Voxfrock’s register of arty types and frocky people kicking goals internationally swelled to a proper list recently. Here’s our pick of the cleverest
HATS OFF
Sydney milliner Ann Shoebridge is one of six finalists in The Hat Magazine 2013 international “Hat Designer of the Year” award. Iconic British milliner Stephen Jones and representative of Premier Classe Paris, Sylvie Pourrat, judged the award and will announce the winner in Paris on July 7. The competition’s theme “Royals” was set by Mr. Jones. Miss Shoebridge rose to his challenge with a collection designed for Mary, Crown Princess of Denmark. (One example from the collection, pictured.)
Naturally, Miss Shoebridge was thrilled to the gills to be plucked from so many starters: ” I am absolutely thrilled and honoured to have been selected for this prestigious competition from entries all around the world,” she told Voxfrock. “To be the only Australian milliner in the finals and now going to Paris to attend the awards is hard to believe!” . Watch Voxfrock for the award results on July 8.
www.annshoebridge.com
(Main picture: a design from Miss Shoebridge’s ready-to-wear “Tokyo” collection, available to us all.)
MELBOURNE, PARIS, BERLIN…OR NOT
The short film Tomorrow’s Lovers by Melbourne producer Dean Drieberg, has been selected to screen at next month’s Berlin Fashion Film Festival. It was originally commissioned for Melbourne Spring Fashion Week 2012 to showcase that year’s harvest of promising new designers. Model/actors Louise Van der Vorst and Dean Bartlett were filmed in a linked series of romantic vignettes wearing the designers’ fashions. Last year, Tomorrow’s Lovers was the only Australian film selected to screen at the A Shaded View on Fashion Film festival during Paris Fashion Week.
This year, the Berlin Film Society invited the film’s co-writers and directors, fashion photographer Christian Blanchard and filmmaker Steven Protuder who work as Folie a Deux, to join a discussion panel after its screening at the German festival. “It’s all very exciting for us,” says Mr. Drieberg, “But we are now madly trying to find some sponsorship to, at the very least, cover our flights to attend and represent Melbourne (and Australia) as well as the emerging local designers whose clothing features in the film.”
So far, the tight deadline and even tighter sponsorship budgets have hampered their plea for help. The crew may have to miss their golden moment in Berlin. But, not if Mr. Drieberg can help it. He has posted their dilemma online at http://www.pozible.com/project/26944 and is now waiting, breath bated…
Tomorrow’s Lovers, a Folie a Deux film written and directed by Steven Protuder and Christian Blanchard, produced by Dean Drieberg, with original music by The Orbweavers and cinematrography by Shelley Farthing-Dawe, can be seen at https://vimeo.com/49151355.
GOOD FOLK
Melbourne jeweller Lucy Folk’s first “edible” baubles – witty burger-ring rings, for example, and pizza slice trinkets delicately rendered in gold or silver – quickly acquired a cult following well beyond her home town. More recently, she plugged into the charm of watermelon pits, crochetted pineapples and lemon slices.
Love for Miss Folk’s work – most recently, a vividly coloured “Tropicalismo” jewellery collection – is still fizzing and spreading. Co-owners of Los Angeles fashion hub TenOverSix, Brady Cunnigham and Kristen Lee, for example, threw a splashy Brazilian party to celebrate the arrival of their order of “Tropicalismo”.
Lucy Folk (centre) with Ten Over Six co-owners, Brady Cunnigham (left) and Kristen Lee (right)
Among the 60-odd LA-A-listers they invited – and who turned up – were film director Gia Coppola, actors Nathalie Love and Mia Maestro, celebrity stylist Karla Welch, Mad Men costume designer Janie Bryant, artist Rosson Crow, Black Eyed Peas choreographer Fatima Robinson and designer Jesse Kamm. Voxfrock has no clue who half these sparkle-arkly and apparently fast-rising people are either, but is thrilled by the assurance that most have more power than fame and Miss Folk is on their radar if not their speed dial. In today’s who-you-know-not-what-you-know- world, that’s akin to money in the bank.
www.lucyfolk.com
QUEEN’S LIST
Megan Etheridge, founder (in 2009) and chair of Not-for-Profit organisation Dress for Success Sydney (DFS Sydney), scored a Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for services to the community. Ms. Etheridge’s initiative has evolved into a marvellous organisation, with fashion’s raison d’etre – to convey a favorable impression – at its core. It provides smart fashions, sifted out of donations and styled by trained volunteers, to women down on their luck or unprepared for the sartorial rigours of a job interview, court appearance or life in general. “Our mission is to promote the economic independence of women in need by providing professional attire, a network of support and the career development tools to help them thrive in work and in life,” Ms. Etheridge says. About 200 volunteers dress more than 2,000 women through DFS Sydney each year and donations of best quality clothing are ever sought..
www.dressforsuccess.org/Sydney
Founder and president of Australia’s Design Foundation, Ken Cato, was awarded the Order of Australia in our recent Queen’s Birthday honours list. Mr. Cato is an eminent designer, champion of Australian creativity and director of international practice Cato Partners.
Mr. Cato already has a poolroom packed to the architraves with medals and honorariums including an Honorary Fellow from both the Hall of Fame of the Design Institute of Australia and the Australian Marketing Institute, a rare honorary membership of the Russian Academy of Graphic Design, an honorary degree of Doctor of Design from Swinburne University, an honorary Bachelor of Design from the Sydney Graphics College, the Victorian Premier’s Design Award for Design Leadership and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Council of Graphic Design Association.
Voxfrock could go on. But we are keenly aware lifetime lists of kicked goals, however admirable, do not make scintillating reading. Suffice to summarise; Mr. Cato, is an all round clever chap and those thirsty for more detail can visit www.agideas.net/about/design-foundation#sthash.g6gJkknn.dpuf.
Footnote: The Australia Design Foundation presents the annual agIdeas International Design Week which is in turn, endorsed by world industry body Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI).
Compiled by Candice Burke, Terry Carruthers and Janice Breen Burns, info@voxfrock.com.au
