Cat gets the Tweety Bird

Since The Daily Telegraph published (this) image of Catherine McNeil at the annual Bondi Icebergs New Year's Day party, McNeil's usually supportive fan base has been in overdrive on the haterade. "Bogan" sniped one fan on McNeil's discussion thread on The Fashion Spot web forum. "She just needs to lay off the booze, the salt and sugar for a while is all" noted another. It wasn't the first time McNeil's new short black bob had seen the light of day - frockwriter first mentioned it in October - but together with a new facial piercing and the unflattering angle, shot while McNeil looked to be dancing with Daniella Rech, the photographer wife of expat Sydney show producer Kannon Rajah, it wasn't really the clearest image. Thanks to what is either McNeil's new Twitter feed, or else an elaborate fake using her happy snaps, here are a few other recent shots that demonstrate the new 'do, which has been cut shorter still - two featuring McNeil's great mate, Sydney model Stephanie Carta. 

all images: meowcatmccat

Inception via Twitter? Black nail polish-wearing ABC anchor dreams of Freddie Mercury duet

As the anchor of ABC’s prestigious late-night current affairs bulletin Lateline and the network’s former Washington and National Security correspondent, Walkley Award-winning Australian journalist and author Leigh Sales has covered some big stories. What’s her dream job? Noted Sales on Twitter this morning, “I had the coolest dream last night that I was playing a grand piano with Freddie Mercury. Real life seems a bit greyer today”. Now it's unclear if Sales has always been a Freddie Mercury fangurl - or just how well she was previously versed in Mercury’s pioneering efforts vis-à-vis the black nail polish beauty trend. Coincidentally, however, on August 23rd, two days after Sales played a key on air role during the ABC’s federal election coverage – wearing black nail polish - we Tweeted the following (tongue in cheek) observation: “top marks BTW go to abc #ausvotes anchor @leighsales for doing more for the visibility of black nail polish than freddie mercury on sat”. We know Sales spotted it, because she immediately replied via Twitter:  

“It was unexpected that I also ended up in a black suit. Didn't mean to look quite so emo”. 

Pushing our luck, we had the temerity to ask which brand? To which Sales responded:

“I don't know actually, whatever the nail place uses”.

Now Frockwriter has lost count of the number of stories broken on this blog, that have wound up in mainstream media outlets. Yesterday, The Australian Financial Review picked up the MJ Bale/P Johnson cartoon ad campaign fracas. And The Daily Telegraph today names Jasper Glavanics as the photographer whose eight year-old nude images of 18 year-old Miranda Kerr have been shopped around to the highest bidder - four days after frockwriter named him, while The Tele's own Sunday edition published two of Glavanics' Kerr images but withheld his name at his request.  


But inception via Twitter is getting a little ridiculous surely?


 
photoshop composite + captions: frockwriter. original abc screen cap: ruby goes/flickr

Miranda Kerr definitely hooked up with Balenciaga last week - and that's definitely not her Twitter account

The Balenciaga plot thickens. This morning frockwriter mentioned the mystery surrounding a new photo of Miranda Kerr. According to the @MirandaMayKerr Twitter account, it was just taken during a Balenciaga Resort collection shoot. Well Kerr's personal publicist, Carlii Lyon, who just spoke with Kerr in New York, tells frockwriter that the shot was definitely taken during a Balenciaga "event" in New York last week. What was Kerr doing there and why is the makeup she's wearing identical to that seen on Balenciaga's models in these photographs of the collection which were published on Style.com and wwd.com on June 9? Lyon said she was unable to elaborate on the nature of Kerr's involvement with the brand, other than to say she was definitely working with it in some capacity. Nor does Lyon - or indeed Kerr, she claims - know who took the photo. One thing Lyon could confirm was that @MirandaMayKerr is a fake account. Lyon said that she and Kerr are attempting to have it shut down - as they have done with several others. Lyon confirmed that @MirandaKerr is the only bona fide Miranda Kerr Twitter account. Unfortunately, it's not particularly active at the moment. Nor has it been verified with Twitter, which doesn't help. They're working on it, says Lyon.

Miranda's Balenciaga hat trick?

