Fashion news

The sacred feminine has just gotten sexier with the release of the new Rachel Gilbert Sydney Collection, ‘Tainted Love in Paris’. With French lace, delicate beading, and silk and chiffon as its backbone, this high-end collection from the head designer behind Nicky Hilton’s label Chick is the ultimate fashion-forward range for Autumn/Winter 2008. Fusing classic French style with the embellished rock twist of today, Rachel Gilbert’s latest range, which also features classy weekend wear, is set to take the Aussie fashion market by storm. Already sold in over 45 locations around Australia, and gaining incredible pace internationally – from New York, LA, Madrid and the Netherlands – the Rachel Gilbert Sydney label proves that style loves the lady who wears her pearls with an edge.

Romance Was Born is simply amazing. Not only do designers Anna Plunkett and Luke Sales grasp, with even hands, both the beautiful and the bizarre within their raiment, but their choice of collaborations is always spot-on. The latest is with famed Australian artist Del Kathryn Barton, who created fabrics for a collection of one-off RWB garments entitled "Garden Of Eden". The above photo was taken during the exhibition's launch; held last week at Paddington's Kaliman Gallery. And what a lush spectacle it looks to have been - even the photo looks like some sort of crazy painting! You can catch the Garden Of Eden show as part LMFF's cultural programme, which will see it held at the National Design Centre from March 7-May 7.

What is up with Sweden and super lush, clean fashion? Acne, WHYRED, Fillipa K, Cheap Monday, Ann-Sofie Back etc etc. Seriously - I just want to go to Stockholm, eat herrings, drink me some Acvavit and roll around in the perfect denim and soft cotton tee-shirts that surely must just litter the footpaths there. Another Swedish label that's rapidly gaining international attention is Odeur. Founded by designers Anna Lidstrom and Peter Hallstrom in 2006, Odeur elevates itself in the fashion world through beautiful detail and perfect, albeit often unexpected, cuts. Lidstrom and Hallstrom largely only work with the essentials; T-shirts, jeans, shirts, scarves and hoodies - giving a carefully constructed twist to each otherwise basic item . Just look at this T-shirt from Odeurs summer 08 range - perfect length, perfect drape and apparently it smells nice too: Odeur impregnate their garments with the "scent of Odeur - an adrogynous, clean, white and light scent". Yum!

Unlike a disproportionate number of other reality T.V alumns, Australia's Next Top Model winner Alice Burdeu has not been relegated to the pages of Zoo weekly and is infact doing quite nicely for herself thank-you-very-much. The flame-haired lass can be seen here on the catwalk for Proenza Shouler at New York Fashion Week.
The collection, by the way, is AMAZING.

One of the more respected names amongst the slew of collaborative projects that have appeared in London's High St in recent months, is LENS by TopMAN (the male counterpart of the much-worshipped TopShop). Having previously worked with designers such as Carolyn Massey, Dexter Wong and Neue, LENS has this year teamed up with Australia's own fashion success story; Mic Eaton, in creating the Material Boy for LENS collection. From Feb 10, Eaton's famously chromatic wares will not only be on the backs of London's clubkids but on the racks of La Floret in Tokyo and New York shopping institution, Barney's, also.

While the great weight-debate has had buckets of magazine ink spilt over it in the past few months, there’s another bone of contention that’s slowly presenting itself within the fashion industry; the appearance of extremely young models on the catwalk. Outspoken NZ designer Lucie Boshier has hit out at the issue with the above poster (which kind of speaks for itself). Boshier claims to have been spurred into creating the “Lining up The Kids” campaign after seeing a twelve- year old girl on the catwalk at last year’s Australian Fashion Week; "Designers are using children - prepubescent girls - to model women's clothes, and they look terrible on them," she argues. "It makes women feel inadequate and it makes me feel sick."
What’s your opinion?

I was looking at this website the other day and came to the conclusion that not only does Perth rear more than it's fair share of really good looking people; it's also probably the most stylish city in Australia. To argue my claim further, I give you: The Family. Formed by five friends from the country's "most isolated state" The Family is both a much loved store and street wear label with a focus on beautiful fabrics, great design and more than a bit of cheek. Fitting then, that they should recruit music's most fashion forward, and naughty, princess; Uffie, to be the the face of their latest collection. Apparently, Uff and fellow Ed Banger signee DJ Feadz took quite a shining to The Fam and have been rocking their wares on their current international tour. The collection is titled "Bad Meaning Good" and if the shot on your left is anything to go by I'd say the range is looking pretty damn good indeed.