Good Morning Big City

I have woken up. I am in Sydney, the sun is shining, the birds aren't tweeting but the streets are definitely bustling. My lovely hotel is situated smack in the middle of town, giving me a great view of people meandering through Hyde Park. This is what is out my window:


Great I have a bathroom

I'm still chuckling with excitement over the BEAUTIFUL clothes that Kilt have lent me, there are so many and they are oh so slinky. Here are a few of them on their hangers:

It's going to be very hard to hand back the black embellished tunic - very covetable.

The invites are arriving and they have really made my day - receiving shiny bits of paper and intricately printed card in the post is bound to make anyone feel special:

I'm off to forage the streets for real coffee - mustn't miss my Sunday ritual of newspaper and caffeine just because I'm somewhere new... I wonder if their Sunday paper has a Shoe of the Week?

So I'm going here...

(Sydney)

... to see this:
(Australian Fashion Week)


...I'm wearing clothes by these guys:
(Blak clothing)


...I'm staying here:
(Central Park Hotel)


...On behalf of this:
(Lucire magazine)



THANKS EVERYBODY!
(anyone wanna come too?)

They love us over there, they do

You know you're hot when the fashion bloggers get into you - Rumi from Fashion Toast has been raving about Stolen Girlfriends Club, and New Zealand designers in general. Check out the post where she wears a SGC ripped dress:





http://www.fashiontoast.com/2009/04/i-dont-mind-you-under-my-skin.html


Considering her mass following, anyone wanting free publicity to thousands of young wealthy fashionistas should be sending their samples her way, by the looks of it she happily accepts freebies - and blogs about them too!

Image: Stolen Girlfriends Club

Fashion Crash-test Dummy - midriff bares all

This isn't Zara Mirkin. This is Rumi from Fashion Toast

This is Zara Mirkin

Thanks to Zara Mirkin, belly baring is back. With fashions’ current obsession with the eighties, it was bound to happen sometime soon. While Zara has been hanging about with her belly out for a while now, this is a look that we are expecting to explode onto the streets come summer 09/10.

The last time we saw a bit of mid-section flesh flashing was when jeans had low waists – wow remember that? All those seasons ago when the phrase “muffin top” was commonly used. The current tummy trend however, is of a different variety. This time round the trousers are higher, and the cropped tops are generally worn loose. It’s a difficult look, and one that has to be pulled off with attitude and abs of steel. I don’t have abs of steel, but attitude is something I can do.

I attempted a dress rehearsal of the cropped top after getting inspired by some of the American fashion bloggers. Lucky for them it is spring over there at the moment. The great thing about this look is that you don’t have to buy it – in fact the coolest looking crop tops are made from grotty old cottons. I stood in my plain white singlet (an old goody from Jay Jays if you must know) in front of the mirror and gleefully hacked at it with scissors. It was very liberating to slice at something with such reckless abandon, it felt like being a teenage punk again.

Feeling brash, I pulled on a pair of until then never worn high waisted red skinny jeans, and, with attitude in mind added my sky high bogan ankle boots with studded harnesses attached. I went out. I was cold but I felt hot. I got a lot of stares and a lot of comments. I also got tired stomach muscles from sucking it in all the time. Does Zara get a sore tum I wonder? Or does she just give up worrying and let it all out? I should interview her and ask.

I’m a bit hooked on my white rag of cropped cotton now; tomorrow I’ll be trying it with high waisted skirts. Stuff winter, I’ll just wear tights.

Su-gah

I have what I suspect to be a sugar hangover. Granted, I was drinking the night before, but not enough to warrant feeling this lousy. And it’s a different sort of lousy than your usual “my guts are churning my head is throbbing” type that is the aftermath of a serious night on the juice. This sort of lousy is – well, just gross. In fact it’s possibly worse than the R18 variety. This is serious R8 stuff, the last time I remember having a sugar hangover was after one of the regular pre-teen sweet laden sleepovers we used to have.

