Sabatini's It girls

On Friday morning, Sabatini hosted a breakfast at Café Sydney to celebrate 20 years in business in Australia and preview the Spring/Summer 2011/2012 collection. Of course, the third generation New Zealand knitwear company is much older than that – 58 years to be precise (in September, frockwriter visited its headquarters in Auckland). A tightly-edited presentation of just 12 strong looks, with styling by Franco Schifilliti, this was Sabatini’s best ever show. Brother and sister Margi and Tony Milich now run the business, but great to see Margi’s daughter Danielle Evans-Milich, who had her own Milich & Morton label at one point, with more of a hands-on role these days. The showpieces in Friday's capsule collection included a knockout fringed silver cocktail dress with fishtail train which, although perhaps never intended for production, will wind up, we’ll wager, photographed by magazines and on special order. In what is a signal of the calibre of models we can expect this week in Sydney, the cast included Lauren Brown and Alice Burdeu, who recently returned from the northern hemisphere show circuit. Both Brown and Burdeu are among a group of models who were launched out of Sydney’s Priscillas agency and onto the world stage by former Priscillas booker Doll Wright. Wright moved to New York three years ago to work at Priscillas’ US affiliate Elite, but has just resigned from Elite. Although she’s not saying much right now, according to industry whispers Wright is heading to cashed-up competitor Ford – which recently poached Catherine McNeil from the Next agency. And word has it that McNeil might not be the only Australian model to be nabbed by Ford once Wright touches down there. 

Julia Nobis gets dark for Jac + Jack Autumn/Winter 2011

This time last year, not many people had heard of Julia Nobis. That was until her international runway debut at no less than Calvin Klein put her well and truly on the fashion map. In the intervening twelve months, the 18 year-old Sydneysider with the cool, Meryl Streep beauty has been quietly building an impressive body of work that has embraced runway turns for many other equally big names, campaigns for Proenza Schouler and Burberry Black and lookbooks for Prada and Alexander Wang. The current advertising face of Australian fast fashion brand Marcs, Nobis has just added a little luxury to her Oz portfolio. Photographed by Stephen Ward, here is a first look at Nobis in the Autumn/Winter 2011 campaign of Jac Hunt’s and Lisa 'Jack' Dempsey’s Sydney-based luxury knitwear label Jac + Jack. 

all images: supplied exclusively to frockwriter by stephen ward/jac & jack

Inside Sabatini

Frockwriter had always wanted to visit the head office of New Zealand knitwear brand Sabatini, which showed in a group show during New Zealand Fashion Week a fortnight ago. On this NZ trip we did finally made it out to the Mt Roskill factory, about 20 minutes outside of Auckland’s CBD. Founded 57 years ago by Croatian refugees Zarko and Sonja Milich as Sonny Elegant Knitwear Ltd, this third generation family-run knitwear business is unique in Australasia. From 1967, it was also one of the original partner’s of the International Wool Secretariat’s Woolmark program (and yes, they use Australian wool - most of New Zealand's clip goes into high quality carpets and rugs). Operated today by Zarko's and Sonja’s son and daughter Tony Milich and Margie Evans-Milich and granddaughters Anja Milich and Danielle Evans-Milich, Sabatini has been likened to Italy’s Missoni clan. It’s fascinating to see the beautiful jacquards being woven on equipment that includes some quite spectacular postwar machinery. The company’s stable of brands includes Sabatini and the highend Sabatini White, which is sold around the world. 

Click here to see frockwriter’s Posterous photogallery of images from the mini Sabatini White NZFW show plus those Kent and I took in and around the factory - including a shot of the first garment ever manufactured by the company in 1953, pictured above, which is framed in Tony's office. 

I would highly recommend any students interested in a rare insight into on-shore knitwear manufacturing to call requesting a go-see.

And I would also love to see this company do some one-off creative collaborations. Lots of fashion companies do them. Both parties benefit. And Areez Katki springs to mind here. The revelation of New Zealand Fashion Week 2009, this young, undercapitalised Auckland-based designer hand knits every last one of his garments. After the Huffer show on the closing night of New Zealand Fashion Week, he told me that he can’t supply any more than two boutiques. It would be interesting to see what just he and this great heritage brand might be able to cook up.

Models in a hurry - backstage at the Newgen show

 
Meant to get out to my seat for this show, but wound up getting caught backstage. Kent Vaughan and I shot from two different angles backstage, capturing a little of the split-second timing and drama that goes into getting the models out onto the runway in their next looks. This group show featured four new New Zealand names: Kathryn Leah Payne, Maaike, Céline Rita and Riddle Me This. The standouts were definitely Maaike, Emilie Pullar’s brilliant new knitwear label and  Kathryn Leah Payne, who designed all the acrylic jewellery that accompanied her collection. See frockwriter’s Posterous for more images.