Fight Club - Stolen Girlfriends Club Autumn/Winter 2011

backstage at stolen girlfriends club AW11

Stolen Girlfriends Club is New Zealand’s Ksubi. Founded by surfers (Dan Gosling, Marc Moore and Luke Harwood), it’s a streetwear specialist and has a cult following back home, evidenced by the massive turnouts to its hipster magnet shows. Last night’s presentation at the Mercury Theatre, Auckland’s oldest surviving theatre built in 1910, was a case in point. Frockwriter had to negotiate a queue half way around the block to get in. Inside, platters of of jam jars awaited the post-show revellers, while in the claustrophobic backstage area, models were already drinking out of them. As they milled around, the hair & makeup team applied fresh sweet peas and cigarettes to the girls’ messed-up hair and bruisers and hickies to the guys’ eyes and necks. The theme of the show was ‘Last Night’s Party’ and the mood the SGC trio was trying to conjure was the walk of shame of a bunch of kids after a big night out. It starred a stellar Australasian cast that included top Kiwi names Dempsey Stewart, Ella Verberne and Michael Whittaker (above). 

The lilac flowers and cigarettes made their way into the collection proper in a signature print used on skinny jeans, shirts and one very smart mens’ car coat, with other cool jacket options including a colour-blocked velvet bomber jacket and vintage-look patchwork faux fur chubbies. Cute patchwork bellbottoms and skinny jeans were teamed with sheer ruffled white blouses with piecrust collars, studded dog collars and belts. The show closed with a pretty series of sheer white ruffled maxidresses.

It will be interesting to see how the “I belong to the Stolen generation” T-shirt fares, notably if worn in Australia - where the term Stolen Generation refers to the generations of Aboriginal children removed from their parents by the Australian government. After frockwriter used “Stolen generation” as the headline of last year’s SGC show review, there was some criticism of insensitivity. Update 22/10: SGC has pulled the T-shirt.

But SGC would probably love the controversy. They wound up with some unscripted drama last night, when backstage sources report a real punchup occurred between a photographer and a male model – necessitating a visit by the police.  

Update 10/10/10: And as it now emerges, several hours later, New Zealand's top male model Michael Whittaker  (who is pictured at the top of this post, backstage before the show), had his nose broken during an altercation at the SGC afterparty, necessitating surgery. Talk about life imitating art.  

There is a gargantuan streetwear market out there and with reportedly a 100K order from Urban Outfitters in the US, SGC obviously has the point of difference to tap into it. Check frockwriter's Posterous for a full picture gallery shot backstage and from two different angles on the Mercury Theatre stage during the show.

Dempsey Stewart and Ella Verberne charm the pants off Kate Sylvester

Frockwriter shot backstage and front-of-house at Kate Sylvester’s Spring/Summer 2010/2011 show at Rosemount Australian Fashion Week. And now here is a preview of the new SS1011 campaign for her curiously titled “This Charming Man” collection, which is rocking Viviens face Dempsey Stewart (right, above) and Ella Verberne from New Zealand's Clyne Models and includes this fetching little caramel leather microshorts, bustier and bomber combo of which Lady GaGa would no doubt wholly approve. Stewart might be Australian, but she has been romantically linked to a Kiwi – model (and brother of Zippora) Jasper Seven. Verberne, meanwhile, was recently the subject of a profile on models.com, apparently just two days after arriving on Clyne’s website. Verberne joins other recent antipodian MDC inductees Andrej Pejic and Codie Young.

Which only goes to show that when it comes to modelling, even if you hail from the lands downunder, the industry’s gossip grapevine has its ears attuned globally.

Helping that radar of course is the site's New Faces editor, Rosie Daly, who happens to be Australian. Daly is the founder and editor of emerging talent website The Ones 2 Watch, which was acquired by MDC in 2008.

Styled and photographed by Karen Inderbitzen-Waller, Kate Sylvester's SS1011 campaign will bow on the 28th July.

Sylvester is due to show her Autumn/Winter 2011 collection at New Zealand Fashion Week at 6pm on Friday 24th September and is promising a show "unlike anything else seen at a fashion week". According to the NZFW HQ, however, it won't be the week's closing show, with at least one other show scheduled to run later that night.

 

all images: supplied exclusively to frockwriter by kate sylvester