Abbey Lee Kershaw's bling mania

We know Abbey Lee Kershaw loves her bling. When not being glamoured by some of the biggest names in the fashion business on front covers and in campaigns, editorials and runway shows, the boho mufti uniform of modelling's gypsy-esque world number five usually embraces a nose ring and an eclectic variety of oversized rings on almost every finger. No surprise then that Kershaw has found a kindred spirit in cult Sydney-based jewellery brand ManiaMania, the brainchild of Tamila Purvis and Melanie Kamsler. As frockwriter can reveal, having starred in ManiaMania's Spring/Summer 2011 campaign 'Rêve', Kershaw will also be the muse of ManiaMania's upcoming  Spring/Summer 2012 collection, 'The Third Mind'. Here is an exclusive behind-the-scenes image from the recent campaign shoot with photographer Elle Muliarchyk.  

The collection is inspired by the 1978 book of the same name by American counterculture icon William S. Burroughs and multidisciplinary artist Brion Gysin, in addition to the work of American avant-garde filmmakers Kenneth Anger and Maya Deren, French/Cuban author Anaïs Nin (who appeared in Deren’s Ritual In Transfigured Time in 1946 and Anger’s Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome in 1954) and the surrealism which underpinned their collective work. 

French writer/poet André Breton, one of Surrealism’s co-founders, also gets a lookin. In a press release, ManiaMania promises “cult artefacts”; a ‘Manifesto’ ring and cuff (after Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto); a pierced ‘Anais’ cuff, ring and pendant; ‘The Pleasure Dome’ ear cuff and a 'kaleidoscope' necklace called ‘The Third Mind’ - all rendered in metal alloy, brass, sterling silver, pyrite crystal stone, amethyst and tourmalinated quartz. Trippy in other words. And right up Kershaw's alley.

The ManiaMania campaign is of course over and above whichever yet-to-be-revealed big bucks northern hemisphere campaigns come Kershaw's way for the Fall/Winter 2011/2012 season. So far the latter reportedly include Gucci (since confirmed by sources close to Kershaw).

behind the scenes image: supplied exclusively to frockwriter by maniamania

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. 

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.