Fur realz - Fall/Winter 2011/2012

The European Fall/Winter 2011/2012 menswear season is off and running in Milan. After a day of shows, what are the early trends? Military detailing, velvet, drop-crotch trousers and a surprising amount of colour for a winter season. Of note, Burberry's tangerine and cyclamen pink pea coats, duffle and puffa jackets and Jil Sander's skinny knits, parkas and colour-blocked suiting in an eye-popping palette, which creative director Raf Simons looks to have carried over from his womens' spring 2011 show. Not to mention fur. This time last year we noted a preponderance of shaggy glam rock mens' coats in various fabrications. And although this season, Dolce e Gabbana used faux fur and Roberto Cavalli's patchwork fur coat had almost a vintage vibe, the luxury ante was definitely upped by Burberry, which showed a number of rabbit, lambskin and patchwork Finnish mink jackets, including one spectacular two-tone mink for a cool US$27,000. 

The biggest name in the mens modelling business right now, Serbian Australian Andrej Pejic - who debuted at number 40 on models.com's Top 50 Male Models list last month and then suddenly jumped to number 17 in the past week - was conspicuous by his absence.

Although Pejic briefly touched down in Milan last week to attend some early castings and is so far only confirmed for Tuesday's Neil Barrett show, a "money job" in London saw him up stumps and head to the UK for several days. He is due to arrive back in Milan today.


Images:
1, 2, 3, 4: burberry/getty via daylife
5, 6: dolce e gabbana/dolce e gabbana
7: roberto cavalli/ap via daylife

Jefferson Hack isn't the only big fashion name heading downunder in 2011

purple diary

Last night the L’Oréal Melbourne Fashion Festival announced more details of the lineup for its 2011 event, which will run from 14-20 March under a new creative director, Condé Nast's former mens fashion director Grant Pearce. Now in its 14th year, LMFF is a consumer-focussed event of in-season fashion parades and exhibitions that are open to the public. But ironically, it’s the industry-focussed Business Seminar that is arguably its hottest ticket, with a stellar lineup of speakers that has previously included former Selfridges ceo Vittorio Radice, Philippe Starck, Agent Provocateur’s Joe Corre and Serena Rees, Vivienne Westwood and last year, LMFF's first really big fashion kahuna, Calvin Klein Collection womenswear director Francisco Costa. In March, Jefferson Hack, editorial director of London’s Dazed Group, will join ACNE Studios ceo Mikael Schiller and Havas Worldwide ceo David Jones, in addition to 2011 Festival face, New York-based Australian actor Melissa George. George is a Perth native, but will nevertheless inject some Hollywood glamour into the event. 

Hack will inject the cool factor. 

A multimedia svengali who is hardwired into the indie fashion zeitgeist, Hack is now a front row fixture at every major international fashion show alongside fashion establishment stalwarts such as Anna Wintour. Even The Guardian recently asked its readers, could he be the coolest man in Britain? 

The co-founder of hipster bible Dazed & Confused in 1992 at age 19, Hack's empire now embraces Dazed Digital, AnOther Magazine and AnOther Man. Being Kate Moss' babydaddy hasn’t hurt his profile. 

Here is a taste of what the LMFF 2011 Business Seminar audience can expect: an interview Hack did earlier this year with The Business of Fashion’s Imran Amed, as part of BOF's 'Fashion Pioneers' series: 




 
There are more LMFF announcements to be made but one of them, frockwriter understands, will not be that Burberry creative director Christopher Bailey is joining the 2011 lineup. Bailey has been courted by the event for several years. 

But that’s not to say that we don’t be seeing him downunder next year. 

In April, Burberry is due to unveil a massive new 7000 square foot boutique at 343 George Street in Sydney, one of its biggest flagships in the Asia Pacific region. We hear that Bailey may be heading down to cut that ribbon.

If so, that will make April a busy month for fashion bigwigs in Sydney.

Sources at Diane von Furstenberg report that the queen of the wrap dress is heading our way in April, no doubt to officially christen her first Australian boutique that has just opened within Westfield Sydney. 

Burberry Prorsum Spring/Summer 2011 menswear show streaming live

The Spring/Summer 2011 menswear season kicks off today in Milan. Several companies are live streaming shows, Burberry among them. As with last season, select merchandise will be available for preorder straight off the runway from the website from June 19-26th. In the case of this collection, 27 pieces of apparel (sizes 44-56) and nine styles of bag, with delivery promised within 4-6 weeks. The show is due to commence at 3.00pm Milan time (11.00pm AEST). Enjoy.

The Burberry revolution: streaming live, in 3D AND via the blogosphere's long tail

Well unless you’ve been living under a rock in a galaxy far from Planet Fashion – perhaps Pandora – then you might not be aware that iconic British luxury label Burberry is about to make fashion history in just over six hours' time. In a season in which seemingly very second runway show has been live streamed to the net, Burberry is taking this new fashion concept one step further by not only streaming live for the third consecutive season, but additionally, broadcasting in 3D. Teaming up with SKY Television, Burberry will broadcast a 3D version of the show to guests in five global locations: Skylight Studios in New York, the Beaux-Arts in Paris, The Address in Dubai, La Fabrique in Tokyo and Milk Studios in Los Angeles. In another first, Burberry has moved beyond its own website and provided various websites and blogs with its embeddable video player. So, beyond Burberry's own site, there will be a plethora of net destinations via which you will be able to watch the show live at 16.00pm GMT (3.00am AEST) - with, by all accounts, 15 minutes of behind-the-scenes footage prior to that. These sites include frockwriter. Many thanks to Burberry for including us.



But frockwriter does have to chuckle at the naiveté of some of the other Burberry code recipients.



Underneath its player, Grazia Australia for example has advised readers they can check out “exclusive interviews and red-carpet coverage via Grazia.com.au”.



Click on the email icon to the side of the player and anyone can copy and paste the embed code onto their own blog - a function that has been disabled on the player on Burberry's own site.



According to Burberry, to add to the festivities, the Twitterific ELLE US creative director Joe Zee, along with our buddy Bryanboy, will be “taking over” Burberry’s Twitter feed for the show duration.



Meanwhile, Burberry creative director Christopher Bailey has been busy recording these video meet-and-greets on YouTube and The Daily Beast (which is affiliated with the New York live stream).









Things are moving so quickly in Fashion 2.0, you have to wonder what the Spring/Summer 2011 season holds in store.



Eighteen of the coats and 33 of the bags are available for pre order from Burberry's website for three days following the show.



Burberry was not the only brand to offer its collection to consumers straight off the runway this season, nor was it the first to do so.



In September, Burberry sold two trench coats from its Spring/Summer 2010 show straight from the live stream and website, with consumers receiving their orders in three to four weeks, approximately three months ahead of their arrival in store.



Needless to say, the retail revolution has only just begun