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. 

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.

New Zealand Fashion Week (the rest)

jimmy D AW11 backstage/kent vaughan

Apologies for the delay in posting the remainder of the New Zealand Fashion Week coverage. Returned to Australia and have been otherwise occupied. So here is a series of last posts with a few bits and pieces. Just a reminder once again that frockwriter attended the event as the guest of New Zealand Fashion Week. An enormous thank-you to my partner Kent Vaughan – who provided brilliant photo backup this year, both at the shows I attended and notably, those I could not, while attending to all the backend management (and who nailed some absolute cracker shots). Thank-you also to New Zealand Fashion Week, for the very kind invitation once again, PR Anna Jobsz and our minder Tim Holmberg, lovely guy. I did a brief wrapup post of the event for Pages Digital, which you can read here. To see frockwriter’s complete coverage of the event, click on the “New Zealand Fashion Week” tag below or use the search box to the right-hand side (the new NZFW splash will also hyperlink through). There are shows covered on frockwriter's Posterous which were not reviewed on the blog. It was just too difficult to get to everything and on occasions, eg Huffer, which we did attend – a great little show and a fab way to end the week – we simply ran out of time unfortunately. Along with all the main shows already covered, new to Posterous are galleries for Huffer, Jimmy D, the NZFW retrospective show, Miramoda, Blak Luxe, Annah Stretton, Sabatini White, Kathryn Wilson and Michelle Yvette.