Liv life

thom kerr

Whatever happened to Olivia O’Driscoll? In 2008, at age 17, she emerged as one of New Zealand’s most promising modelling newcomers. Repped internationally by IMG, she walked in four Paris haute couture shows in July that year, before flying to to Milan on an exclusive option for the Spring/Summer 2009 Prada and Miu Miu shows. While those gigs never eventuated, she nevertheless shot editorial for French Elle, German Vogue, Japanese RUSSH, Wallpaper, AnOther Magazine, US Teen Vogue and Italy’s Amica. Only to suddenly drop out of the business, sparking various rumours. In spite of the fact that New Zealand has the second-highest rate of teenage pregnancies in the developed world, a pregnancy was not among these whispers. But a baby daughter, Hara Lea O’Driscoll, arrived a day after O'Driscoll's 20th birthday in December 2010. Now as a single mum, with new management back home in Auckland (Red Eleven/MHI) and Sydney (Chadwick) - and as “Liv” O’Driscoll, as she prefers to be known these days - she is attempting a comeback. She joins models Jourdan Dunn, Arizona Muse, Natalia Vodianova and Australia’s Cassi van den Dungen, all of whom took time out under the age of 20 to have children. Herewith an exclusive preview of some new test shots by Australian photographer Thom Kerr.

photography: thom kerr
styling: james dykes
makeup: stacy lee ghin
hair: lauren mccowan
fashion: alex perry
shot at kingsize studios, auckland

Krystal Glynn for Zambesi Spring/Summer 2011/2012, designers line up for NZFW

We mentioned that new Australian face Krystal Glynn had recently shot the Spring/Summer 2011/2012 advertising campaign for New Zealand brand Zambesi. Above and below is a first look at the campaign, which stars Glynn alongside Kiwis Josh Skelton and David Kemp and was lensed by Marissa Findlay (makeup by Amber D for MAC, hair by Jason Chong Li for Stephen Marr). Expect to see Glynn front and centre at Zambesi's runway show at the upcoming New Zealand Fashion Week, which runs from August 29th to September 2nd at brand new digs, the Viaduct Events Centre. Zambesi is one of nearly 60 brands that NZFW organisers announced earlier this week would be joining their Autumn/Winter 2012 showcase. Other headliners: World (which frockwriter hears is closing the event), Trelise Cooper, Helen Cherry and Workshop Denim, Jimmy D, Stolen Girlfriends Club and Miranda Brown. Solo debuts include newcomers Celine Rita, Ingrid Starnes and Whiri. Hats off to the resilience of two Christchurch-based labels that are joining this year's lineup: the very well-established luxury eco label Untouched World and newbie MisterR, whose Christchurch store was destroyed during February 22nd's devastating earthquake which claimed 182 lives.  

photography: marissa findlay
hair: jason ching li for stephen marr
makeup: amber D for MAC


all images: supplied to frockwriter by zambesi

Kate Sylvester's mothwoman prophecies

Inspired by moths and motocross, Kate Sylvester’s Spring/Summer 2011/2012 collection is called ‘Into the light’. Due to the awkward lighting of her show at the Newmarket saleyard in Randwick last night, however, ironically many have complained that didn’t get to see it. In an uncharacteristically abrasive spray, even Vogue Australia’s Damien Woolnough complained today, “If I want to sit in a dark room filled with smoke I'll visit the share house of my university friends”. Frockwriter stayed backstage for the duration and had a much better view. It was a fantastic, if macabre, collection, with two motifs at its centrifuge: moth markings, which included a full death’s head moth motif used on T-shirts; and then a flame graphic, which doubled up on the revhead theme, as seen on coats, dresses and several fantastic sheer jumpsuits, shown with the tops worn both up and down – on the latter occasion, teamed with a lacy brassiere. 

There was a score of military-nosed city shorts, teamed with silky knit tops and sporty zippered bomber cardis and many quite beautiful silk georgette and lace dresses in a smokey palette that was occasionally popped with daffodil, turquoise and kelly green. Some dresses were festooned with floral applique, while others featured destroyed ‘moth’ holes.

Given that these sorts of technical issues tend not to happen at the RAFW HQ at Circular Quay, it will be interesting to see if the New Zealander rethinks her decision to show off-site in Australia in future. 

In three months, Sylvester’s fans will get a chance to see her stage another show – when she rejoins the New Zealand Fashion Week schedule after a one year hiatus.  

