SWIM WITH THE CURRENT

10/04/2013

manning cartell 2013

I was very excited to learn that I would be able to attend the Manning Cartell show this year at MBFWA. I’ve always been a huge huge fan of the Manning sisters’ clean lines, structuring, and interesting silhouettes.

This year was absolutely no exception. Glittering mesh outlined basic designs to make them even more flattering and fabulous, incredible geometric prints, a honeycomb print with cut out panels, pearlescent overtones and and emphasis on boxy shapes all came together to create a beautiful, clean collection. The colour palette was a wonderful contrast to the almost medical cleanliness and strict sculptured nature to the pieces: the colour were all very romantic and delicate, featuring nudes and beiges, creams, peaches and greys. Another amazing element was one of the featured shoes: thick strapped booties, with an ankle strap – an underwhelming description, but they were flawless in both black and white.

Hair and make up were both absolutely perfect. The hair, by Alan White for GHD, complemented the looks wonderfully; smooth poker straight slicked back locks with a braid down the middle – gorgeous. Makeup, by Max May for MAC, featured really clean, lovely faces with a beautiful glow, a focus of thick dark eyebrows and lustrous dark eyes, with a feature lip colour of a light orange. It really looked amazing. So very impressed once again Manning Cartell! x

Manning Cartel019

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Tags: alan white ghd, australian fashion, beautiful glow, beauty, clean lines, colour palette, dark eyebrows, fashion, fashion week, geometric prints, light orange, manning cartell, max may mac, mbfwa, mbfwa 2013, mbfwa13, ruby jean wilson, structural fashion, style

10/04/2013

aurelio costarella mbfwa 2013

Aurelio Costarella at MBFWA was really really beautiful; a gorgeous celebration of Aurelio’s 30th anniversary of being in the Australian fashion industry. Titled ‘Retrospect’, this collection seemed to be a summary of all the designs and inspirations that Aurelio has come across and loved over his 30 years. It was also a mix between ready-to-wear and couture, which worked surprisingly well – I couldn’t stop staring at the gorgeous couture to wear in some kind of regal faerie-land daydream, and was ogling the RTW pieces imagining myself in those pieces in my everyday life.

The show was in the box, and so was an installation rather than a ‘show’. Set in a triangle, 20 models stood around the three corners. The art of Waldemar Kolbusz covered the walls of the triangle behind the models, which, according to Aurelio, was ‘a constant source of inspiration’ to him. Another beautiful addition was the acoustic set played by Grace Woodroofe, and headpieces from Reny Kestel, which were incredibly beautiful. My favourite was a black headpiece that covered the models entire face, which made the outfit look almost gothic, in a very wonderful, exquisite way.

Beautiful beautiful collection. Congratulations to Aurelio Costarella on 30 divine years! x

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Tags: aurelio costarella, australian fashion week, couture, designer, fashion, headpieces, jumpsuit, mbfw, mbfwa, mbfwa 2013, playsuit, Reny Kestel, rtw, sequin, Waldemar Kolbusz

06/04/2013

drape me in black/red house vintage

Tonight I packed my bag for MBFWA. This year, it’s especially hard to pack, as I will be staying in Sydney for a further five weeks for training for a new job. So, that’s a lot of clothes. I haven’t packed luggage for a six week stint in many years – it turns out I’m still no good at it! But anyway, this is one of my favourite pieces in my wardrobe at the moment. It is technically a light jacket, but I’m currently obsessed with wearing it like this, as a dress. If I use a thin black belt, its barely noticeable, and all that is focussed on is the excellent drapery, especially around the décolletage area. So beautiful. The shoes are a 90′s slingback mule, beautiful soft leather.

Both are beautiful gifts from a friend of mine who I recently worked on a shoot with, Emily from Red House Vintage. Understatement of the millenium: Emily has an incredible talent for vintage goods. The pieces she manages to find (god knows how!) are just incredible, and more unique, on-trend, and flattering than most vintage stores. Red House Vintage is regularly at Gilles St Markets in Adelaide – if you get a chance, I’d highly recommend going and browsing through. By far one of my favourite vintage stores in Adelaide! See her Facebook here to like away so you can find where RHV will be next: facebook.com/redhousevintage

Im in love with this entire outfit. I avoided this type of drapery and black essentialism for such a long time. I cannot for the life of me remember why. Now, there is no looking back. I’ve started a love affair.

The shoot Emily and I worked on together is a very special something coming up – a collaboration between both of our creative crazy brain cells. I would love to share with you all right now. But I can’t; not just yet anyway. Soon, I promise. Keep your eyes peeled!

See you at MBFWA beauties; I must sleep now, so I don’t miss my flight tomorrow.

