Showcasing a week of inspiring street style and amazing fashion design, Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Australia showed the world exactly why Australian designers are worth celebrating.
Designs for Spring/Summer 2013 are in full bloom, with many designers making their own mark with floral prints. Prevalent hues included cornflower and cobalt blues, fuchsia and bubblegum pinks, mixed with candy pastels and a dash of metallic for a daring edge (as seen at Ellery and Aje, in the form of a lot of sequins!).
The peplum held strong, and newcomer for this year, the bomber jacket, was shown in a variety of light and silky fabrics to help translate the look to balmy summer nights. I also loved the crisp white and mesh details shown by Zimmermann, Manning Cartell and kudos must go to the amazing Romance Was Born team of Anna Plunkett and Luke Sales, who literally started the week with a 'bang' (or was it a 'blam'?)!
These are a few (and I mean a few - there were many more, of course) of my favourite MBFWA moments, most of which were captured beautifully by the talented Yimmy Yayo who took his camera behind the scenes for Oyster Magazine. I made collages out of some of the photos, and superimposed others together...just for a bit of fun!
ALICE MCCALL
Babushka dolls & girly innocence
Garden inspired prints and embroidery
A white & fuchsia fairytale
CAMILLA
The queen of colour paints her magic onto
silk dresses and kaftans suitable for an island goddess
ELLERY
Space-age rounded shoulders
Intricate zips, pleats and seams
Russian red and emerald green
Expertly draped metallics
MANNING CARTELL
Youthfully sophisticated silhouettes
Cropped blazers & bomber jackets
Frida Kahlo meets bubblegum-blowing high school sweetheart
Subtle embellishment & geometric prints
MICHAEL LO SORDO, ZIMMERMANN, AN ODE TO NO ONE
Bomber jackets, midriffs, fresh florals and gorgeous digital prints
(Outfit on the left was worn by Nicole Warne of Gary Pepper during the week as well, and she looked stunning in it!
WHITE HOT
Stunning white designs by Suboo, Ash to Gold and Blessed are the Meek in crisp white
xx
Images: Yimmy Yayo for Oyster, fashionising.com, au.lifestyle.yahoo.com/marieclaire
Nike continues to break new ground with their latest campaign for the Nike event, She Runs the Night. It is an event that aims to motivate, encourage and empower women to provide them with a safe opportunity to run at night, with other women. As one of the most recognised and successful brands in the world, the brand has a lot of power when it comes to choosing celebrities, or 'heroes', to endorse their products. In the past, they've selected athletes such as Michael Jordan, Maria Sharapova and Tiger Woods to promote the brand.
This power of choice is the exact reason I find their latest execution so particularly interesting - the faces of the campaign are none other than Australian fashion blogger extraordinaires, Nicole of Gary Pepper Vintage, Margaret of Shine by Three, and Sara of Harper and Harley. Photos for the campaign were captured by the famous lens of fellow blogger Zanita.
This move to position fashion blog writers as ambassadors for the Nike brand indicates that the campaign is not necessarily targeting die-hard athletes; instead, it is harnessing fashion faces to motivate young Australian women, who might need a little push, to get out the door and running again by making it look trendy and cool. The campaign launched with this video of a woman going for a run at night:
This ad, which starts off feeling a little bit like a Placebo film clip (darkly alluring), ends making the runner feel empowered, as she 'defies the late-ticking clock, and the limits' and says that 'the more of us that run, the brighter we can burn'. Just watching it makes me want to put on my Nike's, go for a jog and feel the crisp evening breeze, the freedom of having the pavement to yourself, and the liberation of being able to run at night, in a tribe, without hesitation or fear.
I am really drawn to this idea for the following reasons: firstly, I am a member of the target audience. I am a young female, who is quite busy, enjoys doing many different things, and despite aspiring to keep an active and healthy lifestyle, I sometimes just feel that I don't have the time or money - or that at the end of the day, I'd rather save money on gym membership fees in order to afford a new dress or accessory when I want them. But when I have tried to motivate myself to go for a run or do exercise, I hesitate and end up not going because I don't feel safe running at night - and more often than not, that's where my spare time falls.
Secondly, I respect and admire the work these bloggers do, and I feel that I can identify with them as a relatively normal girl, who is interested in fashion and self expression, works hard, but at the end of the day, might not have a lot of spare time or motivation to work out.
Thirdly, I think that advertisers using bloggers to endorse their brands is one of the smartest moves they could make at the moment (as long as it's appropriate for the brand, of course). These girls are opinion leaders and trendsetters - if they say Michael Kors watches, Alexander Wang handbags and Isabel Marant wedge sneakers are cool, this instantly makes the products extremely desirable to all of their followers (and they have thousands of them!). I question whether I would have decided Michael Kors was the ultimate brand of watch to own, and saved up to purchase, if I wasn't a follower of these women. And now I might question whether I would go for a run, at night, without my Nike gear on...
