Andrej Pejic channels Marilyn Monroe

screen cap 'norman jean'

It was only a matter of time. After making fashion history in January in Paris by closing Jean Paul Gaultier's haute couture presentation as the traditional bride and thence gussied up for a gazillion photoshoots and indie videos, someone finally got fashion's favourite cross-dresser, Andrej Pejic, to do a Marilyn - Monroe that is. Called, hilariously, Norman Jean, this video was commissioned by Milk Made, the online editorial arm of New York's Milk Studios, from Love Cat magazine's Prince Chenoa and Jacob Dekat, working in tandem with filmmaker Jenna Elizabeth. Styling is courtesy Sex and The City costumier Patricia Field. It depicts bare-chested Pejic in a blonde wig and corset, chanelling Monroe during one of her most iconic moments: singing 'Happy Birthday, Mr President' to John F Kennedy at Madison Square Garden in May 1962, three months before her death.

Wayne Cooper in talks for his own tv show, still hating on plus size women

screen caps 'the wc'/exero films

Wayne Cooper could be the “Gordon Ramsay of the fashion business” if Kostas Metaxas has anything to do with it. The Melbourne-based filmmaker has a "fashion comedy miniseries" called The WC starring Cooper in development and is currently talking to Australian and international television networks. Curiously, there has been zip local publicity on this, beyond a press release about a National Association of Television Program Executives award the teaser webisode, below, won in LA in July. The webisode was made specifically for the latter competition according to Metaxas, who tells frockwriter he has shot three quarters of the material for a full-length feature, but that The WC could be, pending interest, “a feature, a tv series or 20 webisodes....This is like a starting point. Wayne is an interesting character, and he’s an exceptional actor. And at the same time he has a sense of humour. He understands that what we’re doing is not meant to be rocket science”.





The concept, a mélange of scripted sitcom and reality television, Sacha Baron Cohen-style, revolves around Cooper’s real-life job as a fashion designer. Written and produced by Metaxas, it is, coincidentally, being shopped around at the same time that New York fashion publicist Kelly Cutrone is said to be in talks with MTV regarding a new script-based fashion show.

The webisode - which also stars professional actors Tim Constantine as Cooper’s assistant “Sydney London” and Elisabeth Shingleton as the advertising manager for Vague magazine, in addition to cameos from Melbourne hair stylists Stavros Tavrou and James Razos from Collins Street salon Rakis - sees Cooper preparing to show at London Fashion Week. The fictional scenario has Baz Lurhmann tapped as Cooper's show producer, a planned mandolin-and-didgeridoo musical score and a stream of VIP phone calls into Cooper's studio from (former Australian PM) Kevin Rudd, (Oz celebrity) Lara Bingle and Boy George - all fobbed off by Cooper.   

Metaxas might just as easily have based the story on Cooper’s real life story, which at times has verged on a soap opera.

A London law school graduate, the loudmouth Cockney emigrated to Australia in 1985, settling in Sydney and later founding the Brave and Wayne Cooper fashion labels.

Cooper was the first designer to show at Mercedes Australian Fashion Week in May 2006 and in 2000 he was the first Australian (not counting US-based expat Richard Tyler) to show at New York Fashion Week. Known for his extravagant spending, in 2005 Cooper went into voluntary administration, owing $3million. Later that year, he and his family narrowly escaped a terrorist bomb blast in a restaurant in Bali. 

In 2008 he endured a messy, public split from his partner Sarah Marsh who accused him of domestic abuse on national television. Cooper later pleaded guilty to common assault. The pair eventually reunited and were married in Bali last month.  

“They’re going to do a pilot with someone in New York, I think it’s going to be an American thing” was all Cooper could tell us this afternoon, when we tracked him down in his car.

Metaxas is no stranger to television, having sold numerous documentary series to networks in Australia and other markets, including the Masters of Luxury (2008) and the Masters of Fashion (2005). He met Cooper while shooting the latter.

Although obviously a parody, The WC webisode nevertheless features several vox pops and footage of real people and fashion figures, shot in Melbourne and London. 

One of them features in the closing scene, which comes across as particularly snarky.  

In it, Constantine and Shingleton salivate over an off-camera black dress.

“It’s magnificent - it’s like a cold glass of water after being out in the desert for years” effuses Shingleton.

The camera pans over to show an apparently unsuspecting Hayley Hughes (above), a Melbourne blogger, photographer and stylist (who regular readers may recall recently starred in this Today Tonight story about plus size discrimination in the Australian fashion industry).