My sugar hangover arose from a night on the town with the girls (grown up now). After a bottle of champagne or two my stomach and I realised I had missed dinner, so we grabbed an emergency bubble tea. For those of you who haven’t discovered bubble tea yet, it is a must try for anyone interested in a strange Asian textural experience. Now the problem with bubble tea – or should I say the brilliance – is the cup sizing in that the end comes too soon, leaving you wanting more. So after a few more bars I found myself wandering home past the bubble tea shop again. And so again I went in. They looked at me very strangely in there, having seen me just a few brief hours earlier. The second bubble tea never tastes as good as the first, and halfway through the second you are feeling slightly ill, the precious pearls at the bottom have lost their lustre and are not nearly as precious or appetising as they used to be. By the time you get three quarters down you’re battling, the pearls reveal themselves as the stodgy mess they are, and the sweet milky flavour cloys the throat.

Feeling full of regret I sodded off to bed, only to wake this morning with more feelings of regret – in my head, gut, and depleted energy levels. I feel like a limp carrot – you know the one that’s in the back of your vegetable drawer? My skin is much like a limp carrot too, grey, dry and slightly wrinkly on the surface. Fast tracking my memory back I try to recount how I coped in those pre-teen days. I seem to recall that the “day after” was always spent much like it is these adult days, flat on my back on the couch recovering. While couches are lovely, I have decided a detox will be instigated to flush my poor body from those sugary bubble tea toxins – vegetables, fruit and herbal tea will be the order of the day, and lots and lots of water. I’m definitely not about to overdose on sugar again in a hurry, I’ll stick to the other hangovers thanks.


Image from agapetea

Child Fashion Prodigy?

Check out Tavi, the new girl in town. A twelve year old American fashion blogger with an opinion and insight to rival Anna Wintour. You must see it to believe it, she is truly amazing. Never in my life did I expect to be getting style advice from a pre-teen, let alone be completely in awe of her! Add her to your favourites - this girl is going places.

Just a sneak peek - this is an extract from her latest video piece: Bold!

"Balmain is a look. I'm sorry - it's not much more than that. We understand that you are very chic, and you are fun, and the people that wear your clothes like partying, but you can't do the 80s four seasons in a row unless you are making all of them different. If you put Christpoher Decarnins past 3 seasons next to each other and mixed up all the looks, they would all look the same. I just don't get anything new from him."

http://tavi-thenewgirlintown.blogspot.com

Richard the Great

On the eve of the Southern Trust iD Dunedin Fashion Show, I spoke to celebrity hairstylist Richard Kavanagh, Redken lead stylist at iD Dunedin.

As I arrive for our interview, Richard the Great is on his knees on the floor of his hotel room, surrounded by images of models in various stages of hair-do. He is constructing detailed instruction sheets for his Redken hair team on how to create each look for the iD fashion show tomorrow night. He scrambles up grinning, hair artfully scraggled, his famous tattoos poking out the sleeves of his rolled up shirt. We settle into his hotel lounge for our chat.

What sort of looks are you creating for the show?
In years gone by we have always done a different look for every designer, but we have simplified the whole process this year. We are working with four key looks, and three model groups. We have quite an androgynous feel for one of the groups in which the hair is matte and cottony in texture. It is very pared back so that the clothes can come forward. The second look we have a romantic bohemian feel, slightly dishevelled. Again, we are paring the hair back to push the clothes forward. The third look we have is really cute, we make a French plait which starts on one side behind the ear and runs across the side of the head, but it’s really loose, with bits falling out of it. So it’s a soft romantic look. The fourth look is done with the girls who have had their hair pinned up; we will take it down during the interval and brush them out into a mass of curls.

Two of the looks are looks that I did at New York Fashion Week two weeks ago, one we did a variation of for the Diane von Furstenberg show, and the other we did a variation of for the Alexandre Herchcovich show.

How are the hairstyles different from the last iD show?
Last year [at iD] there was a real utilitarian feel to the hair. I feel like this year things have lightened up a bit.
Is this a reaction to the recession?
I think it really is! The designers that I worked with in New York were all forecasting a bit of happiness. It felt like doom and gloom in the world outside fashion week, but inside the fashion week it felt like “We’re over the doom and gloom, let’s just bring some happiness back to the world” I think that is what we have the ability to do with fashion, is forecasting these things.