@mirandamkerr

Well that new "cardinal rule for models" (ie do not leak information from jobs on social media) might not apply to Miranda Kerr. In what is either an elaborate fake Twitter account ruse - or the real deal - "@MirandaMKerr" left several Twitter clues from the set of a "Balenciaga Resort" shoot yesterday. "Back from Balenciaga Resort, It was awesome moment. Always fun to work with talented people" they noted, before posting an autoportrait showing an interesting winged pink smokey eye beauty look - identical to that sported by Balenciaga's models in these images of the same collection that were published last week on Style.com. But is this in fact Miranda Kerr? The account has not yet been verified by Twitter and there have been fake Miranda Kerr accounts before. Frockwriter is checking with her agents in Sydney and New York. If it is a ruse, then at least one bona fide supermodel Twitterer has been sucked in by it - fellow Victoria's Secret model Selita Ebanks - whose Twitter account has been verified by Twitter - is following @MirandaMayKerr. See updated post: It's a fake Twitter account, but that's definitely Kerr at Balenciaga last week.

It seems like a lot of trouble and expense to go to for a lookbook. Campaign? If the photos do emerge, then they would represent the third consecutive Balenciaga gig for Kerr, who walked in the French brand's Spring/Summer 2010 and Fall/Winter 2010/2011 runway shows.

It would also be the latest coup in Kerr's quest to refashion herself from a purely "commercial" star of Victoria's Secret lingerie fame, to high fashion ice queen, a trajectory that has also seen her book campaigns for Prada and Jil Sander, walk for Prada and model for edgier publications such as French Numéro and Britain's i-D.

Frockwriter can't help thinking that this is definitely a two-way street, with some of those far less accessible high fashion brands hoping for some commercial ruboff in the prevailing challenging economic climate.

And the Walkley for new media douchebaggery apparently goes to... me

sassybella twitter

I was interested to spot this post from Clare Fletcher. Entitled, "Anti social media" it was about how much Fletcher had enjoyed last week's Portable/Refinery 29 presentation in Sydney - save for my extreme rudeness in Tweeting during the Q&A with the New York fashion site's co-founder Philippe von Borries and creative director Piera Gelardi. The Q&A that I myself was conducting. Now it's true, I do like a chat. I was constantly busted at school for talking, passing notes and being generally disruptive. I so abused the message system of John Fairfax's antediluvian computer network back in the 1980s that the message function was removed from my profile. Not once, but twice - after I discovered a way to send messages without it the first time. I've had a Mac and a fax machine for 21 years. A BlackBerry for five. A blog for four. And I have been on Twitter for three. During RAFW last year some took issue with my real-time Twitter coverage of the event, indignant that they were robbed of longform, more considered - and of course, 100% gratis - analysis. And yes I did Tweet during last week's Refinery 29 presentation. A fact that was apparently not lost on Fletcher, who writes:

"...it's a little off topic but the thing I was most struck by at the Refinery29 talk was the behaviour of the MC..... while she was interviewing Philip and Piera from Refinery29, she was tweeting.

I'm talking about breaking eye contact during an interview to tap away on a Blackberry. Now, I understand that her social media coverage would have given the event more attention that it might have recieved otherwise. I realise that her Twitter followers would have wanted to know her thoughts on the event as it unfolded. She was doing her job. But it just seemed quite rude. What is the etiquette here? Am I being old fashioned?"

I would just like to clarify a few points here.

The only Tweets dispatched during the presentation by yours truly covered a few key points made by von Borries and Gelardi during their addresses, which took approximately 50 minutes. While I was seated in the audience. As did other attendees.

I did not, however, Tweet during the Q&A itself. I was referring to a list of prepared questions on my BlackBerry.

At the very end, as we were wrapping up, I checked to see if there had been any responses to the earlier Tweets. I thought von Borries and Gelardi might find this feedback interesting. And retweeted several times was the following point made by von Borries:

"You can't do things the old way anymore".

Indeed.

Some people use a notebook on the public speaking podium. Others, cue cards. It's not considered rude if they break eye contact to refer to their notes and questions, so what's the big deal with a handheld?

Fletcher, FYI, is the assistant editor of The Walkley Magazine, which is published by the Walkley Foundation, a non profit dedicated to the promotion of excellence in Australian journalism and which administers the industry's leading annual awards, the Walkleys.