Emily Baker, the girl who would be queen

After an unknown 17 year-old Kiwi called Emily Baker emerged at New York Fashion Week, we mentioned that New Zealand had a potential new superstar on its hands. Modelling for just six months, Baker, who hails from Matamata on NZ's north island, certainly grabbed the attention of New York casting directors, who placed her in the week's top shows. Not to mention that of modelling authority models.com, which makes a Top 10 New Faces list every season and dedicated its first slot for Fall/Winter 2011/2012 to Baker. At the conclusion of the season, in which she walked 60 shows, including almost every major name, some believe Baker could be fashion's Next Big Thing. Here's what MDC's editorial director Wayne Sterling told frockwriter, regarding this season's rush of Australasian models - with downunder, according to Sterling, emerging as a top 3 casting market after Russia and Holland. Noted Sterling, "As an editor though I think a great model transcends any trend. My training is not to fixate on a group of girls but to home in on an extraordinary new face with long distance potential. For me the girl poised to nab everything is Emily Baker. In the modeling sweepstakes she is THE sensation. There is a reason why she nabbed the first Top 10 newcomer slot. She is... rare, rare rare".

all images: style.com FW1112 collections
1/ marc jacobs
2/ valentino
3/ céline
4/ miu miu
5/ prada
6/ versace
7/ balenciaga
8/ calvin klein
9/ fendi
10/ chanel

ANZAC day at Marc Jacobs

Frockwriter mentioned that a larger-than-usual contingent of Australian models was heading to New York Fashion Week this season. And that after day one, some of them were off to a cracking start. We have previously talked about upwardly-mobile New Zealand faces, notably Jessica Clarke, who was spotted by a Calvin Klein rep in Sydney two years ago and then in September 2010, walked a Calvin Klein Collection exclusive in New York. Another Kiwi has just emerged from left-of-field to become one of the most buzzed-about models of the season: Emily Baker. Modelling for just six months, Baker has a smouldering, sunkissed beauty that is reminiscent of 1970s American modelling icons Cheryl Tiegs and Patti Hansen, blended with a little modern Lara Stone moxie. This morning Baker added Marc Jacobs to her bulging top show list. And she was joined by three upwardly mobile Australians: Julia Nobis, now in her third international season after her own Calvin Klein exclusive this time last year and Codie Young and Dempsey Stewart, both of whom are working in New York for the first time. You could say the antipodians are having a bumper season. And waiting in the wings behind them on some interesting options are several other new Aussie girls... 

Boutiques.com: Downunder's biggest fashion blogger buddies up with Google

gala darling

The countdown is on to tonight’s unveiling of Google’s new Boutiques.com fashion portal. After revealing the name and details of the site’s looks-matching technology, frockwriter thought we would hone in on one last, local, element: New York-based Kiwi Gala Darling. Frequently cited as one of the world’s most influential fashion/personal style bloggers - who calls her blog "The playgirl's guide to radical self love” and claims it boasts close to a million individual page views per month - Darling is one of a dozen fashion bloggers invited by Google to curate their own virtual fashion boutiques. Update 18/11: Now launched. Click (here) to check out her boutique and see who else is involved. Not bad for a magenta haired, tutu-rocking, tatt-emblazoned self-help dilettante, who launched into the blogosphere in December 2006 with a post entitled “Fashion help for recovering Goths”. Those in her native Wellington might know her better as Amy Paape. Reportedly a graduate of that city’s Chilton St James and Samuel Marsden Collegiate Schools, she moved to Melbourne in 2006, legally changed her name that year, then decamped to New York in 2008. Retail, as it happens, runs in the Paape family. Darling’s mother, Janet Paape, operates a Lower Hutt fashion boutique called She Designer Excitement, while her Porsche-racing uncle, Digby Paape, sells highend audio equipment at Bose Wellington. 

Darling is far and away the most successful fashion blogger to emerge from Australasia. 

Not surprisingly perhaps, she has attracted plenty of haters along the way. Their biggest beef? Just how she earns her income.

A backlash began in 2008, after a series of blog profiles on her attracted a large volume of negative commentary. The more charitable observations slammed her as “shallow, selfish and a user”, “a FRAUD” who “lives off her parents money”, “a spoiled rich hypocrite” and “a trust fund ditz”.

