Samantha Pleet is taking Brooklyn and Fashion in general to new heights, reminding us that fashion at its best is like fine art. It tells a story and paints a portrait, providing bodies and faces with character and identity and Samantha Pleet’s characters are clear statements of playful style. Her Spring 09 line The Season of Wonders is indeed fitting of it’s name with her look book being shot not only in stills but in a short movie, which depicts her characters playing in a gallery location. This interactive form of showing is a prime example of why Samantha ain’t just the next pretty face she has captured the enchantment and mystery that makes a fashion show such an incredible experience and offered it to people everywhere. She has bought her designs to life right before our square computer eyes and on blank back drop these clothes really are as alive as the people wearing them. The characters that are enveloped in her magnificently wearable designs have a distinct modernity and yet also evoke strong nostalgia for the romance of fairytales and magic lands, they speak a foreign language that reeks with the mystery of possibility and whispers a secrecy that is beyond reality. Samantha has revived fashions ability to seemingly reveal majestic secrets of the unknown in stark, simplistic reality; The Season of Wonders is grandeur in a minimalist form. The collection evolves from nippy wasp waistlines into voluminous silhouettes embellished by simplicity of tailoring and a predominantly black white and pastel colour palette that is refreshingly spliced with brighter hues. The Season of Wonder really is wondrous and the girl behind it is too, this New York girl is dabbling in every field of fashion introducing Patrick Pleet, a menswear line co-designed by her husband and designing an exclusive collection for Urban Outfitters, called Rapscallion, which lead to curating an Urban Outfitters pop-up store in Los Angeles, all in 2008. But wait there’s more Samantha is also the co designer of and eco friendly line called Bodkin and has developed a specialty in dressing indie bands including bands such as Au Revoir Simone, Apache Beat, Grizzly Bear, Yeasayer, and Holy Hail. Samantha also paints, acts, makes films, and plans to start a band if she ever has time, see I told you wondrous. This is one truly inspiring girl who has coveted a sense of magic that seeps from the lining of her clothing...sit back and enjoy the wonder that moves and plays before your eyes...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30glbqbpZIc

Founder of Mahalo by Sass, Sarah O Rourke, is definitely tapping into something divine through her one off jewellery pieces. Mahalo, as defined above is a Hawaiian expression of divinity, admiration and appreciation. Sarah’s pieces started off as gifts to friends to show her appreciation and the appreciation and admiration was returned double fold to Sarah with requests for pieces of divinity growing into an entire label. They say you can tell a lot by a name well...Mahalo by Sass tells a story of divinity captured in magnificent jewellery that is sure to draw admiration from every angle. The latest collection Sunsets and summer rain works with a beautiful colour palate that rings with nostalgia for cocktails as the sun goes down and long summer nights on the beach. It was inspired by the contrasting colours of the summer evening and night time skies and it cements and casts these magic moments of nature in stones and metal literally. Sarah uses Sterling Silver as a base and then embellishes her pieces with brass stampings, swarovski crystals, precious stones like turquoise, pearls, shell, polymer clay Frangis and roses. Each piece is lovingly sculpted by Sarah’s own hands and a lot of the pieces are then also hand painted using a mix of lumiere & acrylic paints coated in protective resin. Sarah varies the designs of each piece slightly when creating them in order to keep every piece as a unique one off. More great news is that your one off piece won’t cost you an arm and a leg, Sarah’s work is modestly priced in the true nature of someone who simply wants to share a bit of her divinity with the world. These pieces make beautiful presents for friends and family and of course for yourself, there is nothing like being adorned with a special something that you know no one else in the world has. It is a true individual expression of the beauty within turned inside out. Sarah;s mission statement for her label states “Mahalo is ineffable, indescribable, and undefinable with words alone...To be understood, it must be experienced...In what i create i hope to share that experience.” The experience of wearing one of the distinctive Mahalo by Sass pieces is indeed ineffable.
This summer, summer nights are not just feeling or spirit they are literal pieces of magic available exclusively to suit...so jump onto the online store or contact Sarah Via her Myspace or Facebook to order your one off piece designed and catered to specifically to you
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5793418
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=108771875480
http://www.myspace.com/mahalobysass

