Accreditation | Featured Image | Ryan Pierse for Getty Images Designer | Aqua Blue | Swim Runway | Sydney MBFWA 2016
Mercedes Benz Fashion Week 2016
“The Wrap”
Accreditation | Featured Image | Ryan Pierse for Getty Images
Designer | Aqua Blue | Swim Runway | Carriageworks
There are always people who are keen to see you fail, those who are indifferent and those few gorgeous souls who will support you unconditionally, push you to do better and ultimately drive you forward.
Janna Jones
LM
What is the philosophy behind your label?
JJ
The J A N N A J O N E S brand aims to bring the strength, styling and sophistication of European luxury leather goods to the international market (from an Australian base).
The Australian market is unique. Unlike Europe we are unwilling to pay thousands of dollars for a trend item that we will wear a handful of times and then archive. Nor do we pack away our S/S wardrobe and then pull out a completely different A/W one.
The fashion conscious Australian public want quality pieces that have the ability to stand alone, work with the latest trend and can also be styled with much of what they already possess in their wardrobe.
JANNA JONES strives to facilitate the luxury experience by ensuring the provision of high quality leather, silk satin lining and matching dust bag, pressed branding, customised hardware, authentication cards and eternal style at a more accessible price point.
Photographer | Tristan Jud | HMUA | Simone Lee | Model | Jaqueline Baker
LM
What is the inspiration behind your label?
JJ
Accessories are limitless; I pull inspiration from culture, architecture, art, various design mediums, music, engineering etc. Handbags in particular are the ultimate attainable luxury. They are resilient of seasonal trends, and irrepressible by variations in location, climate, culture, politics, religion, diet and age. That in itself deserves global adoration.
Last week I aged about five years. Just as well I was wearing my new Pradas. Like Anna Wintour. Except that I wasn’t wearing them to be cool. No. Just to cover up my very tired face.
This was our last day at Carriageworks, the sun was going down on the event for this year, quite literally.
I loved every single moment!
It is my most favourite week of the year. Strange you might say if it’s my favourite week. Why am I stating negatives? Yes. I can see what you mean. But as wonderful as it is, it is a crazy mix of the greatest excitement you could ever imagine, and the most exhausting of any weeks, all at the same time. It is hype on top of hype. The excitement of seeing the most beautiful people once again, and naturally to catch up in person with all my fashion friends who live all over Australia.
Mercedes Benz Fashion Week 2016 or MBFWA. A phenomenal week of the “work” kind of socialising, meeting industry friends, and of course, the reason we all go … to witness, enjoy and revel in the sheer talent of fashion design that Australia is known for.
An industry event full of buyers, bloggers, fashion journalists, editors, spotters, public relations teams, celebrities, and the Who’s Who of the Australian fashion world. I have lost track of how many shows I watched across the week, but what shows they were.
Opened by the incredible Toni Maticevski in the most inspiring of venues, Bangaroo.
Closed by the legendary, Oscar de la Renta, now passed, but Oh! how ‘The Legend’ lives on. It was full house indeed, and any wonder. Elegance personified is our Oscar, and what a treat is was to be able to be present.
Bangaroo is just an incredible place, period. But for a fashion show? Simply memorable. Most of the other shows were at Carriageworks in Sydney’s Everleigh, and of course, like always there were the “off site” shows, like the one at Bradfield Park in Sydney’s north. Literally under the Harbour Bridge at 9am on a beautiful clear morning, with blue sky and perfectly acquainted by crisp Autumnal air, the Manning Cartell girls did not disappoint. A stunning collection.
Mid week another highlight for me was the McGraw show. Speaking of sisters who never disappoint, I thought this show was beautifully balanced in every way. A great collection. A fun collection. Gorgeous models. Smiling models! Great choice of music and a beautiful happy, original, and unforgettable set!
I proudly tell everyone about MBFWA and my involvement there, because I am truly chuffed at the amazingness we get to call Australian fashion. We are expertly creative and distinctively original in the way we interpret and present fashion. We are a hub of far-away design genius as far as I am concerned and the rest of the world rightly watches in awe when we show our very best Fashionista selves. I will be posting many interviews in the coming weeks about MBFWA Resort 2017 but for now, as a teaser, I thought you might enjoy a taste of my fashion week video gallery.
Until next time,
Jade xx
We are still young but you will never find passion like ours.
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Last week, I attended Mercedes Benz Fashion Week for the whole glorious week!
It is my most favourite week of the year.
Industry professionals line up eagerly each and every year to view the current landscape of Australian fashion and the ever increasing talent of the emerging designer market.
As always, I am there to champion, encourage, and cover editorially, the high stakes game of Australian fashion. The designers, established and emerging, and their often forgotten, phenomenal creative teams.
It was a great privilege to see these very talented individuals forging ahead in the Australian fashion scene and I can only hope that it continues with great vigour.