She Runs the Night is built on a great insight - that young women often feel they can't go for a run at night, even in their own neighbourhood. If they do, they feel vulnerable and that they may be close to danger. I know that in the past, if I've gone for a run at night, I've tried to make it a quick jog, or make sure I go along busy roads, so I don't find myself in a scary situation. Another element to this insight is that women feel safer in numbers - even just passing another female on the footpath instantly makes you feel more confident, almost as if you're part of a small community, and that you're not alone.
The campaign is being executed in Sydney, with regular training sessions for groups starting at the same point (usually at Nike stores) and running together in a group around different areas of Sydney. These training sessions are leading up to the main race, which will be held on May 3rd at Centennial Park. For just under $100, Sydney women could register to receive a training pack of Nike merchandise to help them train, and have access to a fitness program, provided by the Nike personal trainers.
I hope that, should the campaign be a success (I suspect that it probably is, considering I know about it and I don't even live in Sydney) then hopefully they will bring the event to other capital cities in Australia. I would love to participate in this, so fingers crossed they bring it to Brisbane!
Nicole, Margaret and Sara have all recently been given the opportunity to transfer their blogs to the new Australian platform, Fellt, in a move that will provide their blogs with ultimate exposure, brand integrity, and provide the girls with some outstanding opportunities, such as this one. I've also been enjoying the photos released for the Miss Shop / Pedestrian TV bloggers project, and I look forward to seeing more opportunities to recognise these girls as the leaders that they are.
Gorgeous find in a little vintage boutique, Paris (I regret to say that no, for some unknown reason, I did not purchase these beautiful Christian Louboutin's, although from memory, they would have only been half a size too big for me...which, in the case of Louboutin's, is definitely fixable! So much lust...)
Visiting Paris felt incredibly surreal. From a very young age, I had revered Paris (as many others had) as the number one holiday destination...especially for shopping. The amazing city is famous for its beautiful language, indulgent pastries, incredible fashion designers and of course, it is known as the city of love.
The awe-inspiring Eiffel Tower
I definitely understand the well-deserved fame, as I saw and experienced each of these things in one small way or another during my stay. As lovely as it is, I think I will need to return to Paris at least once more in my youth, as I don't feel it was given a fair chance to become my favourite place. This was due to a number of small but significant drawbacks - firstly, the rain! It rained every day that my friend and I were there, except for the first day of our tour (when I chose to wear a t-shirt on a bike ride around the city, and consequently received an undesirable tan line which no Italian tan could later recover!). The main reason that the wet weather caused me some discomfort, is that I had developed the most horrid blisters on my feet from so much walking in London - and as a result, was forced to wear open sandals to hop skip and jump through the rainy puddles of Paris in. Wet and muddy yellow summer sandals don't make for the ideal entrance into high-end Parisienne boutiques!
In addition to this, I was generally feeling a little on the flu-ey side. I'd also had a few fairly average restaurant meals, but in hindsight, this can't be blamed on the city itself. We could have been much wiser about our choices. (Tip: DO NOT eat food at a restaurant on the Champs Elysses' where the waitstaff parade around in striped long sleeved tops, complete with red neckerchief and beret. This was an obvious mistake, but we were fooled by the allure of an English menu! Cue salty, unflavoursome pasta and slightly stale bread.)
That said, I still had a wonderful time there - and I definitely stumbled across some noteworthy purchases! In particular, a gorgeous vintage Balmain scarf in bold hues of red, fuschia and bright blue, snatched up for a bargain price of 20 euros! Also, a frilly-hemmed pair of Maje red shorts/culottes with an oriental floral design - that I have since spied on the famous derriere of Pippa Middleton! I certainly feel a little more special when I wear them now.
Other highlights included: discovering the cosmetic kingdom that is Sephora, indulging in sweets at Laduree', climbing the stairs to the top of the Arc de Triomphe and taking in the beautiful view of the city, admiring everything inside and outside of the Louvre, visiting the Palace of Versailles on a gorgeous sunny day, stumbling over the French language and pretending to understand their speedy responses (later to find that they spoke perfect English...), and wandering through the streets and boutiques!
These are a few of the photos I took in Paris.
(From top)
Tarte aux Fraises (From Laduree')
Pony hair heels, All Saints
Cinema billboard
Entrance to the Palace of Versailles
View of the Palace from the Garden at Versailles
Scenic bike ride along Seine river