Darling has responded by saying she is entirely self-funded. 

gala darling

No doubt it is difficult for some to grasp just how much money successful fashion bloggers and other online personalities are currently able to command.

The higher the traffic, of course, the higher the ad revenue. However advertising is just one facet of their revenue streams.
 
Darling started selling podcasts in March 2009. The series is called Love & Sequins and costs US$12 per podcast, including a 10,000-word transcript. Darling told the Evolving Influence fashion blogging conference at New York Fashion Week in September this year that at the time she launched the series, podcasting began generating more income than any other blogging-related activity she had previously undertaken. 

Darling also does commercial collaborations. On her blog, she discloses that in 2010 alone, she has worked with Estee Lauder, Juicy Couture, Coach, JC Penney, Ralph Lauren and Jeff Silverman - last month, unveiling a shoe she designed for the latter manufacturer. Here she is in the Coach Christmas campaign:





Then there are public speaking and appearance fees. Frockwriter has heard of day rates starting at US$2,500 and going as high as US$15-20,000 being offered to some of fashion's new media-specialist high profilers in various markets around the world.

As one of Boutiques.com's invited blogger curators, Gala Darling may be earning, we understand, a one off (low) five figure fee. 

Suck it up, haters. Then shop her look. 


 

World's spot of bother in Woollahra

Those kooky kids over at World have come to blows with Woollahra Council, which apparently doesn't have much of a sense of humour. The Auckland-based fashion brand, which bills itself as a “factory of ideas and experiments” (the dress, below, is from their AW10 collection) and operates eight stores in NZ and Sydney, has come to the attention of the council regarding a paint job that was recently given to its Paddington, Sydney store. As it emerges, multi-coloured polka dots are illegal in Sydney's trendiest shopping strip. In a letter dated May 17th, Craig Jenner, Woollahra Municipal Council’s Team Leader – Compliance, gave World’s landlord 28 days to nix them.


both images/world

Here are a few terms of the order:

1. Restore the subject premises to the condition in which they were before work was unlawfully carried out by:

(a) Removing from the shop window the multi-coloured polka dots and:

(b) Painting the walls to the façade of the shop in a uniform colour, to remove the unauthorised multi-coloured polka dots that have been painted onto the front façade of the shop adjacent to Glenmore Road.

The letter goes on to say:

1. Condition 9 of development consent DA625/2004 requires the exterior colour scheme for the subject premises to accord with the requirements of Part 5.2.9. of the Paddington Development Control Plan 1999.

4. Council is satisfied that the multi-coloured polka dots displayed on the window and wall surfaces of the building are an advertisement. “Advertisement” is defined in Woollahra Local Environmental Plan 1995 as “a display by the use of colour, pattern, symbols…for promotional purposes… whether or not the display includes the erection of a structure of the carrying out of work”.

6. The advertisement does not satisfy the exempt development criteria for a flush wall sign or a window shop front sign, or the criteria for advertising in Heritage Conservation Areas, as specified in Woollahra Development Control Plan Exempt & Complying Development 2005.

It is not the first time that the council has taken issue with a fashion retailer in this vicinity.

In 2004, Woollahra Council deputy mayor Keri Huxley described the green used by World’s neighbour, Scanlan & Theodore, for its new Sydney flagship on the corner of Oxford Street and Glenmore Road, as a "hideous" and "particularly disgusting colour".

Huxley was unable to veto the colour however, because it was included in the building's development approval.

World's response?

“We are outraged the council is so ignorant and lazy!” World director Francis Hooper told frockwriter.

“If they just took the time to ask us why?! World wanted to make a statement for the season, to bring colourful cheer to the neighbourhood, to take away the doom and gloom and recession fever that has gripped the city. All the locals love it! We have become a mini tourist attraction. We have only had positives from everyone. Even our landlord has commended us on uplifting the area. It’s obvious this wonderful spotty art is just a temporary installation. Trust the council to bully a small business out of business. Arse holes!”

The bloggers of RAFW Part 1: Aych blog's Hannah McArdle

For those who followed my RAFW coverage on Twitter, this particular video will be a repeat: a quick chat with Auckland’s Hannah McArdle of Aych Blog. It was part of a short series of blogger interviews I shot at last week's event. Given that it only went on frockwriter’s Posterous feed (where it has nevertheless been viewed over 650 times), I wanted to blog the bloggers of RAFW series in order here, so voilà.