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03/04/2013

harris scarfe surprises everyone: rundle place vip opening

Recently I started got a job at Harris Scarfe. In the lead up to the opening of the store, I haven’t had a spare second to think (Read: I’m sorry I’m haven’t been posting!). In the past month, I have worked in a warehouse, on a worksite, and helped in setting up a huge department store – definitely a little way out of what I usually do! It’s been an overwhelming, exciting, amazing experience as a whole, but what happened towards the end of the set up definitely shocked me.

To celebrate the opening, Harris Scarfe threw a VIP party, complete with a fashion show of it’s new wares. You may have noticed that Harris Scarfe have really, really stepped it up in terms of their focus on fashion. You would be right in noticing that. Harris Scarfe have really focussed more on trend within the labels they stock, including Luca & Marc, Khoko, Diesel, Calvin Klein, and Boutique – the latter, none other than Christine Centenera styled for the VIP show. This was certainly unexpected, you’d probably agree. What was shocking, was that my manager asked me to assist the woman herself the day before the show, to assist with fittings and anything else she might need.

Assisting Christine with fitting was a dream come true for me. She is a idol of mine, in terms of both her personal style, and her styling work. She was very quiet, and incredibly friendly. As each model would try on their outfits, she would take such notice of tiny, tiny details to make the outfit completely right. If she wasn’t sure, she would start again. That level of perfectionism that is admirable. Her innovation blew my mind – who would have thought about putting white skivvies under the outfit? I wore those in kindy. And my god, did they look good. All in all, the day was nerve-wracking in the beginning (wouldn’t you be nervous? I don’t think I spoke for the first two hours!), but by the end I was in a dream haze of happiness.

So yeah, a part time job in ladies wear, and the chance to assist the senior fashion editor of Vogue. The two don’t generally go hand in hand, but for me they did this time. Definitely a strange turn of events, but my god it was incredible: it was amazing watching her work. Obviously I am starting my career in styling myself, so being able to watch her style ten outfits really was inspiring beyond belief.

Boutique boasts a range of drapey, oversizes items, including sharp black shirts, cocoon dresses, graphic print draped pants, soft tees with contrast panels, and thick trench coats with leather trims. All with a colour palette of black, royal blues, with a few elements of silver and beige. It really is a gorgeous collection, but it is quite simple, so I was really interested to see how Christine was going to style it. Adding long black gloves, touches of gold and/or clear accessories, and roll neck skivvies to tie in the pieces, Christine really made each look very different and very expensive. She also really made me want a pair of black leather gloves.

The show was really quite amazing, and I promise I’m not being biased in saying that. I was really overjoyed during the show, because I knew the calibre of show was higher than Adelaide usually sees. It was classy, the styling was great, the music was subtle and in no way gaudy, and the Finesse Models who showed were all amazing, as well as Harris Scarfe ambassador and face of Boutique, Kyly Clarke. After the show, I had more than ten conversations where people were surprised and really positive about the show, saying things like ‘Harris Scarfe have really stepped it up’, and ‘why aren’t all the shows in Adelaide like this?’ which was obviously more than wonderful to hear.

all photos by the wonderful Chanelle of Not So Naked

So yeah. Well done Harris Scarfe! Well done Christine Centenera and her team. Well done Belinda Humphris and Charley Venning, who styled the other Harris Scarfe labels in the show. Well done Lara Inc. Well done Joe Barberis, on the opening of such a wonderful store. Well done everyone who was involved in the production. But most of all, well done to the team of people I’ve worked with over the past 5 weeks, setting up this huge store and making it look amazing – very hard work that has 100% paid off. If you haven’t had a chance to go visit Rundle Place yet, I highly recommend it. It looks super great. Even if I am being a little biased, this time.

Posted in Adelaide Posts, Behind the Scenes, Collections | 1 Comment »

03/03/2013

paris for april

Recently I had the oppurtunity to assist one of my friends Ryan Kenny on a shoot for the Adelaide Magazine. Now a Sydney boy, he rang me one day asking if I could assist him, and said, ‘we’re shooting that new April girl, the one that signed to Finesse.’ Immediately I was pretty excited. I’m normally never a model obsessor or anything close to it, but I was excited to work with April Tiplady – she had already been signed to IMG within days, everyone knew she was destined for huge, huge things.

The shoot was incredible, she was amazing, the shots looked great.

