Four must-have items for Australia Day

1. A BBQ…. by Eva Solo from $210 available from Top 3 By Design.
2. A Bikini…. by 2Chillies $59.95 available from www.myshopping.com.au
3. Sunscreen…. with insect repellant $8.95 for 110ml from Cancer Council Stores.

• ‘Spring 08 is splattered: V magazine, Vogue France, Vogue Italia’ (above). www.fashionista.com
• ‘Karl Lagerfeld is becoming a collectible. The designer has collaborated with Pixi on a miniature lead figurine of himself in his trademark regalia. The doll, being issued in a limited run of 1,000 figures, is on sale exclusively in Paris at Colette for 200 euros, or about $300′. WWD
• ‘On Jan. 31, nine days before the lights go down on his fall runway show, Marc Jacobs will be cohosting a screening of the documentary "Marc Jacobs & Louis Vuitton" with the Cinema Society at Manhattan’s Tribeca Grand hotel. .. WWD
• ‘Prada is organizing a megabash for 1,000 people on the evening of Feb. 5 at the company’s Broadway flagship in New York during New York Fashion Week. While details are still secret, Miuccia Prada and Patrizio Bertelli are expected to unveil the evolution of the florid wallpaper, which served as the backdrop for the brand’s spring women’s show and, in print form, adorned the clothes’. WWD
• ‘Banksy’s portrait of Kate Moss (left) in the unmistakeable style of AndyWarhol’s Marilyn is to go under the hammer. The work is expected tofetch between £20,000 and £30,000 when it goes under the hammer atBonhams next month, as part of the "world’s first urban art auction".UK Metro
• “2008 will really be the year of the spaceship,” said Sir Richard Branson, the British serial entrepreneur, at the heavily attended press conference at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. Sir Richard, who founded a company, Virgin Galactic, that promises to take tourists on brief trips to the edge of space, was there to show off the sleek pod of a spacecraft and its spidery carrier plane’. NYTimes
• ‘Katie Holmes employed her favourite designer, Ralph Lauren, to pick outfits for all her guests when she recently threw a party with husband Tom Cruise at their ranch in Colorado. Not only did the guests match the interior of the house – which was also designed by Lauren – they got to keep the outfits as a gift afterwards’. Vogue.co.uk
• ‘Mario Testino has a new protégé: Kate Middleton. Prince William’s girlfriend is to undertake a work placement with the legendary fashion photographer at his New York studios in March’ WWD
• ‘Dita Von Teese is finally giving us all the opportunity to buy into her brand of high-voltage glamour - by collaborating with Wonderbra on a limited edition lingerie collection, entitled "Wonderbra by Dita Von Teese". Featuring three ’stories’, we’re promised a sexy take on Von Teese’s Forties-influenced burlesque style when the collection launches in September’. WWD
• ‘Valentino is the latest fashion legend to be immortalized on the big screen. Matt Tyrnauer, a special correspondent for American Vanity Fair, has spent the past two years shooting more than 250 hours of footage of the designer and his entourage for Valentino: The Last Emperor, which is due to make its debut at the Cannes Film Festival in May’. Vogue.co.uk
• ‘Dutch design duo Viktor Rolf and its beauty license holder, L’Oréal, will come out with three different designs for peepers in late spring for the Shu Uemura brand (also owned by the French beauty giant). The yet-to-be unveiled limited edition collection, inspired by Viktor & Rolf’s spring fashion line, includes styles called Wing, Wing 2 and Rhombus. They will retail for 75 euros, or $109 at current exchange, apiece’. WWD
• ‘Miu Miu’s new poster girl, Kirsten Dunst looks perfectly at home in the whimsical outfits she modeled for the house’s the spring/summer 08 ad campaign’. Vogue.co.uk

www.ozition.com.au
Australia’s second largest online auction site have found a way to help abandoned puppies and kittens. They have a page on their website for animal welfare groups to post animals available for adoption, free of charge. Bless.

www.AustraliaWeek.com
The exciting program of Events in the USA (named G’Day USA and LA) to celebrate the very best of Australian culture, fashion, food, wine, tourism and business.

