The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2010

manik mercian for victoria's secret/getty via daylife

The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show 2010 screened in the US on Tuesday night. Predictably, it did not take long to wind up on YouTube. Here is the entire show, below, which frockwriter noted last month did not include a single Australian model for the first time in four years. Several Australians were, however, involved in the show. For the sixth consecutive year, Sydney jeweller Jenny Mercian created some spectacular showpieces, including this fringed corset, above. And New York-based Sydney expat casting director and show producer Kannon Rajah can be seen in numerous shots sending the models out onto the runway. 

Victoria's Secret gives Australian models the cold shoulder

manik mercian for victoria's secret/getty via daylife

Since Miranda Kerr first touched down in the multimillion dollar extravaganza that is the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show in 2006, there has been a steady trickle of Australian faces onto its runway. In 2008, Kerr was joined by Abbey Lee Kershaw and Sarah Stephens. Last year, the Aussie VS triumvirate was comprised of Kerr, Kershaw and Elyse Taylor. No surprise that at seven months pregnant, Kerr is out of action at this year’s event. But what is perhaps surprising is that there are no other Australian models in this year’s show – the first taping of which has just occurred in New York, with another show imminent. Not even Kershaw, who is ranked by models.com as the world number five and who some believed was locked in. Frockwriter can confirm that Kershaw did not do the show. Her Sydney and New York agencies have been unusually quiet on matters VS in the leadup to this year's event - and given that all the Australians in the show to date have been from their stable, that's understandable. All Chic Management would say this morning was that Kershaw was "very busy" with other matters.

According to our casting sources, Elyse Taylor, Jessica Hart and newcomer Rosemary Smith all made it through to the final casting call.

But that still leaves a slew of other Australians working on the show, notably in show production and casting, Kannon Rajah and of course jeweller Jenny Mercian, who has worked on the show for the past six years - and who designs under the brand name Manik Mercian.

Mercian took with her to New York four spectacular new Swarovski crystal “showstoppers” worth approximately A$100,000 each that were created for this year's show, in addition to a selection of other jewellery, including pieces from her Sahani ready-to-wear line. 

Three of her showpieces are pictured here in images 1 to 5 from the top of this page, including the black crystal-encrusted skirt, one-shouldered shrug and gladiatrix-like cuff pictured on Candice Swanepoel, (top, with two different views, below). “I have honed in my patternmaking skills learnt at uni, one look I’ve completely sewn and solded - it involves fabrics and jewels” Mercian told me two weeks ago.  

Kerr is not the only contracted Victoria's Secret Angel on maternity leave – so is Doutzen Kroes. 

The show starred the other remaining Angels, including Alessandra Ambrosio, Adriana Lima, Chanel Iman, Lily Aldridge, Rose Huntington-Whitely, Swanepoel and Erin Heatherton. Joining them was a cast of headliners who included Lily Donaldson, Magdalena Frackowiak, Anja Rubik, Liu Wen and Karolina Kurkova. The models shared the runway with performers Katy Perry and Akon.

And yes of course, the models - and even Perry - wore the show's signature OTT outfits, including various sets of angel wings, all styled by Charlotte Stockdale – who also has Australian connections, being the wife of Australian industrial designer Marc Newson. 

The show will be broadcast on CBS on November 30.

manik mercian for victoria's secret/getty via daylife

manik mercian for victoria's secret/getty via daylife

manik mercian for victoria's secret/getty via daylife

manik mercian for victoria's secret/getty via daylife

all images: getty via daylife

Did the then "almost unemployed" Lara Stone neglect to stitch up a nude Greg Lotus photoshoot in 2008?

celebrity69  via fashionising

Last week frockwriter revealed that the spectacular onyx and crystal corset and cuff worn by Lara Stone in the June edition of Playboy France were originally designed by Australian jeweller Jenny Mercian for the 2008 Victoria's Secret show. We also noted that some mystery surrounded the origin of the photos. Although some images had already been widely circulated online in late 2009, with only the website of photographer Greg Lotus cited as a source, it appeared to be the first time the shots had made it to print. Now comes news that Stone is is taking legal action against both Playboy France and Lotus, in order to "protect" her "reputation", claiming the publication of the shots was unauthorised and that she would never have posed for Playboy. Given the volume of nude work that Stone has pumped into the public domain in recent years, the claim that her reputation has been sullied by a nude Playboy spread seems a little frivolous. The far bigger issues, surely, are did Stone not have the right to consultation before the photos were sold to Playboy and is she entitled to remuneration?  