Yesterday, I was watching the Junya Watanabe show. You may have noticed I’ve been rather quiet with my Fashion Week coverage – I don’t want to be ‘that guy’, but I have been waiting for Paris, because I found everything else underwhelming this year. ANYWAY. I was watching the Junya show, and suddenly a familiar looking face in a red jacket walks out to close the show. And you know what I did? I said internally ‘oh wow, that girl looks like April’. It wasn’t until the lady herself posted on Facebook that she had just walked her first show in Paris, that it clicked. And I punched the air in happiness. I should’ve pieced it all together much quicker – it was only about 3 weeks ago that I was chatting to Finesse Director Brigette Mitchell, and she was telling me that she herself was jetting off to Paris.

image from style.com

Seriously Junya Watanabe. The girl has never walked a show in her life before this one. She walked for one of the most incredible designers in the world, for her first ever show. The girl is a phenomenon. Keep an eye out for this one. Congrats April, Congrats Finesse, Congrats IMG! x

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Tags: april tiplady, aw2013, fall rtw 2013, finesse models, img models australia, junya watanabe, paris fashion week, paris fashion week 2013, pfw

04/02/2013

evil goose chase

Erick and I went for a waltz down the Torrens River in the CBD one day, and I very nearly got eaten by one of those evil, evil black swans. Those things are vicious, evil creatures – they are even ‘danger’ colours, black and red. I hate them. While Erick was taking the main image of me, swan swam right up to the edge and I STILL MAINTAIN that if I hadn’t jumped away so quickly, HE WOULD HAVE EATEN MY LEGS OFF.

Which would have been very sad, because my shoes are one of my favourite finds ever. I have received so many compliments on them, and they cost me $15 from Big W. I have been looking for a specific wedge sneakers for a while – I really needed all-black ones, and I could only find multi-coloured previously – and it’s super bizarre I found my perfect ones in Big W!

I have to give huge thank yous for the rest of the outfit.

Firstly, to General Pants Co.. This Evil Twin muscle tee is one of my favourite shirts to wear, the print/colour is girly and cute enough to wear with anything, but the muscle tee cut is super boyish – I love it. Huge thanks to Jaharn for hooking me up with the goods!

Secondly, this skirt was a Christmas present from my mum. I KNOW RIGHT, HOW COOL IS MY MUM. She has pretty good taste in choosing quirky clothes for me, and she found this skirt in the racks at Ally Fashion. Thanks mum! If you have a chance to visit the newer one in the Myer Centre, I highly recommend it. It’s a mainstream chainstore, complete with loud dance music and a lot of 14 year olds, but if you can stand that, go search the sale racks – they have some excellent stuff, and great basics. And it’s much cheaper than Supré, and the staff are much nicer and attentive than Supré too.

Thirdly, I have to thank my best friend, Jake Bley. This clutch is the Maison Martin Margiela x H&M candywrapper clutch. If you know my blog, you know I live in Australia. H&M doesn’t exist here, or ship here. Jake recently moved to New York, and I called him (possibly in the wee hours of the morning) begging him to try to find me an item from the collection. He went to three different H&M’s in NYC, and in the end, he literally fought a woman, to get me this clutch. The sentence ‘I flew from Australia for this!’ was literally said – a slight exaggeration of the truth maybe, but he loves me that much. So thank you Jake, it is one of my most prized possessions, and I love you forever and I love you I love you I love you.

Huge thanks again to Erick Watson for his excellent photography!

Outfit

Tee: Evil Twin (from General Pants Co.)

Skirt: Ally Fashion

Shoes: Big W

Necklace: Crystal Wave

Cocktail ring: ASOS

Clutch: Maison Martin Margiela x H&M

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27/01/2013

big day out adelaide

General Pants Co. were lovely enough to ask me to shoot some street style for them at Big Day Out in Adelaide. I was super super flattered, and so excited – the last time I had been able to go to BDO was in 2006!

I was a little nervous, because I am no photographer, but luckily I had Nicole of Confident Liar down from Sydney to help me out with camera woes and to keep me company! We traipsed around for most of the morning, being all relaxed and nonchalant – little did we know how busy we were to become in the evening. All of the acts I wanted to see were after 5pm, which were Childish Gambino, Yeah Yeah Yeah’s, Crystal Castles, and Sleigh Bells. Our main mistake was filling up on chips and salsa in the media centre, then leaving proper food til too late in the day – lines were crazy long, and we didn’t have time to wait in line before running off to stages – damn! I was so keen on a haloumi burger from Adelaide’s Veggie Velo.

In terms of street style, you know me – I’m constantly on the lookout for the people who make you think ‘what they are wearing is so weird, why does it work so well?’, and I found some excellent people who fit that. Guys favoured the relaxed short-sleeve button up, chino shorts and boatshoes, and while their relaxed style looked great, it had the potential to look a bit too same-same, which many fell prey to. Girls however, were a wonderful dichotomy to witness; girls seemed to be wearing either 1) denim super-short shorts + cropped shirts/tanks, or 2) they went totally weird. I found some good ones though, from all aforementioned genres. Check these kids out.

And for good measure, some photos from throughout the day !

