We’ve been out.
The Voxfrock team was flat-chat this week: a party or two, a frock launch or three, the odd musical, cocktail bash, shop tour. All for your edification and entertainment, dear reader.
Here, for you, we present our trinity of voted highlights from a typically thrilling week in Melbourne. (Yes, while Sydney was a Moet-popping party town at the premiere of Baz Luhrman’s latest – Australian taxpayer-funded – extravaganza, followed by a 175 year anniversary knees-up at David Jones, Melbourne dutifully played its traditional role of uninvited second-fiddle Satellite City. And, loved it.)
Happy reading, Voxfrockians, and best wishes for a joyous weekend before our next Voxfresh post, an edit of the best diary events coming up in your city.
The VF team. xx
LEGALLY FABULOUS
Voxfrock was never fond of musicals. We squirm in our seat, listlessly count bald spots in the string section, roll our eyes and plead noiselessly every time a character softens into that faraway, “I feel another song coming on” look on stage.
However. We also clocked up several musicals between us in recent years (free tickets, reviews to write, what can you do?) and shared a small epiphany-like moment after last year’s smorgasbord of racism, sexism, class-ism and paedaphelia that was the very fine musical production of South Pacific. (“Some en-chaaarnted eeeevening….you will seee a strrraaaannngeerrr….”) (Excuse us. We digress.)
South Pacific was a film before it was a musical and, we speculate, this helped crack the “brain ice” (thank you, Terry Carruthers) normally felt before a song or theatre production can melt into your psyche.
Lucy Durack as Elle Woods and Rob Mills as Harvard law school cad, Warner Huntington III
That said, we happily popped out to see Legally Blonde, The Musical, snug in the knowledge that its film version, starring Reece Witherspoon, was a lolly-pink hoot we’d watch again. And again. And….
Fabulous: from the stupendously talented chihauhau named Bruiser (no, really, Oh My God You Guys, you have to see this pixie/rodent perform in its first scene to believe its Oscar-esque, like, potential), to the ear-fillingly splendid vocals of Lucy Durack (Elle Woods), David Harris (Emmett Forrest), Helen Dallimore (Paulette), Warner Huntington (Rob Mills), and Brooke Wyndham (Erika Haynatz). Legally Blonde The Musical is one sparkle-arkly bend-and-snapping snap of class-ism, popular culture and gender relations among the frighteningly post-feminist young femmes of today-ish. American accents were flawless, costumes cut and spangled for maximum visual prettiness. Staging was a marvel of creative and mechanical ingenuity, with bedrooms, whole buildings, a courtroom and fashion store ascending and sinking in and out of the stage floor, often with clusters of singing girlfriends, jailbirds and Harvard hipsters on board. Elle’s sorority sisters, particularly one who spent the show in rara flip skirt and high heeled sneakers, were a revelation of top notes and joyful, heart-pumping dance kicks. We relished the operetta-like courtroom chorus of a song; “Is he gay? Or European?” which was, strangely, called something else in the programme. And we yelled “hoot!” (you would too) during what was, in our opinion, the all-singing all-dancing musical pinnacle, “Bend and Snap”.
We left uplifted, albeit, ever-so-slightly quezy and with a furred tongue (result of a legally pink “watermelon” – haha – slushie at intermission), a sore bottom (imagine; enthralled and unsquirming for two hours), and a puzzle to ponder in the cab on the way home, ie: how did the idea of an archetypal ditzy blonde go over in the South Korean production of Legally Blonde, hmmmm?
Legally Blonde, The Musical South Korean style.