Last night saw the final Face Fashion event un roll it’s little red carpet for the last time this year, showcasing five of what FACE believes to be the freshest faces in Australian Fashion, Stolen From...Emily Sarks, Pizzuto, Kylie Hawkes, Perspective Apparel and Fiona Vougdis. The line up sounded so impressive so bring on the show case...and the newest Face of Fashion I found worthy of mentioning was...Kylie Hawkes. Her collection was everything it promised to be. It was clean and sophisticated. Kylie worked with timeless classics such as the pant suit and gave a summer lift to her collection by casting a splash of bright orange into the outfits. The collection was one of those stylists dream collections that worked on a superior level with the basics of every woman’s wardrobe, it was a collection where you could take every piece and team it with a different one and still have a classically classy outfit. Kylie’s garments showed clear attention to cut and construction carving out a flattering and powerful silhouette on the catwalk that by far out did all the other designers. Kylie was given a grant to start her own label after graduating from University of Technology Sydney in 2006 and has been noted as one to watch by the media and last night proved she is definitely the one to watch. Kylie’s successfully carried the essence of sophistication not only throughout her designs but her entire showcase, from the music to the make -up which saw each model strut down the catwalk with fresh faces engraved with white, orange and black cow horns creating a continuity of colour palate into the face as for the horns..I’m not sure that's a question for Kylie. In fact I would like to offer my congratulations to the hair and make-up team behind the event there was some terribly fast transformations going on there and they managed to create a different look for each designer that reflected the individual aspects of their garments. So the moral of my fashion story for this week, is clean, sleek sophistication by Kylie Hawkes. This girl is worth a google and keep an eye out at Sydney's most fashionable markets where she is a favourite. I’ll defiantly being joining her growing list of loyal clientele.

Pics will be up on face fashion very soon...http://www.facefashion.net/

Sitting in milliner Wendi Nutt’s Balmain studio one can’t help but be overwhelmed by the feeling of nostalgia for the days when Sydney’s George Street was sea of wonderful hats and elegant women. Wendi describes hats as the icing on the cake of every outfit and everyone knows the icing is the best bit. Hats make a person stand out in a crowd, they portray a women who has a respect and confidence in herself and her appearance and with weather like ours their really should be more of them! Wendi is the hat’s greatest ambassador and her hats were enough to convert me into a mad hatter as well! Wendi has always designed her own clothes and worked in fabric design for a while, amongst a broad range of other things, including film production. After studying a design course at TAFE someone suggested that millinery would be the ideal way for Wendi to combine two of her greatest passions, fashion and sculpture and from there it wasn’t long until Philadelphia Philpot Millinery was born. Wendi has made a name for herself over 18 years, through her one off, handmade hats. Crafted with love on vintage hat blocks, her fine straws and felts are embellished with vintage and handmade trims. We re-adapt our wardrobes every year and constantly replace and refine our accessories but we forget the greatest and most versatile accessory of them all is a great hat. Wendi passionately tells me that every girl should have one fabulous black hat for winter and one for summer that can be re-styled, altered and transformed with new trimmings every season and it makes sense. The mysterious and alluring nature of a hat seeps into the person who is wearing it, transporting them into those ephemeral moments of magnificent style. Wendi’s advice to us is don’t leave the hat till the last minute, it’s not an afterthought it’s an essential and it must match with the shoes, bag and dress perfectly. The services offered by a milliner, such as Wendi, are the kind of one off attentions that every girl dreams. Visit Wendi and she promises you top to toe styling advice and trust me it’s good advice! Take some of your favourite dresses along and play dress ups, finding out more than simply what suites you and what doesn’t but what enhances your individual style. Let’s face it, some of the greatest style icons have spoken via their head attire, Marie Antoinette and Georgiana the Duchess of Devonshire allowed their magnificent revolutionising styles to flow from their hats. So let’s eat our cake girls but let’s do it the proper way, with a little bit of icing!

Find out more about Wendi via her website or simple call to make an appointment.\
http://www.philadelphiaphilpot.com/