(including header image)

1 / camera over head crowd shot during Band of Horses

2 / my outfit for the day:
Stussy dress courtesy of General Pants
Nike Free Run sneakers
Cotton On sunglasses
Gathering Eye backpack courtesy of General Pants

3 / Childish Gambino

4 / Karen O of The Yeah Yeah Yeahs

5 / Crystal Castles (photographers weren’t allowed in the pit
+ I got told off for photographing them from the crowd)

6 / Sleigh Bells

for more photos of the day, check out my facebook album ~here~

Thanks so much to General Pants for the amazing oppurtunity, I had such an amazing day! And big thanks for the Stussy dress too – I friggen love it!

C x

Posted in Adelaide Posts, Sponsored Posts, Street Style | 1 Comment »

16/01/2013

spiritual gothica

This is one of my favourite outfits. But let’s be honest, it was probably the worst outfit to shoot during summer. Leather pants, Chloe, really? Cue hilarious mental images of Chloe trying to get leather pants on and off in the Parklands in 40ºC heat.

Nevertheless, I love the outfit anyway. The t-shirt is from CHEAP AS CHIPS. HAHAHAHAHA. AND IT GLOWS IN THE DARK. Goddamn I’m proud of my bargain-finding abilities. I just thought it was really beautiful and I have no qualms when it comes to buying clothes from stores that many people would turn their noses up at. AND IT GLOWS IN THE DARK.

The pants are Finders Keepers. However, I did rip the knees myself. Not on purpose, just made the obvious mistake of forgetting to hike up tight pleather pants before falling to my knees while styling a shoot. But it works in my favour – ripped leather-look isn’t a bad thing at all, and it suits this outfit’s nonchalant, devil-may-care vibes.

I recently bought the ‘eye’ necklace from ASOS. Its a new favourite of mine, I found after recently learning about the different chakras, and becoming slightly obsessed with reading about the third eye chakra. I always tend to wear it with my crystal spiral, because I think they fit well, and look amazing together.

The backpack is one of my favourite things ever to be given – General Pants Co. gave me a voucher for their new Tea Tree Plaza store shortly after it opened, and this was the first item to catch my eye. I had been looking desperately for a backpack, and you know how I feel about leather, studs and skulls – therefore it was perfect for me. In love!

Also, black lipstick. It’s the best.

T-shirt: Cheap as Chips

Pants: Finders Keepers

Shoes: Rubi Shoes

Lipstick: BYS

Necklaces: ASOS, Crystal Wave

Backpack: Gathering Eye

Huge thank you to Erick Watson for taking these photos

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07/01/2013

speedo

I think this will be my official summer post. I’m not really that much of a summer person, to be honest. (I KNOW RIGHT, CRAZY, all of you who don’t live in Australia probably want to punch me right now.) But anyway, I found this 90′s swimsuit in Savers, (still with tags and hygiene sticker on it, incase you were wondering) and I’m so in love with it.

I’ve never been much of bikini person, not because of the skimpiness, but I’ve never really thought they were flattering to my body. Like, I look really weird in them. So when I found this excellent one piece with the collared high neckline, and Baywatch-cut legs, I was over the moon. It’s flattering, a bit weird, and the crazy high cut legs (like it is just above my hips) make it a bit sexy too. And how great is the 90′s electric geometric print?

I used to go to Savers every time I was in Melbourne, so I was delighted when I found out it was coming to Adelaide. It was a super great addition to the opshopping scene here. But unfortunately, the petrol from my house costs almost costs as much as the flight to Melbourne these days – I live near Gawler, which north of the city, and Noarlunga is south. So getting there takes me nearly 2 hours. But it’s completely and utterly worth it. I have never walked out empty handed. I highly recommend heading there, especially if you are an opshop newbie – they colour code everything and have sections for each type of clothing! Which makes finding something you love 100x easier. And I highly recommend looking at the swimsuit sections, because it’s obvious swimsuits from the 80′s and 90′s are infinitely better than the ones today.

And the best part about this was, why pay $300 for bathers? Mine cost me 50c. So great.

Huge thanks to Vanessa Burton for her photographic talents!

Swimsuit: vintage Speedo (from Savers)

Posted in Adelaide Posts, Outfits, Vintage | 2 Comments »

Tags: bathers, clothing, fashion, one piece bathers, one piece swimsuit, opshop, opshopping, savers, savers adelaide, speedo, swimsuit, vanessa burton, vanessa burton photography, vintage, vintage swimsuit

02/01/2013

the holiday season roundup

There’s such a mental lead-up to Christmas, that you often forget about the rest of the festive season. After Christmas is done, there’s so many other things to look forward to! Boxing Day, New Years Eve, New Years Day, and of course, the copious amount of barbecues and relaxing afternoon cocktails!

Here’s some happy snaps during my final days of 2012…