Triggonometry

iris van herpen haute couture FW1112/style.it

Adelaide is emerging as quite the model springboard. This time last year frockwriter popped over to the Adelaide Fashion Festival and stumbled upon a new face just-signed to local agency Finesse Models, Melissa Johannsen. Johannsen has since emerged as a key member of the new Australian modelling A Team on the international circuit. Tomorrow we are heading back for the 2011 Adelaide Fashion Festival - once again, as a guest of the organisers - and a quick ring-around unearthed a few more hidden SA gems. Case in point, Tori Trigg. This 18 year-old champion horsewoman was, according to Adelaide's Pride Models, overlooked by Sydney agencies earlier this year when Pride first introduced her. After coming to the attention of the world's biggest modelling agency, IMG, Trigg was whisked off to the Paris haute couture shows in July. She booked three shows, walking alongside the much higher profile Australians Julia Nobis, Codie Young and Ajak Deng, unbeknown to most. Here is Trigg at Iris van Herpen (above) and in this video, where she appears at 58', immediately following Young:

 



And here she is again, below, at Maxime Simeons. 

Just about to wrap up her Year 12 SACE exams, Trigg is putting her studies - and horses - on hold to pursue modelling fulltime.   

maxime simeons haute couture FW1112/getty via daylife

maxime simeons HC FW1112 backstage/supplied by pride models

Apparently even American Apparel's store mannequins have to spread their legs

While in town for the Adelaide Fashion Festival a fortnight ago, frockwriter couldn’t help notice the front window of the American Apparel boutique on Rundle Street, the city’s busiest shopping strip. The display included one squatting store mannequin who was flashing rather a lot of va-jay-jay. Not literally, as she was wearing a pair of micro utility shorts and of course, most store dummies aren't that anatomically accurate. But anyone walking past the boutique was confronted by the mannequin's crotch and it did seem a little in-your-face. Not to mention vulgar. 

We were curious if perhaps the artful arrangement of slutty store mannequins might be part of the company’s visual merchandising handbook. A couple of calls to two of American Apparel’s three Australian boutiques bore no fruit. The staff were extremely tight-lipped. All they would tell frockwriter was that everything is managed directly from the American Apparel headquarters in Los Angeles.

But is it all that surprising, really? 

This is the very same company that has been responsible for the following genre of advertising imagery:

about-face

faxplax

district L

And after a quick net search, we managed to find several other examples of similarly suggestively-posed American Apparel store dummies.

This one was photographed inside an American Apparel factory in 2008:

tim ferriss

And this was photographed in one of American Apparel's New York stores in the same year:

vanishing new york

Here is an almost identical mannequin - let's call it American Apparel's "Bend Over and Take It Up The Ass" model - in a Toronto store window display in June this year. With the addition of some faeces, courtesy of the G20 protests.

AP via daylife

It’s not the first time that American Apparel and its allegedly notoriously touchy feely founder and ceo Dov Charney have found themselves in the poo.

Charney has been the target of numerous sexual harassment lawsuits – although apparently none of them so far successful - and the company has been targeted by numerous consumer boycotts over its "sexist" advertising.
 
American Apparel is, moreover, currently being sued by its shareholders and teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. 

Perhaps sex doesn't always sell quite as well as they thought. 

Adelaide's emerging designers enjoy BMWs and free rent

The Adelaide Fashion Festival appears to revolve around young designers. Its timing is designed to coincide with the graduation of final year students at TAFE SA, whose fashion campus in the CBD, incidentally, recently received a $4million upgrade. The graduates get to show their work in a big runway showcase at the Festival. Frockwriter shot the 2010 TAFE show from backstage, when we attended the first few days of the event as a guest of the organisers. Then there is the festival's gala finale, the Chambord SA Emerging Designer Award. The 2010 winner was Jaimie Sortino (below), who we just happened to meet and photograph on November 9, following the Festival's opening party. Sortino was awarded the use of a BMW for one year, which is ironic given that he doesn’t have a driver’s license. Sadly, we had to get back to Sydney and missed the closing night's festivities, but head to Sonny Vandevelde’s blog for some great backstage shots of that show. Earlier in the week we did, however, meet up with two other Chambord finalists, Julie White and Alice Rawlinson, who designs under the brand name Divine Madness (above - and below, with White), at their Hindley Street studio/boutique called Workshop. Providing yet further evidence of Adelaide’s fashion incubator focus, White and Rawlinson share the space with two other young creatives... rent free.  

jaimie sortino/chambord SA emerging designer award/sonny vandevelde

Workshop is part of an initiative called Renew Adelaide, which is based on the Renew Newcastle urban renewal program that was pioneered by writer and broadcaster Marcus Westbury in that city in 2008. Its mission statement: to revitalise the Adelaide city centre by pairing up creatives with empty spaces and abandoned buildings. Legal squatting in other words.
 