0411 228232

Face Fashion have established themselves as an influential business in the fashion industry when it comes to finding and celebrating the new faces of fashion. They provide a forum of exposure for Australia’s up and coming designers allowing them to unveil their talent in premium style events that reflect the grandeur of the talent they are working with. Their latest event is set to be held on Thursday the 11^th of December in the Forum Entertainment Quarter and Face have bought together an extremely talented bunch of designers for their final event of the year. The six talented designers who will be showcasing their collections include Stolen from... by Emily Sarks, Fiona Vougdis, Kylie Hawkes, Lemisee, Perspective apparel, Pizzuto. Each designer looks set to turn out a massive display of style, embracing texture, technique and form. These designers are each making their mark in the industry and come from extensive experience and varying backgrounds from Fiona Vougdis who has worked as Fashion/ Beauty PR consultant for Vogue and Harpers Bazaar to Lemisee who learnt to sew from her grandmother and used her first pay check to buy her first very own sewing machine. The collections look set to be as diverse as the faces behind them drawing inspiration from Fiona Vougis’s extensive travels to moments in time etched in Emily Sark’s memory that she retells in texture and form born from a beautiful range of vintage sourced materials. These designers understand the exclusivity of fashion from Emily Sark’s one off pieces to the emotional stigma that emanates Pizzutos designs. They are changing and evolving with the vast world of ever changing perspective that walks alongside great fashion with the designers behind Perspective Apparel discarding theme and embracing diversity in reflection of their design statement, "The difference between style and fashion is Perspective.” Fashion is a world of those in the know and Kylie Hawks is not only popular with those in the know but is in the know herself about what matters in fashion, embracing the importance of detail and local construction in her clean and strong designs. These designers are a true reflection of the values that Face Fashion promote and Yen readers love Style and Women, “It’s about a woman’s movement….the way she is transformed when she steps out in ‘that’ dress. If she is suave and mysteriously intoxicating, then that dress should fall weightlessly over her body and seem as if it wouldn’t take more then a gentle breeze to blow it away. If her movement is bolder and dangerously confident her waistline should be sculptured, curve-hugging and all-out sexy. A woman’s movement is the measurement of her personality, in the skin she is in and how she conceivably transforms herself in her environment. Really, all she has to do is find the right spot, stand there, look good and more importantly feel good.” Fiona Vougdis.

For ticket enquires to this magnificent shows case click below...
http://facefashion.net/thefashionevent/

This is an event not be missed.

I could have danced all night last night to the familiar songs of the musical and classic movie, My Fair Lady, at the Theatre Royale. Sometimes I forget how magic a theatre experience can be, it can not be compared to film, as it is just so different and unique, it truly has a place of it’s own in the world of arts. The classic My Fair Lady was re-translated onto stage perfectly combining versatile sets and lavish costumes with a stellar cast that included Australian classics John Wood and Nancy Hayes. We all know in the movie there are two scenes that take our breath away, aesthetically speaking ,the Ascott race scene and the The Grande Ball, and let me tell you I was just thrilled with the real life scene taking place in front of me. Opera Australia should be commended for the costumes which captured the elegance that surrounded the era, in every inch of silk and every feathered hat, it makes one nostalgic for the days of women truly dressing as opposed to merely clothing oneself. The songs were ringing in my head as I walked out and I felt like Eliza Dolittle walking on air that is the feeling that only theatre can inspire. There is something truly enchanting about watching a story take place in front of you knowing that while you are sitting in that auditorium you are living the story with the actors in every energised and inspired moment, not after hours of editing and special effects, it is a shared experience between an artist and audience and it is beautiful. The play even had that ever important aspect of the arts, it made me think...What makes a lady today? That was the question on my mind when I walked out. I concluded in most ways it’s still the same, we are still judged on how we look, speak and perform in public but these days a lady has to have something more, a true lady it seems in modern day, has to have an element of independence, but ever important is the way in which a lady carries herself, today it must be with an air of confidence and Eliza Dolittle is one lovable fair lady even today. It’s a beautiful evening and worth every penny to go see My Fair Lady, running until December 7^th, so treat yourself to something truly quintessential, the only thing missing is Audrey Hepburn...

http://www.myfairlady.org.au/index.html

Elsom is the latest Australian fashion label to embrace the organic movement. Using organic and sustainable fabrics to construct garments that are rich in quality and form. The man behind the label Sam Elsom is passionate about sourcing his fabrics and is set to change the way people view organic textiles through a textile revolution born from the endless global search for new innovative textiles. Elsom returns to the routes of fashion allowing the form of the garment to flow from the material being used and in turn creating garments that are functional and luxurious. The most remembered, sought after and enduring garments throughout the history of fashion have always been comprised of textiles that speak volumes in inimitability, something that Elsom has achieved in each and every metre of fabric, however this label is not only speaking volumes in terms of timelessness but integrity. Elsom have put in the hard yards developing relationships with top European Mills and organic farmers all over the world. It is a label born from the most important ingredient passion, for clothing, style and sustainability and it is a passion that is contagious. Being draped in the silks of Elsom, which are sourced from Italy and Hangzhou in China, the province with the last natural silk worms in the world, is an experience that redefines luxury, swathing us in the magnificence and versatility of the nature that surrounds us. Elsom are a label to watch out for, in a world that is becoming increasingly aware, Elsom is providing us with a wakeup call that lolls us back into a sleep of ever stylish dreams where the beauty of nature, which has inspired fashion since the beginning of time, is given a structure that lives and breathes appreciation. When I said textile revolution I wasn’t joking, Sam informs me the label is working with the development of a truly innovative cloth, one compromised entirely of milk. The catwalks are alive with whispers of change and the loudest voice is Elsom.

http://www.elsom.com.au/index2.html