“Project NextGen is an initiative that is intended to provide a platform to discover and support emerging Australian fashion designers. By connecting these gifted individuals with an experienced panel of industry insiders, the program mentors Australian talent to help them hone a broad range of skills and elevate their profile through industry connections and ongoing business support”.
The winners this year were Anna Quan, Holystone (Renee Sealey), Jason Hewitt, Kaliver (Roni Cross), Monster Alphabets (Sarah Ryoko Watanbe), and Third Form (Merryn Kelly). Judged by the following panel, Edwina McCann (Editor-In-Chief Vogue Australia, Kellie Hush (Editor-In-Chief Harper’s Bazaar Australia), Justin O’Shea (Buying Director mytheresa.com), Emily Weight (Director Fashion IMG Australia), Eva Galambos (Director & Buyer Parlour X), Chris Buchanan (GM Ellery), Donna Player (Merchandise Director David Jones), and Kelly Francis (Fashion Director MADE), we now find ourselves watching the final product. Project NextGen 2016.
Jason Hewitt showed his Resort 17 Collection.
Get out of H&M and Topshop and Forever New, and all that crap. It’s bad for the environment and it’s bad for you. Ultimately it won’t satisfy. Start buying quality, and curate a wardrobe of things you cherish.
That. Is. Style.
Jason Hewitt
Jason Hewitt Resort 17 Collection | Photographer | Stefan Gosatti | Getty Images
LM
What is the philosophy behind your label?
JH
It’s two fold.
Firstly, Every aspect of your business should be as sustainable and ethical as possible and should not define one as a designer.
Secondly, I enjoy creating pieces that I am proud of and which resonate with people.
LM
What is the inspiration behind your label?
JH
Depends really, it’s so varied. I’m inspired by life, but that sounds a bit new-age-hippy for me. I like contemporary art, culture, reading. I was looking at an interview with JW Anderson recently where he said he wants Loewe to come from a place of culture – I think I agree with that. I’m so fascinated by different cultures, and how they’re presented and old traditions are updated. I think that’s what drives a lot of the things I’m interested in.
Jason Hewitt Resort 17 Collection | Photographer | Stefan Gosatti | Getty Images
LM
What do you think of today’s street fashion?
JH
There’s not really much to think. People should wear what they feel good in. It’s not really my place to have an opinion on it (I dress like an absolute slob most of the time) but I do sometimes take inspiration from the way people put things together.
The street fashion thing feels a bit like an Oroborous these days. Trends are taken from the street and then fed back, like a closed loop. I don’t know if that’s going to generate anything new in terms of design so I do wonder if street fashion isn’t just becoming rather watered down … Normcore, a trend so boring it didn’t need to be named.
LM
Lol! (Normcore is a unisex fashion trend characterized by unpretentious, average-looking clothing).
LM
What advice would you give to aspiring fashion designers?
JH
Learn how to make clothes, properly, before you start designing them. Take your inspiration from anywhere, but avoid looking at other designers unless it’s for a historical point of reference or a preferred silhouette. Look at other designers work from a construction point of view not design. Go to museums, read books, get off your phone, close your computer and take it all in. The internet is a great resource but it’s not the same as the real thing.
This week is Mercedes Benz Fashion Week … quite simply, one of the most highly anticipated and loved weeks of my year. This year Carriageworks is the chosen venue for MBFWA once again, and it is literally filled to the brim with fashion talent. Naturally, in a country like Australia where our summers are long, our days hot, and our landscape fringed with the gorgeous white sands of the most beautiful beaches in the world, swimwear and resort wear is a very important cornerstone of the Australian fashion industry. Later today, I will be attending the show simply named “SWIM”. Here is the story of Aqua Blu … Love Us & follow us on social media to show your support of these wonderful emerging designers … See live streaming of the show here… Instagram & FB
Enjoy xx
LM
What is the philosophy behind your label?
AB
Our philosophy is confidence, we believe that people should look as good as they feel.
LM
What is the inspiration behind your label?
AB
We are inspired by effortless glamour; we believe that people should feel beautiful when they wear one of our pieces.
LM
What do you think of today’s street fashion?
AB
I believe today’s street fashion feels like a passing fad, I feel there is a lack of statement. Everyone wants to blend in rather than stand out.
LM
What advice would you give to aspiring fashion designers?
AB
It takes a lot of hard work, stick with it, don’t quit and always focus on your aesthetic vision.
Photography | Richard Freeman | Model | Michelle Alan
I first discovered the work of Bec Cole when I was at VAMFF earlier this year. Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival is always a treat as it combines the week long excitement of the runway with a cultural taste of Melbourne itself, and it truly is a wonderful delicatessen of fashion experience.
On one of the last days, through the haze of my exhaustion I could feel my interest pique when I saw Bec’s work, and made a mental note to myself as I do to remember to contact her with a view to highlight the obvious dedication to her work when I returned home.