It reminds frockwriter of the Stalbridge Chambers studios in Melbourne’s Little Collins Street in the 1980s which birthed, among others, Scanlan & Theodore co-founder Fiona Scanlan, milliner Tamasine Dale and wünderkind Martin Grant, who launched his label at age 15. Also the existing China Heights collective in Sydney’s Surry Hills. Just without the overheads.  
 

julie white

divine madness

julie white

julie white

Thugs & Roses: TAFE SA's gangstarr graduates

 
Saturday night’s TAFE SA graduate show was a class act. It was staged in a brand new auditorium at Prince Alfred College and all the models were from Finesse Models, which we mentioned on Friday in our post about brand new Adelaide face Melissa Johannsen. But before Johannsen even has her portfolio together, Ashleigh Pietersma (below, in the black ballgown) is likely to be the next Finesse star. Seventeen years old and just about to finish Year 12, the Dutch native, who has been in Australia for three years, has been signed to IMG's Paris Development board and heads to Paris in January, just in time for the haute couture. We joked backstage that the mad scramble of dressers that it took to get her into her finale ballgown was good prep for the latter shows. Also in the lineup: Jane Williamson, who made six weeks of Australia’s Next Top Model Cycle 3. This was a well-produced, high energy show and there were some extremely cute collections. As with any student parade you are going to get some play-it-safe eveningwear (headsup: guys this is your chance to show how creative you can be, make the most of it). But there were a couple of standouts. 

I loved Petricia Marinos’ rose-festooned ballgowns and cocktail dresses; Hannah Buchanan’s bold, armour-plated bodysuits; Ashlee Dawson’s embellished, colourblocked bodycon series and Emma Tapp’s futuristic racewear. 

But the absolute standout just had to be Carly Heinrich and her Thug Nation brand, whose Chain Gangstarr capsule collection jumped off the runway. Heinrich told me that she hopes to work in costume design. But if she is able to put these pieces into production, there's probably a market for her paint-splodged parkas, rainbow Michelin Man chubbies, chain-embellished boydsuits and digital print legwarmers. 

Here are a few shots, but head to frockwriter's Posterous (here) for a complete backstage gallery of 59 images shot during the show. 

Adelaide's top fashion banana talks shop at Unley

Frockwriter is here in Adelaide as the guest of the city’s Fashion Festival. It runs over nine days but sadly we can’t be here for the duration. We are, however, tag-teaming with our buddy, photographer Sonny Vandevelde, who will be here for the last few days. So check Sonny's blog later in the week for his expert backstage take on the last few shows, including the closing night's Chambord  Designer Fashion Showcase. In the meantime, frockwriter has been busy at the first shows. First up, Friday night’s Fashion on Unley event at Unley Town Hall with VIP guest Josh Flinn. Before he was the model mentor for Australia’s Next Top Model Cycle 6 Flinn was, among other things fashion-related, a Banana in Pyjamas (still is in fact) and before that, an Adelaide fashion hopeful. Good to see home town heroes coming back to support their cities' fashion events. After a short Q&A with Flinn on stage, the host then threw to the parade: a showcase of the various designer labels sold at boutiques in Unley, including George Gross, Harry Who, Alexis George and Carla Zampatti. All the models were from local agency Pride. Here are a few shots. But head to frockwriter’s Posterous (here) for a complete backstage gallery. And either my Twitter or frockwriter’s Facebook page for coverage of the event in real-time. 

 

A new MJ is born

finesse

Just touched down in Adelaide, where frockwriter is the guest of the South Australian Tourism Commission and the City of Norwood, Payneham & St Peters. We were invited to cover the third incarnation of the Adelaide Fashion Festival, which runs from today until Saturday 13th November. Having never been to Adelaide, it seemed like a great opportunity to check out the local talent. We knew it wouldn't be too long before some emerged. Meet Melissa Johannsen aka "MJ" - who looks like the love child of Uma Thurman and Elvis Presley. She’s 15, lives in Alice Springs and up until last month, had never previously set foot inside a model agency. In Adelaide with her mother in early October doing a spot of shopping, the 5’11" schoolgirl was encouraged by one sales assistant to contact local agency Finesse Models. Within two days, she had won the Finesse Colonnades International Model Search competition. And since Monday last week, she has travelled to and from Sydney, been signed by Viviens Sydney and Wilhelmina Models in New York, walked in a Starlight Foundation runway show, shot a campaign for the Colonnades shopping centre, a lookbook for local label Finders Keepers and an editorial story and cover for this weekend's Sunday Mail magazine. “She’s the hot new face coming out of Adelaide.........via Alice Springs” said Finesse director Brigette Mitchell, who has previously launched Vanessa Milde, Kirsty MacPhail, Lucy Bayet and Emile Wake. The big question.... can she moonwalk?