these jewel colours but seeing them in the night” Cuthbertson told frockwriter. “Continuing where we were for Autumn/Winter, where there was still a lot of movement through the shots, we shot through orchid flowers and the mood was very much like she was in a hotel lobby and on her way out”.

As it emerges, it's not the first time that Cuthbertson and Balfour have worked together.

“When Emma launched her career, she modeled for me in London for my own label at London Fashion Week, about 15 years ago. From there I remembered her and when I started thinking about who should be the face of this great Australian brand, Emma Balfour was the person I decided on because I really wanted to use a real Australian women. So many people look at young girls but really, to be closer to our customer, we have to use a woman”.

all images: georges antoni. supplied exclusively to frockwriter by david lawrence

Christopher Esber's tuxedo junction

Although inexplicably missing from many RAFW writeups, Christopher Esber's show was one of the best presentations of 2011. Esber graduated in the same TAFE NSW Fashion Design Studio class as Dion Lee and clearly, 2007 was one of the school's strongest years, because he demonstrates as much potential as his already far better-known former classmate. The luxury sportswear collection, which was inspired by the seemingly disparate notions of tuxedo dressing and beach culture, incorporated several innovative fabrics that had been created by Esber. An intricate, two-way pleated synthetic taffeta was used in a charming series of zippered, short-sleeved blouses and pencil skirts in soft powder blue and peach  - and a gossamer-like fabric that had been woven with actual fishing wire, found its way into several delicate, tea-stained slip dresses. Although the third last show on the schedule, it was the final gig for most of the week's top models, including Rachel Rutt and Myf Shepherd, who could barely contain their relief that the week was over and hammed it up backstage for the show's duration.        

Josh Goot's Richter scale

It's three years since Josh Goot last showed in Sydney – and just six years since he launched his brand here, with an unforgettable collection of what he dubbed ‘tailored comfort’, realised in a space age track-and-field silhouette that included jersey trench coats and blazers. After showing for multiple seasons at New York and London Fashion Weeks, Goot has firmly established himself at the vanguard of Australia’s new designer generation. And what international polish he brought to Australian Fashion Week last night. The production, co-signed by The Artist Group and Mr and Mrs Fish, dragged arguably the week’s biggest crowd up six flights of stairs to an abandoned inner-city carpark, transformed for the evening to a futuristic sporting venue. Partially inspired by the German expressionist artist Gerhard Richter, the collection, which was delivered in modern techno silks, sporty neoprene and an eye-popping palette of fluoro pink, cobalt blue, Kelly green, black, silver and white, focussed on a voluminous silhouette. More to come. 

Gary Bigeni's shape shifters

Gary Bigeni proved he could do much more than a draped dress last night. A wardrobe of smart separates complemented his draped silk jersey repertoire, much of it in a much harder material: leather. Leather blazers, boleros, T-shirts and even shorts in rich brick and a soft dove grey, were juxtaposed against silky sweaters in block colours with intricate, knotted cutout backs, full-legged woven trousers and candy-striped silk dresses with matching longline cardigans and button-up shirts in oranges and crisp blues. To be sure, there were plenty of his signature draped dresses and tunics, the most beautiful in aquamarine, turquoise and teal. But Bigeni gets the vote for the best synergy between sponsor and creative, via his hookup with shapewear manufacturer Spanx, which supplied a dazzling variety of undergarments that got people talking but which were by nature completely invisible on the runway – and of course totally irrelevant on his size 0 cast.

Kate Sylvester's mothwoman prophecies

Inspired by moths and motocross, Kate Sylvester’s Spring/Summer 2011/2012 collection is called ‘Into the light’. Due to the awkward lighting of her show at the Newmarket saleyard in Randwick last night, however, ironically many have complained that didn’t get to see it. In an uncharacteristically abrasive spray, even Vogue Australia’s Damien Woolnough complained today, “If I want to sit in a dark room filled with smoke I'll visit the share house of my university friends”. Frockwriter stayed backstage for the duration and had a much better view. It was a fantastic, if macabre, collection, with two motifs at its centrifuge: moth markings, which included a full death’s head moth motif used on T-shirts; and then a flame graphic, which doubled up on the revhead theme, as seen on coats, dresses and several fantastic sheer jumpsuits, shown with the tops worn both up and down – on the latter occasion, teamed with a lacy brassiere. 

There was a score of military-nosed city shorts, teamed with silky knit tops and sporty zippered bomber cardis and many quite beautiful silk georgette and lace dresses in a smokey palette that was occasionally popped with daffodil, turquoise and kelly green. Some dresses were festooned with floral applique, while others featured destroyed ‘moth’ holes.

Given that these sorts of technical issues tend not to happen at the RAFW HQ at Circular Quay, it will be interesting to see if the New Zealander rethinks her decision to show off-site in Australia in future. 

In three months, Sylvester’s fans will get a chance to see her stage another show – when she rejoins the New Zealand Fashion Week schedule after a one year hiatus.  

Marnie Skillings' Haight campaign

What a romp Marnie Skillings ‘Strangelove’ show was last night. Inspired, Skillings told frockwriter backstage, by “a woman who had travelled the globe and grabbed things, tattoos, albums, prints, feathers..”, the concept was fully enabled by renowned fashion magpies, stylists Michelle Jank and David Bonney, and showcased a fabulous collection of dresses. From innocent, flower-embellished white party dresses to shirtwaisters, button-up lace halter dresses and a myriad of maxidresses, maxidresses, maxidresses, they were rendered in a mad clash of florals, animal prints and candy stripes and tarted up with feather shrugs, '70s-look floppy felt pimp hats by Jonathan Howard Hatmaker and tapestry clutch purses with Punk spikes. Full-length dresses and skirts have been seen on many showgoers this week and they are Jank’s uniform du jour. It’s going to be one long summer.

Backstage at Amber & Thomas

It’s always good to see new brands debut at RAFW. Not all of them make much of an impact however. And look, it’s not that there was anything bad about the Amber & Thomas debut yesterday – it’s just that there was nothing outstanding about it, either in the collection or the execution. Cute enough sportswear which included some snappy graphic T-shirts and dresses, fringed suede skirts, and, increasingly ubiquitous at RAFW this season, a white trouser suit with super wide-legged pants, didn’t really tell much of a cohesive story about the Melbourne brand, which is designed by Amber Hourigan and Thomas Williams – and which, judging by the lingerie-look bikinis and maillots on its website, has rather a knack for swimwear.