Couture Calamity

A blogging war has broken out over a Sun Herald report last week about Chinese born Sydney fashion designer Bowie Wong. The highly likable Wong has been on a fashion promotion world tour, thrilling fans with a Facebook diary penned from some of the world's ritziest hotels like Hong Kong's Peninsular and the Hotel Georges V in Paris where he is currently ensconced.
The Sun Herald reported under the title Fashion's new immortal :"Sydney's Bowie Wong has been confirmed as the first Australian-based designer to join fashion's most exclusive club: Paris haute couture. Speaking to S from Paris, Wong revealed he'll be showing his collection, Immortality, at Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week in July, alongside great names such as Chanel, Dior, Valentino and Gaultier."

Alas, all is not what it seems according to fashion expert journalist Patty Huntington writing on the influential Frockwriter website : Bowie Wong is showing during Paris haute couture week -Or how to try to sneak into fashion's most exclusive club.

 Commenting on Wong's invitation (pictured right) Huntington says :

"Just to clarify - lest anyone assume there may be some direct connection here to the world's biggest luxury brand, whose name happens to be highlighted in bold on the invitation - the Louis Vuitton Building is indeed the location of the LV flagship. But it's a large building that is also home to a variety of other totally unrelated companies, including at least one real estate agency. Level 5, coincidentally the location of Wong's show, is home to a company called Servcorp, that specialises in short-term and virtual office rentals."

Huntington has also contacted the prestige  Chambre Syndicale who zealously guard the term 'haute coutoure' much like the word Champagne is rigorously regulated by the French. The head of communications, Jimmy Pihet, has responded : "We never heard about this designer before your email and he didn't visit us at the Fédération".

Zut alors ! Where will it all end ?. The Shuttle hasn't known such excitement in the giddy world of dressmaking since a snooty social writer in London buttonholed us at a Harper's Bazaar party three years ago and said : "it really annoys me the way you Australians call gowns, 'frocks' "

Read the full story at Frockwriter.com  and watch a video of Bowie's fashion show (presumably several floors above Louis Vuitton) on Agence France-Press. And is that top UK fashion journalist Suzy Menkes taking notes ?

 

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Our exclusive pic ( left) shows Double Bay society hairdresser Joh Bailey with a new customer - Oscar winning legendary actress Jane Fonda who checked into town for a flying visit yesterday to open a Fitness First exercise centre in the city at the ungodly hour of 6am.   Fonda did the round of Morning TV shows before fleeing the country, missing the excitement at the Gold Coast's Broadbeach Fitness First the same day where a brawl broke out with one unfortunate participant ending up in hospital with an almost severed hand.

 

Fashion Follies

Meet Felix Reiss who just last November was working at the Shuttle's supermarket of choice, Coles in Macleay Street Kings Cross. This month he has been treading the boards on the European catwalks and last week he opened and closed the Dior Homme show in Paris.The excellent rag trade website frockwriter brings us this and other hot-tips about the fashion world. It's a good read.
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One Australian fashion personality has been sounding off this week .
 Nicholas Huxley (left) is head of the Fashion & Design Studio at TAFE and he's had a hand in crafting the careers of the majority of our fashion designers and some of the the biggest names in the industry.
Huxley has ticked off both David Jones & Myer department stores for leaving him off their guest lists for years at the yearly fashion parades and soirees. As Nicholas puts it :
             " Today I appeared in the Sunday Telegraph as one of the 10 Secret Style Makers of Australia! (Thanks Elle again)! I have been nominated 5 years out of the 6 years of the Fashion Laureate Award for service to the Fashion industry.I have been nominated for the Fashion Group International Lifetime Achievement award. I have won two FIA(Fashion Industries of Australia ) awards. I have been nominated for an AFI (Australian Film Industries) Award for costuming a motion picture. In 2008(Sydney Magazine) I was chosen along with 4 other Fashion Industry people to be one of the 100 most influential people in Sydney."
 Huxley has a good point. The number of vacuous b-list slebs rolled out at these parades is as legendary as the snooty clip-board  (Ipads now) wielding "PR" consultants who think they are terribly important.

the judges : Didier Cohen * Charlotte Dawson * Alex Perry * Jennifer Hawkins

 Now he's also laid into the new season of the reality TV show Australia's Next Top Model : 
" OMG!!!! Australia's Next Top Model!!! Sorry..but what can I say?? WOW!! I'm sorry but I'm finding it very difficult to look at the judges..There is so much of everything going on...BOTOX GALORE..SO MUCH TALK BUT NO MOVEMENT IN THE FACE / WHITENED TEETH TO THE POINT OF WHO NEEDS THE LIGHTS ON..JUST FLASH THE TEETH! AND A MALE MODEL///WHO'S A BIT LIKE A LOG OF WOOD!
Ouch ! You tell 'em Nick !! 

Wow ! Look at Miranda

 Miranda Kerr showed off some fabulous curves at the New York Victoria's Secret fashion show which has put the pizzaz back into fashion parades. See more pics at justjared.

Meanwhile there is more drama at the Royal Oaks day at the Melbourne races after Australian male model (left) Andre Pejic was prevented from wearing a hat tribute to Princess Beatrice by the Victorian Racing Club.

The top fashion blog frockwriter has the full story here.

Abbey Under The Knife

She was the face of Versace's 2011 Spring campaign and this year the face of Gucci but gorgeous Australian model Abbey Lee Kershaw was absent from much of the catwalk at the recent New York Mercedes Fashion Week.

Now Patti Huntington of the [frockwriter] blogspot has revealed that Abbey is to undergo an operation in the Big Apple today because of a knee complaint that has troubled her for several years. Kershaw has taken a tumble at a few fashion shows which would not have helped her ligaments and fainted once at an Alexander McQueen parade.

Huntington also speculates the world's no 5 top model may be working on a project with Stephen Spielberg. Read more at [frockwriter] and see more of Mario Testino''s wonderful pics of Abbey here.

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     Duty Calls...

 An odd thing has been happening in the local media scene over the past few months.
Amongst the loose  gaggle of  paparazzi who attended every media event in Sydney and Melbourne, several of the more eager (read aggresive ) members have been no-where to be seen.

The lads from Big Picture seem to have vanished into the mist, coincidentally just as the Leveson Inquiry in the UK went into second gear.

Run by the self styled Mr Paparazzi Darryn Lyons of implanted six-pack fame, the Big Picture crew were all over the place in the last few years, exasperating the oldtimers of the pap scene who relied on keeping a low profile. In the UK they were equally disliked by the regular celebrity snappers who hang around outside the homes of the famous.
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Lyons is currently starring in Excess Baggage, the bizarre TV show where viewers watch a bunch of  minor celebrities like Ajay Rochester and Kevin Federline (Britney Spears's ex) try to lose weight. It's a bit like watching paint dry.

Could the low profile of the Pig Picture snappers and Mr Lyon's extended stay in Australia have anything to do perchance, with the fact that Justice Leveson wishes to call a representative of the paparazzi to the witness box and interrogate them over their relationship with the late News of The World and accident prone The Sun ?.

Lyons has claimed he got his start in photography after a 'chance meeting' with Rupert Murdoch (although the great man when once asked said he'd never heard of Lyons). Whatever happens the name Murdoch is probably not the best one to drop should Mr Paparazzi end up in front of M'Lud.