PHOTOGRAPHS: MONTY COLES AND LUCAS DAWSON
WORDS: JANICE BREEN BURNS
(Longform post: allow five minutes read time.)
Myer welcomed winter with its customary extravagance and brace of A-listers last night. The 350-odd were Melbournians, mostly, but a fair contingent of inter-staters flown in too. They set up a jolly cocktail buzz, milling outside Myer’s Mural Hall as the Mumm was poured and Big Group canapes plattered about. When the doors were finally chocked back, they found the Mural Hall walls heavily draped in black, the photographer’s rise at one dark end, and an ambitious zig-zagged ramp rising floor-to-lofty-ceiling with changing projections of citylife and graphic-lit stripes at the other. A glossy grey runway ran between facing decks of seats banked so steeply up and back so that even Voxfrock’s “C” row had a reasonable working view of the action. Toni Maticevski’s lush ankle-grazers, fat peplums and heart-flutteringly chic separates opened the show, and a soft riot of colours and prints by Myer’s stable of internationals – Balmain, Berardi, Pilotto, Kane, Mouret and Valli – closed it. In between, an edit of Myer’s most prized exclusives – Ellery, Costarella, Arthur Galan, Jayson Brunsdon, Karen Walker et. al. – wallowed in winter’s return to black. The monotone ostensibly linked to the show’s title, The Word on the Street, but without contrast and context, robbed most collections of their single seasonal opportunity for dramatic effect. Black, black, and more black trooped out in a visually-numbing but otherwise slick, quick and clever show. Myer’s buyers proved they have bought well again for winter, but the best evidence of that was racked downstairs on its sleek and airy designer floors, more than it was on the runway.
Voxfrock’s pre-show coverage included quick but fruitful chats including with Toni Maticevski (main photo, top, by Monty Coles), who confessed he was weary to the point of exhaustion preparing for his studio in Paris next week, and Charlie Brown, who scoffed at the speculation on the morning’s news reports that her fashion career was stumbling. “One store!” she laughed. “I shut up one bricks and mortar store that wasn’t even a big part of my business and they ask me if I’m going broke!” For the record, 30-odd Charlie Brown brand concessions, and 20-odd Howard Showers concessions in Myer stores, are doing nicely, firing on all cylinders, thanks kindly, according to their owner. “That (news beatup) caught me off guard,” Miss Brown says. “I wanted to say; “Yeah, my husband (and business partner Danny Avidan) is moving away from the business (into real estate development) and our lives are changing, but that’s it.” She is still, she says, having fun making fashion after more than 30 years. Her team is young, her intuition and business acumen rock solid, her spirits high and ability to pitch bulls-eye collections at two distinct market segments still sharp. “Howard (Showers) is targeted at upward mobile working women and Charlie Brown (the brand)? Well I’ve never wanted to grow up so I make sure there’s lots of fun things in that for me,” she says. “I’ve got to have sequin pants to wear when I’m walking down to the grocery store, and heaps of leopard in my closet at all times, you understand what I mean? it makes me feel sexy!”
Charlie Brown, downstairs, pre-show with Janice Breen Burns. Photo: Monty Coles.
Sex and stabs at wry humour are typical of the CB aesthetic and CB herself. In the Myer show, her small pod of Charlie Brown models lugged white guitar cases and wore rock-chic leather pants and jackets and tops sparkling with “You hate me”, “You love me” slogans. “I had this thing with Steven Tyler in the 70s,” she hoots, “The striped pants and floral shirt or floral pants and striped shirt…” The season before, she had had a similarly inspiring fling with Led Zeppelin and the collection went the way of Stairways to Heaven and Highways to Hell. “Some people don’t even know who they are, so it’s all fresh!” In so many words, she describes her knack of balancing trend research with gut feeling and statistics; arts that underpin the success of both brands. “The industry is also about science; understanding price points, what the consumer needs, creating the names and themes,” she says. “You can actually have fun with it and that’s what I always argue: if you’re not having fun, why are you doing it?”
A model wears Charlie Brown. Lucas Dawson Photography
Ok, so 30 minutes flat, and Miss Brown managed to cover a fair slab of her personal and fashion history, business psychology and creative philosophy before leaving to scrub up for her front row moment. We also headed upstairs to meet the professionals worth milking for frocky gems in the lull before the show. Among many, we found James Nicholson, co-hair director and session master for Kevin Murphy, busy with model Francesca Halse of Scene Models. Voxfrock’s first question was about the resilience of long, featureless drops of shiny hair among fashion’s top trends. “Yes, well even though we like to think that, as hairdressers, we direct trends,” Mr. Nicholson says humbly, “We are actually at the mercy of the girls who love this look.” Hair trends, like clothing trends, bubble up from the street and for Myer, he focussed creative cues from “It” girls Cara Delevingne and the irrepressible Kate Moss to present the trend in its most pristine state. He smooths Miss Halse’s glossy sheath of bark-brown hair, cut bluntly to her lower back. At the front, her hairline is clean and graphic as a pencil-line. “There are no layers here, see?” Mr. Nicholson says, “So, one piece (of hair) catching behind the ear like this, then the hair bagging forward and being tucked into a collar or scarf, creates a beautiful diamond shape around the face.” With a product that “exfoliates” the hair with Alpha Hydroxy fruit-based acids, followed by a weightless “anti-gravity” spray, then a quick smoothing under-brush with warm air directed down the fall and final spritz with session spray, Miss Halse’s do drapes like a waterfall and slaps gently at her back as she moves. It’s a look of apparently “effortlessness” and fits like jigsaw into lead make-up artist for Napoleon, Kate Squires’ scheme for winter’s perfect face.
James Nicholson, Myer show co-hair director and session master for Kevin Murphy, with Francesca Halse of Scene Models. Photo: Monty Coles
On model Shanali Martin of IMG, she demonstrates how – in a radical depature for recent makeup trends that have privileged thickened, lengthened and false eyelashes for so long – naked lashes can be used to assert the show’s overall themes of “effortless cool”, “effortless confidence”, “effortless beauty”, all of which are bandied often backstage today. “We’ve used no mascara at all, just a really fine line across the top lashline,” Ms. Squires says. Above that, Napoleon’s plum or deeper berry or chocolate ganashe eye shade is blended up to a pale swipe of champagne below strongly enhanced brows. Finally, a matte peach lipstick “adds a little bit more life to the face”, according to Ms. Squires, but without the overt prettiness and glint of a lipgloss which would be wrong. “If you’re used to using something dewy and luminous,” she cautions, “It can take a bit of effort to cross over to the matte.” If however, the look of effortlessness appeals, then the effort is most definitely worth it.
Model Shanali Martin of IMG and Napoleon lead makeup artist, Kate Squires.
Photo: Monty Coles
To replay Myer’s livestreamed autumn/winter 2014 launch show and shop the looks, click here.
For Monty Coles’ complete photo essay of the night, go to www.theloupe.org
