Michelle Leslie used to be behind bars. Now she's designing them

sportsgirl melbourne launch 2008/zimbio

Frockwriter was interested to spot a recent series of Tweets from Michelle Leslie, who reports that on November 12, the doors opened to a new Sydney bar whose interiors she has designed: The Winking Lizard at 28 Chalmers Street, Surry Hills (below). With its stark refectory tables, old metal chairs and murals by Sydney artist Ben Frost, the ambiance is, according to Leslie, “industrial and distressed”. To our eye, it's a little Left Bank bohemian - not to be at all confused, of course, with Third World prison common room. Leslie has more than a passing acquaintance with the latter, having spent three months in Bali’s notorious Kerobokan Prison in 2005 following her arrest in the possession of two ecstasy tablets. Five years on from her annus horribilis, the former model has reinvented herself as a creative consultant. With interior design studies under her belt from the Sydney Design School - and entertainment/marketing industry work with Peer Group Media, the company founded by her fiance Adam Zammit - Leslie has launched her own interior design and styling business called Curious & The Specimen. This follows a first foray into design with the Miyow & Barkley pet clothing and accessories line, launched in 2007 with friend Traci Griffith, the first range of which reportedly sold out. 

the winking lizard via @_michelle_lee

Booked: Museyon's 'City Style' taps Sydney as a global fashion capital

Mitchell Oakley Smith isn’t the only Australian getting published by an international imprint. Paul Bui, former editor of Australia's longest-surviving indie fashion magazine, Oyster, now working as a freelance stylist and writer, has penned the Sydney chapter of the upcoming City Style: A Field Guide to Global Fashion Capitals. The book is being published in October by New York-based Museyon Guides, which commissioned hipsters in eight cities to write about their local haunts, hotspots and fashion creatives. Bui joins Tokyo-based Brit Dan Bailey from the Tokyo Dandy blog and New York-based Laia Garcia from Geometric Sleep and writers in Milan, London, Paris, LA and Stockholm. Designers profiled include Rad Hourani, Danielle Scutt and Australia’s Kit Willow. Interesting to see Sydney make the global fashion cities cut yet again, after popping up in the top 10 Fashion Capitals list published by Texas-based Global Language Monitor in both 2008 and 2009 (with the launch of the 2010 list imminent). 

The Gap is opening this month in Australia - it's just not sure where

American retail juggernaut The Gap is leading the fast fashion charge to Australia, opening its first store downunder this month. Spain's Zara is also en route, ditto Japan’s Uniqlo. But is the first Gap store due to open in Melbourne, as advertised - or Sydney? Looking at The Gap’s website (screen cap above - click to enlarge; tks to Guy Willis for the tip), you’d be forgiven for thinking the company hasn’t got a blinking clue which city is which. Behind the “Melbourne” sign on the left are three Sydney icons: the Opera House, Centrepoint Tower and what appears to be Aussie Stadium. Behind the "Sydney" sign on the right are three Melbourne icons: a green tram, the Arts Centre spire and what looks very much like the Docklands. To Gap’s credit it did get the correct Luna Park – that’s Melbourne's version on the left. And that appears to be a sliver of Melbourne's Flinders Street Station behind that. Unless, of course, it’s Sydney’s Queen Victoria Building. Could The Gap please sort itself out stat. We’re pretty laid back, us Aussies, but there is a minor difference of 1160kms between the two cities.