Fashion Week foibles

 The Mercedes Benz Fashion Week is underway in Sydney. Whispers will have a full report at the end of the week after the conclusion but here is snap of model Bella Hadid posing with a Whisper's discovery : Cheyenne Tozzi on Sydney Harbour. Apparently Bella changed her hotel room which has sent a few journalists into a frenzy. It doesn't take much to excite some people in this town !

Weight Watchers

AFTER BANNING LARA BINGLE from his parade, designer Alex Perry is now flagellating himself after yesterday's opening parade for Sydney's Mercedes Benz Fashion Week. Perry has said that using ultra thin supermodel Cassi Van Den Dungen was a mistake.
As our snap shows Cassi does look rather gaunt although the camera can fib. Alex appeared on the 9 Network's Morning Show and told hosts Karl Stefanovic and Lisa Wilkinson that it "was a mistake" after looking at photos from the show.
Mia Freedom has bought into the debate on Mammia, describing the parade as The Hunger Games while Marie Claire editor Jackie Frank has expressed concerns over Cassi's health. Van Den Dungen helpfully Instagramed a snap of her lunch which seems to consist of 2 croissants, water and a hugely unhealthy energy drink- not the sort of thing to be recommending to young girls who may be following her career.
The obsession with thinness is always evident during Fashion Weak and anyone who has shopped with a larger lady as the Shuttle did last week knows how ridiculous it has all become. Looking for larger lingerie at both Myer & David Jones in Bondi's Westfield proved fruitless (and just finding an assistant was like Stanley discovering Dr Livingstone) Racks and racks of unsold stock- thin stock -was on display yet nothing for the average sized or above, woman as most Australian women are. 
Yet in the specialty shop Storm In A D Cup just down the road in Edgecliff they were doing a roaring trade with an assistant who not only knew her stock intimately but took over $3000 in the half hour we spent there. There are lessons all round which are bound to be ignored.
 Tomorrow : SORTING OUT LAURA CSORTAN

Yoko, Jagger, Vanity Fair & A Fashion Fail

People are gearing up for the under-whelming Mercedes Benz Fashion Week that will be upon us next week.
Following the announcement that Qantas and the Emirates have joined forces, British Airways flew in model Georgia May Jagger on a promotional flight and she hit the runway at Mascot Airport to showcase the new British Airways 777 300ER jet.

Only 1st Class for Jagger

Georgia May demonstrates the
new Economy Class seats on BA

Jagger will be on the runway next week modelling for what has become a sort of Groundhog Day of Aussie fashion designers with the usual suspects showing off their wares. The brains behind Sydney's Fashion Week must feel international publicity isn't required this year having rejected, or ignored, a request from a Vanity Fair correspondent to cover the event. He's off to Melbourne and Hamilton Island instead, still puzzled why giving him a square foot of space at a few fashion parades was beyond the capabilities of the powers that be.
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Meanwhile as a parting gift our Vanity Fair scribe has supplied us with some snaps of our favourite wacky Japanese artist Yoko Ono lighting up the Empire State Building in New York yesterday.


Yoko is ambassador for World Autism Awareness Day and over 3000 buildings are participating in an Light It Up Blue campaign to raise awareness about autism.

Match Of The Day

Fashion impresario Simon Lock has announced on Facebook that he has become engaged to fashion editor Kirsten Doak.

Lock is the genius behind the various Australian Fashion Weeks in Melbourne and Sydney and worked tirelessly with good friends who mortgaged their houses to finance and get Australia's fashion industry up on the world stage. His efforts paid of with sponsors like Mercedes Benz coming on board and a number of local designers like Collette Dinnigan, Josh Goot and Alex Perry having fantastic success throughout Europe and the USA,

Amiable Lock now lives in Dubai where he is overseeing successful fashion forums. Kirsten lives there as well and is the fashion and beauty editor on Dubai's Viva Magazine.
As a man of many talents - Lock also runs a very successful public relations firm in Sydney- Simon takes the winter months off and heads for the snow fields where he is a ski instructor.
Right : Simon & Kirsten at the opening night of the Dubai Fashion week.

Seven Days - a Long Time...

Alan with John Serafino

It was British Prime Minister Harold Wilson who said : "a week is a long time in politics" but it could apply to many things.
Just last week the Shuttle was having celebratory drinks with a handful of guests including arguably Australia's most successful broadcaster Alan Jones at John Serafino's new city boutique.
Two days later his world crashed as a News Ltd reporter revealed Jones' distasteful remarks at a Young Liberals dinner, about the late father of Prime Minister Julia Gillard.  Liberal MP Malcolm Turnbull immediatey condemned Jones via Twitter (completely unconnected with the notion he is after Liberal leader and Jones' supporter Tony Abbott's job).

Peter FitzSimon

And the trickle became a torrent with on-line petitions via Facebook demanding Jones' lucrative sponsors and Radio 2GB advertisers withdraw from his show. And they left in droves- Harvey Norman, Woolworths, Telstra, Coles, McDonalds, 7-Eleven and more.

Mike Carlton

Macquarie Radio (owners of 2GB) chairman Russell Tate condemned the call on advertisers as cyber-bullying after the network finally announced that advertisers would be suspended from Jones' broadcasts completely, a loss of around $24M a year.
 Sun Herald writer Peter FitzSimon demolished that argument in his column yesterday.
 On Saturday Sydney Morning Herald columnist Mike Carlton who was a broadcaster on Radio 2UE when Jones was there (referring to him as The Parrot)  penned a scathing piece titled  Prissy shrieks of fear and loathing casting aspersions on Jones' claim to be an Oxford graduate and with these wounding words :" This is a man who thinks Jeffrey Archer is a great English novelist, whose taste in music screeches to a halt at Andre Rieu."  Jones is a great pal of Archer.

 Media and advertising experts have claimed Jones advertisers will be back eventually. But will they? 
Mercedes Benz have issued the most damning press release saying they have not only abandoned advertising at 2GB permanently but have demanded Jones hand back his grace and favour $250,000 Merc and if not, they will re-possess it.
Still there are plenty more luxury motors in the basement of Jones' luxury apartment in the famous Toaster building. Waiting outside John Serafino's was the latest gleaming Jaguar XJ with a chauffeur perusing the Daily Telegraph while he waited for the master. Unless of course, it's a loaner as well.