Five fab frocky facts (in no particular order)
Two extraordinary people who forged deep connections to fashion and art still reverberating today, star in the documentaries A Life Exposed: Robyn Beeche and The Legend of Leigh Bowery to be screened at Melbourne’s Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) from February 1. Miss Beeche is famous for her photographs of London’s counter culture in the 1970s and her eventual abandonment of the high life to one of spiritual devotion in India. Performer Mr. Bowery (pictured, top and below) was described as a “professional provocateur”, a seismic shock to London’s art, music, fashion and club scenes in the same decades. Miss Beeche and the director of A Life Exposed, Lesley Branagan, will participate in an audience Q&A after the film’s first screening on February 1. The documentary season, part of ACMI’s Australian Perspectives series, continues until March 29. Click here for more information. Photograph credits: top, for A Life Exposed: Robyn Beeche courtesy Lesley Branagan and for The Legend of Leigh Bowery courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix, USA
The Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival today announced Target Australia naming rights sponsor of its 2014 National Graduate Showcase formerly identified with Sportsgirl. The competition vets the best of Australia’s emerging designers and culminates in a runway show staged during the festival, March 17-23. (Pictured below, a design from last year’s Sportsgirl National Graduate Showcase.) Tickets to the week of runways, seminars, exhibitions and parties are on sale now at Ticketek.com and www.vamff.com.au
Artist Nakano Kaoru searches constantly for forms that do not yet exist. Her extraordinary paper jewellery triggered a distant Voxfrock memory of Akira Isogawa’s tender respect for the art of his Japanese origami master. We also recommend this videograph, below, for those with a spare, reflective 10 minutes (yes, it’s long), for Melbourne designer Lui Hon’s careful, elegant fashions, chosen as the perfect complement to Ms. Kaoru’s art.
Nakano Kaoru X Lui Hon from Lesley Kehoe Galleries on Vimeo.
Vogue Australia editor in chief, Edwina McCann lent weight and lustre to the inaugural BT Emerging Fashion Designer Award in 2013 and Christopher Esber (pictured, below left with Ms. McCann and Bradley Cooper of BT Financial Group. Photo Lucas Dawson) set the bar extremely high as its first recipient. Now, fresh fashion ateliers of comparable calibre have just one week before the second award competition, worth a whopping $40,000 including mentoring and commercial support, closes on January 31. Best get a wiggle on. Click here to enter.
(BT Financial Group is the wealth arm of Westpac and heavily supports emerging Australian fashion talent.)
The White Shirt, The Black Pant, The Cream Blazer, The Silver Pump, The ubiquitous LBD; they’re all classics that return to fashion so often they have transcended cyclic trends. They are their own cycle and any one classic or group ensemble worn with chutzpah, chin uptilt and hip-swinging stride, can slot like sartorial jigsaw into any dress code. More recently, we added The Kaftan to this elite group. Or, more precisely, The Camilla Kaftan. Designer Camilla Franks has a knack for extravagant silk versions that waft glamourously no matter the wearer’s curve co-ordinates, age or socio-economic status. Her kaftans are especially well liked among the so-called A-list and yesterday, another fan was spotted swapping Dress code: cocktail, for Dress code: Camilla Kaftan. Here, Goldie Hawn is photographed (Getty) in her Camilla at a charity dinner hosted by Sean Penn for Haiti’s earthquake victims, with buds Julia Roberts and Gwyneth Paltrow in traditional dress. Want one? www.camilla.com
Disclaimer: Voxfrock editor Janice Breen Burns is a member of the VAMFF board, and a judge for the BT Emerging Fashion Designer Award 2014.
Compiled by Terry Carruthers, intern@voxfrock.com.au with Janice Breen Burns, jbb@voxfrock.com.au