One clue to the timing of the photoshoot is Stone’s strapped ankle, which some have made light of, assuming it may have been a styling accessory (along with the wheelchair which appears in some shots).

If frockwriter is not mistaken, the images were taken some time after the 2008 Victoria’s Secret show, on November 15 2008, when the corset was worn by Selita Ebanks -  and the publication of several other photos of Stone with her ankled strapped shortly afterwards, reportedly after falling off a pair of killer Rodarte heels (possibly these) at a W photoshoot.

Just a reminder that although Stone is now ranked as the world number one editorial/advertising/runway model by models.com, in late 2008 it was a different matter.

Pivotal to Stone’s meteoric rise in 2009 was the publication, in February last year, of a virtual Lara Stone issue of Paris Vogue. With the cover line, “Et Vogue Créa Lara” ("And Vogue Created Lara" - a play on Roger Vadim’s 1956 classic, And God Created Woman, starring Brigitte Bardot).

When asked why she decided to dedicate 100 pages of editorial to the Dutch model, Paris Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld told Hintmag.com in late 2008:

“Lara had almost stopped working so I decided I wanted to make her a star”.

She might well have been in the 2008 VS show, but is it possible that the then much less high profile Stone did an edgy magazine submission with a mate, thinking it might help boost her profile - and either she, or her agent/s, neglected to formalise the terms of the arrangement with Lotus? 

With Stone now at the very the top of the industry, commanding top dollar via lucrative advertising deals - such as a triple exclusive with Calvin Klein - quite obviously her image is far more valuable in 2010 than it was in 2008. Lotus was probably paid handsomely for the shots - although a lot less, presumably, than Playboy would have had to pay Stone to pose for them.

According to leading IP specialist Stephen Stern, from Melbourne's Corrs Chambers Westgarth, the go-to IP rep for LVMH and many luxury brands in Australia, provided that Lotus was working independently at the time the photographs were taken – and was not employed by another company – then the copyright most likely belongs to him.

“Unless there was a contract of some form – even oral – restricting the use of the photographs, the photographer could use them as he sees fit” Stern told frockwriter.

“But there is no one international law on ownership of copyright. It depends in which country the photos were taken - or where you want to stop the publication. Some countries do have rights of publicity (ie of public figures) that exist independently of copyright law. Everything depends on what was agreed or could reasonably be implied in the agreement between Lara Stone and the photographer. And lastly, any damages that she could claim, if there are in fact numerous nude photos of her in circulation, if the (Playboy) photos were obscene then there may be reputational issues. If they are simply like other naked photos of her, then her loss might well be what she could charge to have those photos published”.

Jenny Mercian dresses Lara Stone for French Playboy

celebrity69 via fashionising

Jenny Mercian has made a career out of bejewelling bombshells. Since she first set foot on the fashion stage in May 2005, displaying her spectacular crystal body jewellery at a trade show stand at Australian Fashion Week, the Sydney-based jeweller has been a principal supplier to five Victoria’s Secret Fashion Shows, outfitting the likes of Gisele Bundchen, Heidi Klum, Tyra Banks and Alessandra Ambrosio in increasingly elaborate showpieces (and on Friday, winning the Catwalk Jewels of the Year Award at the UK Jewellery Awards for her runway efforts). Well now Mercian can add Lara Stone to that list. In the June/July issue of Playboy France, the world number one wears Mercian’s dramatic onyx/crystal corset and cuff – and not much else (NSFW). Here is a clearer image of the cuff, below, although it must be said, it’s not one of Stone’s better shots.

celebrity69 via fashionising

The story, entitled “Lara Stone is my drug”, was shot by Greg Lotus last year, although it’s unclear if the images have previously been published in print.

Numerous websites picked the images up last December, including Fashion Gone Rogue, with only the Greg Lotus website cited as a source. In any event, Playboy includes several other apparently unseen images from the same series.