In another part of the film, Cooper describes one of his dresses as “very slimming”. Cooper famously once described Australian models as “porky” compared to their European counterparts.

“I think it’s tongue in cheek” says Metaxas of the Hughes scene. “It’s the notion that fashion and beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It’s not meant to be a putdown. If you met me, I’m also large. It’s like the Jews making jokes about the Jews. We’re not trying to be too serious”.


all images: screencaps 'the wc'/exero films
 

Zippora Seven gets Romantic with Gen Kay

Gen Kay is one of Australia’s most exciting emerging talents in fashion photography. Sydney-born, Melbourne-raised and -based, for the past seven years she has been commuting between Bleak City and Tokyo - where she spent one year full-time and has clocked up quite an impressive client list. It includes Vogue Nippon, Harper's BAZAAR Japan, Nylon Japan, Vogue Girl Japan, Elle Japan and Madame Figaro Japan, in addition to Lula (UK) and Vogue Australia. Portraiture includes Stella McCartney, Daniel Radcliffe, Paris Hilton and Marianne Faithfull (check her blog for Polaroids and work outtakes). And frockwriter is sure that it won’t be long before some of the savvier fashion marketers start taking advantage of Kay's filmmaking talents, with her site also showcasing a number of moody, personal films shot on Super 8. They feature, you guessed it, models, including Australia’s Jethro Cave. Below is an exclusive preview of Kay’s latest short, starring the upwardly mobile Auckland-based Zippora Seven. She is reading Love's Philosophy from the English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley.





all photos: outtakes from 'zippora' by gen kay

Nutbush City Limits: Romance Was Born's "granular" film collab with Kris Moyes

Last night in Sydney, Romance Was Born's Anna Plunkett and Luke Sales unveiled City Limits, a short film directed by Kris Moyes. Shot over one day in Sydney and starring local model Tanja Gacic, it's a fantastic - and hilariously camp - little collaboration that was designed to showcase RWB's Autumn/Winter 2010 Nightmare on Wall Street collection (but which will now be shopped to the film festival circuit by production company Revolver Films). A little less Freddy Krueger than you might anticipate - and a little more Blade Runner-meets-Kill Bill-meets-The Rocky Horror Picture Show - City Limits portrays Gacic as a DayGlo Spandex-clad corporate assassin who goes postal at a cocktail party. Best moment: Gacic clubbing Guy Pearce-lookalike Matthew Charleston with a decapitated head. The impressive crew includes cinematographer Danny Ruhlmann (Little Fish) and 1st AD Deb Antoniou (Where The Wind Things Are). Below are a few screen caps. But click here to see frockwriter's Posterous pic gallery of location shots (images courtesy Kris Moyes/Revolver). And click here to watch the film itself.

Eye of the Tiger: Melise Williams rocks Nicola Finetti's lookbook

Melise Williams is definitely on frockwriter’s Ones 2 Watch list. We first spotted her in November 2008 in a student fashion show in Sydney when she was just 15. Clocked her February 2010 cover of NZ’s Metro magazine. And bumped into her at last month's Rosemount Australian Fashion Week – noting that she recently jumped ship from the Platform agency to Chic Management. Sadly Williams only did three RAFW shows - Gary Bigeni, Camilla and Therese Rawsthorne. Nicola Finetti was not one of them, however she did just score Finetti’s Spring/Summer 2010/2011 lookbook. Click here to see frockwriter’s preview of the lookbook on Posterous. Sixteen year-old Williams was also included in a series of promotional video interviews that were recently shot in Sydney to coincide with the launch of a new film called Tiger, a fictional story about models working in Tokyo.

Here's the trailer:



The film was produced by the Beaufort collective – which is fronted by the enigmatic, multitasking Sydney actor/producer/comedian and erstwhile model James McFay.

Also known as James Maclurcan, he is apparently best-known for playing Mackenzie 'Mack' Hartford, the Red Ranger, in Power Rangers: Operation Overdrive and was once part of a comedy group called The Nice Guys.

What does Williams have to do with Tiger or McFay/Maclurcan?

Absolutely no idea. But here she is:

RAFW SS1011 - The 15 year anniversary video

Park of the lineup at Wednesday night's Frock Stars launch was a retrospective video commemorating 15 years of Australia's biggest fashion kneesup - if not actually by size (with the title of Australia's biggest fashion event officially going to the biannual trade show Fashion Exposed) then certainly by media profile. The video has just gone online, courtesy of its author, Sydney filmmaker Melvin J. Montalban. Most of Australia's major runway faces are there, including the late, great Mark Keighery.