Bec is one of the highly talented, hard working stylists, and passionate devotees of the Australian fashion industry, who travels far and wide to bring us the wonderful smorgasbord of visual delight that only such a stylist can.
A kind of creative hero if you like. I feel we tend to forget the amazing creative minds and teams who sit behind the creation of the collections of fashion designers. Personally, I believe it is so important to remember to applaud the work of these dedicated professionals who work tirelessly behind the scenes.
Very loudly.
Enjoy xx
Stylist |Bec Cole | Photographer | Benn Jay | Hair & Makeup | Blanka Dudas
LM
What do you believe is the role of “the stylist”?
BC
A stylist is a visual translator….helping a designer, art director or editor achieve a look, story and campaign brief. It’s helping create a visual reality….This can be anything from dressing talent, liaising with designers to designing sets and alternative worlds.
I have a background in set design, so I love seeing a whole vision come to life….this includes not only the wardrobe side of things, but the propping, set design….even the casting of the talent / models. It’s helping everything come together visually to tell the whole story.
From the editor’s desk …
Last year in April, I met a lovely vivacious woman in the Star Lounge at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week in Sydney, by the name of Rebecca Colalillo. As we exchanged the usual chit chat that one does when meeting someone new, she filled me in on what connected her to Australian fashion week, and the vision of her burgeoning dreams. MBFW 2015 for Rebecca, meant the exclusive tanning of the runway models for Australian Sydney fashion designers/sister duo, Summer and Liberty Watson, known as Watson X Watson and their show, Day Walker at Carriageworks.
Bec is the brains behind the amazing product, GlowbyBeca. A natural tanning product, 100% natural DHA combined with animo acids. It is not absorbed into the body and is non-toxic. This ensures that a healthy product is sitting on the skin. Her product and services can now be enjoyed at her newly opened tanning salon in Paddington.
Bec recently worked her tanning magic on me, and my bridesmaids for the highly anticipated Label Ministry wedding, Love & Nuptials. Having very fair skin, I was a little worried that I would look anything but myself. It was essential to me that the result looked natural. Beautifully subtle but effective, Bec promised me that I would be ecstatic with the result. She was right. I was!
We caught up recently. And this is her story.
Until next time,
Jade xx
It’s More Than Just A Tan .. it’s a confidence booster! Life is too short not to be glowing through it!
Rebecca Colalillo, Founder of GlowbyBeca.
LM
How did you start out in the beauty industry?
RC
I have always had a passion for the beauty industry. From a young age my Mum would take me along to her appointments and I always knew that was the field I would work in. I did an apprenticeship with my local Day Spa and worked with them for three years before I received an opportunity to open my own salon within a hairdressing salon in Horsely Park. The Beauty Lounge opened it’s doors in December 2005. To this day it is still running successfully with a team of three therapists.
LM
What inspired you develop GlowbyBeca?
RC
I had a vision of creating a product that would allow people to feel confident so they could put their best foot forward in the healthiest way possible!
“All my pretty ones? Did you say all? O hell-kite! All? What, all my pretty chickens and their dam at one fell swoop?”
– Shakespeare Hamlet
Photographer: Sanny Chong MUA: Bev Wood Model: Erin Hannah Production: Jacqui Brown for The Studio
LM
What is the philosophy behind your label?
OFS
To make clothes that are feminine and desirable.
We focus on wear-ability and tailoring, and aim to create garments that fall effortlessly around the body. We love Western Australia; its attitude, its culture and its landscapes. We just try to embody our beautiful lifestyle into a beautiful garment.
LM
What is the inspiration behind your label?
OFS
Shakespeare used the imagery of a hunting bird’s ‘fell swoop’ to indicate the ruthless and deadly attack by Macbeth’s agents. This old world and savage definition of the phrase, being rapid and fierce action, defines One Fell Swoop. Justifying our belief in the idea that beauty is often born from tragedy.
… inspired by a shared childhood love of the animal kingdom and a somewhat dark and morbid fascination with the anatomy of creatures and their mystical incarnations.
Runway Ready.
During Mercedes Benz Fashion Week this year, I was privileged to be able to interview some of Australia’s most iconic designers. These interviews will make up a series of articles which will appear on the Label Ministry website in an effort to bring awareness, greater popularity and support to people who year in, year out, dedicate their creative minds and talents to the Australian fashion industry.
This weeks expose is Serpent and the Swan, a Sydney label which has now maintained a strong following and significant foothold within our industry since 2009.
From the editor’s desk …
Don’t be into trends. Don’t make fashion own you, but you decide what you are, what you want to express by the way you dress and the way to live. Gianni Versace
Well, Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Australia has drawn to a close!
Label Ministry interviewed many wonderful designers across the week at Carriageworks in Sydney’s Everleigh. These will be on the website very soon.
Here is a little peep at who you can expect to see showcased in the upcoming interviews which will include fantastic runway coverage and an intimate discussion with the designers themselves.