The pieces were originally made for the 2008 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show and were worn by Selita Ebanks:

zimbio

Lara Stone was in that VS show, but did not wear any of Mercian’s jewellery. 

The jewellery worn by Stone in Playboy came via the London headquarters of Mercian's sponsor Swarovski, which holds some of her jewellery and loans it out for various shoots. 

And it obviously gets around - because here are the same pieces in the background of Mercian's Sydney studio in this Today Tonight story which ran in December. 

"I got it FedExed in and out for the TT story as it's my favourite piece" she told frockwriter.

Mercian's jewellery isn't the only Australian connection to Playboy France. 

Australian model Tiah Eckhardt who, coincidentally, has just replaced Stone as the face of French lingerie brand Eres, appeared in Playboy France in December 2008. 

Sylvie Markovina gets a hand from Kim Kardashian

@kimkardashian


Yes we know about the potential power of celebrity when it comes to shifting product and how proactive many publicists are in getting product to celebs. That's no guarantee they will wear it - especially if the only inducement is free product. We also know Australia is producing some stellar jewellers, led by Jenny ‘Victoria’s Secret’ Mercian, Michelle Jank and Sarina Suriano. Well supremely talented, but little-known Australian jeweller Sylvie Markovina (who frockwriter first met in 2005 at the Mercedes Benz Startup competition) just received a massive PR shot in the arm courtesy Kim Kardashian. On June 6, Kardashian Tweeted two images of herself in Markovina's Art Deco-look, fluted brass 'Laneway' rings, together with the captions “What do u guys think about my rings? U like? Dope right” and “A close up! Kind of Edward Scissor hands [sic] style!”. The photos have been viewed almost 300,000 times on Twitter.

Markovina’s New York-based publicist/showroom, Melt Management, then got the story into US Weekly, which conducted an online poll “Would you wear Kim Kardashian’s wacky jewellery?”.


@kimkardashian

Melt Management's Courtney Porkolab tells frockwriter that high profile fashion stylist Karl Templar recently borrowed some of Markovina’s jewellery for a Vogue Italia shoot with Steven Meisel. Not everything that gets called in for photoshoots makes it into magazines of course, so let’s wait and see what comes of that. Melt also claims UK retailer Kabiri recently placed a US$13,000 order of Markovina's jewellery.

How did Kardashian get the merch in the first place? Via Rosemount Australian Fashion Week.

A Melt Management team travelled to last month’s event, spotted Markovina’s jewellery in Sydney, signed her and then, she reports, later forwarded a lookbook to Kardashian’s stylist.

The stylist requested some jewellery, so Melt gifted six pieces to Kardashian.

It should be noted that RAFW was also the launchpad for Jank, Suriano and Mercian. So evidently, it's not just the frocks that benefit from the publicity.

Two newer, equally bold jewellery brands to emerge at the event are Maniamania, which was first showcased in last year's Zimmermann show and Alexandra Blak, whose spectacular Lucite earrings were the key accessory featured in last month's Spring/Summer 2010/2011 Manning Cartel show.

Jewel citizenship: Jenny Mercian rocks Victoria's Secret

Here is another of the (numerous) posts that I have not had a chance to put up since going back to fulltime work in October. Given that yesterday was Australia Day here, this one seemed more than appropriate: another Today Tonight story which aired in late November, immediately after the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show was taped in New York. Modelwatchers will obviously be more than familiar with the Australian girls in the VS show, from Miranda Kerr to Abbey Lee Kershaw and this year, Elyse Taylor. Frockwriter has also previously mentioned Sydney expat casting director/show producer Kannon Rajah, who has worked on the show for several years. One name with which you may not be familiar is Jenny Mercian, a Sydney jeweller who has worked on the show for the past five years.

I wrote about Jenny when she first showed up at Australian Fashion Week 2005, on the occasion of her first VS show and elsewhere. So this was a good opportunity to do the tv version (which I produced).

Hit up the player (above) to see the TT story.

Here are also some images from Jenny's more accessible new diffusion line Sahani - and the complete Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, in case you missed it when it aired on December 3.