What are the hair trends we have to look forward to for next season? And how is it changing from what is happening right now?
The trends that are emerging are much like the looks we will be seeing on the catwalk at iD. There is a romantic feel with hair, a renaissance of wave, a soft bohemian feel. Girls are glamming it up again, and getting shine back into the hair. The thing for me this season, is rather than the waves having crispness, they have a real cottony feel.
That’s great Richard, but how is this trend accessible to people like myself with short hair? How can we work it?
I can tell you what it’s not, it’s not going back to the old curl on the top, short on the sides that was around some decades ago. If you look at the essence of the style, what we get with the looseness and romantic feel is we get a texture that has a bit more fly away, it moves more, it’s lighter. For girls with shorter hair, you are using products that don’t weight the hair down, so that you get natural movement and softness. Even if you have a cut that is a very strong shape, the texture is what you are thinking about.
So are we all going to be growing our fringes out then?
Yes I reckon, a longer fringe, a bit of wave in the fringe. There is nothing wrong with getting that curling tong and putting a bit of a soft wave in there, then brushing it through.

What is your forecast on hair colour trends?
Things change with seasons – particularly colours change a lot. We live in an outdoor environment, and over summer our colour tends to go lighter because we feel that way. As we are moving into winter we start to see a shift towards plums, mahogany, darker, earthy warmer tones.

Weather-wise New Zealand is a season behind the rest of the world, what about fashion-wise?
The images that people are seeing on style.com or whatever are current, from Paris, New York and Milan – the latest shows. So here in New Zealand we are completely up with the trends and forecasting. It’s a funny situation because I think in the past we have always been a season behind, but now I really feel like – and talking to guys up in New York this was reinforced for me – that we are kind of a season ahead. In our own way we do stuff that pushes the boundaries a lot. I think that globally, hair trends move in a big wave. The shapes, designs and textures we are working with tend to move globally rather than seasonally.

You mentioned that you were at New York Fashion Week, what was it like?
It was cool. I had two jobs at fashion week this year, one was I am doing a little spot on Good Morning on Monday mornings [TV One], talking about hair, hair trends, and how to re-create the looks. The other job was hairstylist at the shows. I did fourteen shows while I was there.


What inspires you as a hair artist?
Something that really inspires me is the Redken Artistic Network. I am part of a global network of artists who present shows and ongoing education for hairdressers. The network has so many talented people in it who are constantly looking for new inspiration, and sharing not only what inspires them, but the process that they go to in order to find their inspirations. I get lots of creative juice out of that process. I’m also inspired by Philip Treacy the hat maker in terms of shape, direction, and balance of textures. I am being constantly bombarded with stimulus. Sometimes I’ll be driving along see something that will spark an idea for an entire photographic collection. I recently saw one of those crochet poodle tissue-box covers in the back of a car. It started a range of Mrs Slocombe inspired pastel colour hairstyles, with strong directional shapes and hot looking girls!

I know everyone asks you about it, but tell me about your tattoos:
I love Japanese art – my house is full of Japanese antiques – I had this mish-mash of tattoos that I had collected over about 15 years.
I was sixteen when I got my first tattoo, I was like “cool” (pointing to the wall and squinting) “I’ll have that one thanks” (counting out his money) “27, 28, 29, 30 dollars…Oh I can’t get that one it’s $35… I’ll have that one then”
So the tattoos had expanded all over my body, and I wanted to have some cohesion, and there were a couple that I wanted to cover up! I began researching traditional Japanese tattoo, and we (Illicit Tattoo) started three and a half years ago on a full Japanese body suit. It’s now three quarters finished. Its thigh, buttocks, full back, sleeves, and chest with an empty strip down the middle. It’s amazing once you get started, how much room there is on your body to tattoo!

Do you think that being heavily tattooed gives you cool points in the celebrity hairstylist theme of things?
(Laughs) Cool points! That’s pretty funny… I dunno! (Input from his PR in the same room – “Yea it does!”) At New York Fashion Week fashion TV asked me about my tattoos. One in Five New Zealanders has a tattoo, but not overseas. I have learnt to wear my sleeves down when going through customs. They don’t get it.

Do you have any I Love Mum or snakes with daggers from your $30 jobs?
Yea, I had some of them. I had some skulls and a car – it was a Ford.