Legally Blonde is playing at the Princess Theatre, 163 Spring Street, Melbourne. Tickets $59.90 – $99.90 , www.ticketmaster.com.au, 1300 111 011
EYE AND SOUL CANDY
Melbourne jeweller Candy Spender aka Candy van Rood, has shifted the epicentre of her little empire to a studio in her Caulfield North villa home. She welcomed a loungeroom full of adoring fans for pink champagne and homemade canapes one recent bitterwintry night and though the jewels were typically divine, the company warm and jolly, the night, for Voxfrock, was tinged with sadness. Miss van Rood is diversifying. Sales of her jewels, though worldwide and regular among ardent fans, are also slow. She may be one of the most experienced and intuitive costume jewellery designers in Australia, but her fortunes have fluctuated since, it seems, every girl and her poodle has launched a jewellery collection or imported one from China. Competition is tough, connoiseurship of fine costume jewellery rare and Miss van Rood is canny enough to rationalise that reality.
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She will continue to craft and sell her pieces online and for bespoke clients, she says, but has also returned to her first loves including painting and astrology. The former is ticking along nicely (she is rather good, if one elegant, sparsely rendered abstract on her villa wall is evidence) and the latter is unfolding with an online chart reading service already clocking up clients hungry for guidance. Miss van Rood’s repertoire also includes, “various esoteric and metaphysical modalities (including) Buddhism, Advaita, Osho, 5 Rhythms, Iyengar Yoga and Reiki; (Reiki ll) and the sacred and self-development practices which are part of these teachings”. Later, we wandered back into a wet Melbourne night both enlightened and puzzled: “Might Miss van Rood’s spiritual predilections also have informed her most artful, ethereal jewellery designs all these years?”
For Candy’s jewels, continue to visit www.candyspender.com.au. For Candy’s other arts; www.transformationalastrologyandtarot.com
MY OH MYER
Voxfrock’s heart beats for Australian fashion brands – that’s policy and a given. But our fizziest thrill, on the lip of any new season, is a guided “pre-season” fossick of Myer’s international designer racks.
The internationals salon, tucked into the front of Myer’s uber-swank Bourke Street Mall store, is shopper Nirvana, a glossy inner-sanctum where some of Melbourne’s best dressed professionals and wealthiest women are fussed over by a small flock of discreet dressers and consultants. It’s an experience Myer’s group general manager of women’s fashion Nicole Naccarella, says is increasingly attractive to young women who will save for a few good quality designer pieces instead of buying multiples of cheap fashion. “Price can’t always be the priority,” Ms. Naccarella says. “Having something beautiful, that lasts, will be.”
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Voxfrock’s fossick was at the fag-end of the international salon’s appointment-only period before collections are racked on the floor. Much of the cream was already stripped out, lavishly packaged, and delivered to its owners. But, we could see the store’s newly acquired brands; Chrisopher Kane and Cedric Charlier, were a hit by the sparse racks left. Myer ambassador and busy young mum Rebecca Judd, was causing conniptions of admiration for her tiny figure and giraffe-like legs as she tried youthful offerings from Balmain (a flippy silk frocklet with heavily beaded bodice and swish gathered skirt) to Peter Pilotto (a vibrant sleeveless figure-hugging knee frock with layered bodice and demure white contrast collar).
Voxfrock found heart-flutterers among Isabel Marant’s collection (prettily crystal-crusted sheer silk box tops), Giambattista Valli (heavy skirt and jacklet set in blood lace) and Barbara Bui, whose airy black casuals were surprisingly well priced (Ms. Naccarella says her buyers are mindful, certain customers like prices in the same ball park as Australian designers) and delicately detailed.
Sadly, Givenchy and the intuitively draped and weighted cool casuals of Joseph, are the latest two collections to be snaffled by David Jones, but there are many thrills left among the collections of McQ Alexander McQueen, Moncler, Moschino, Antonio Berardi, Roland Mouret, Nina Ricci, Vionnet, Vivienne Westwood Red Label, Kenzo, Balmain, Jil Sander Navy and Sonia Rykiel.
www.myer.com.au
Compiled by Janice Breen Burns with Terry Carruthers, Candice Burke and Emily Wilson, info@voxfrock.com.au