RIP
Heath Ledger

FASHION SPEAK by David Meagher
‘Where do designers find inspiration? How do they put a collection together? Can they stay on the cutting edge creatively and run a viable business at the same time? In FASHION SPEAK, David Meagher talks to top Australian and International designers about where they’ve come from, where they’re headed, and their philosophy of design. Gorgeously illustrated, FASHION SPEAK interviews with designers including Marc Jacobs, Christopher Bailey (Burberry), Sunjoo Moon, Ennio Capasa (Costume National), Josh Goot, Philip Treacy, Karen Walker, Ozwald Boateng, Akira Isogawa, Nicole and Michael Colovos (Helmut Lang), Martin Grant and Hedi Slimane.
$34 www.randomhouse.com.au

The Christmas List :
A Big Life By Jenny Kee
‘Jenny Kee? Didn’t she design that Koala jumper Princess Di wore when she was pregnant?’, ‘Wasn’t she the Softly lady in all those TV ads?’, ‘Didn’t she create that amazing frock salon, Flamingo Park?’ Yes, but that’s only part of the remarkable Jenny Kee story. With searing honesty she lays bare her private life: her dysfunctional family; her insecurities as a person and an artist; her love affairs and friendships; the highs and lows of motherhood and marriage to a gifted painter; her relationship with the younger man who became her soul mate, and its tragic end; the personal price she paid for the enormous success – and disastrous decline – of her business; and her road to spiritual and emotional fulfillment.’
$59.95 www.penguin.com.au

Spring 2008 Couture Reviews

Chanel: …..Suzy Menkes for International Herald Tribune reports
‘In an exquisite collection (pictured above) - as delicate as it was romantic - Karl Lagerfeld took Chanel to where even Coco herself had never plunged: the ocean bed.
Whorls of conches, fan-shaped scallops and a hint of a pink tint were worked into draped skirts, jacket sleeves and tulle dresses that all showed a different and rounded facet of linear Chanel."Coquille Chanel!" quipped Lagerfeld in a pun on the French word for shell. "People think Chanel only did the jackets, but at the beginning there were all kinds of shapes," the designer said, referring to photos of a 1930s Coco wearing draped satin pants or ruffles of frothy lace. So the new jackets were rounded to the torso, the skirt draped seductively at the front or in waves of ultra-light material. A flash of sparkling buttons suggested sun glinting on water, while sleek, silvered party dresses evoked streams of moonlight. And this was a collection that - although the rounded tailoring was convincing - was focused on after dark’.
Valentino: Reports WWD
‘No airborne trapeze artists swinging by, no Annie Lennox tickling the ivories, no mega retrospective exhibition (at least not until June at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs). Rather, on Wednesday evening, Valentino said goodbye to fashion with relative discretion at a stellar show at the Musée Rodin. “We are very serene, very happy,” he had said on Monday. And, indeed, when he took that last walk down the runway after a 45-year run at fashion’s highest reaches, he maintained his composure as his audience jumped to its collective feet in wild appreciation. Evening meant bountiful expressions of all-out glamour — romantic chiffons, chic crepes, indulgent spills of beading, embroideries and frills — something for all of Val’s gals and then some. The only thing missing was a spot of Valentino red. That is, until the finale, when all of his models came out in identical simple red silk columns — a perfect expression of timeless elegance.
Backstage after the show, the mood was chaotic but ebullient. Seamstresses smiled through their tears, and Giancarlo Giammetti sipped a flute of Champagne through his television interviews. “He’s happy,” he repeatedly assured interviewers about the retiring couturier, who braved a wall of cameras to embrace his well-wishers. “He has such an incredible style and sense of playfulness,” said Liu. “What impresses me more than anything is his love for life’.
Christian Lacroix: Reports WWD
‘In a word, exquisite. Christian Lacroix redeemed a rather lackluster couture season on Tuesday with a collection that sparkled with haute joie de vivre expressed via stunningly beautiful clothes. Lacroix was inspired by his Patou past (he recently spent endless hours in his archives preparing for his exhibit now at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs), in particular the stage costumes he did while at the house, as well as by his beloved la Parisienne. "It’s very French," Lacroix said of his spring lineup, "but French seen through the American movies of the Fifties." Perhaps so, but who knows to what films he referred? Edith Head never whipped up anything like this. The show’s festive mood also took a page or two from the circus as Lacroix worked wonders with pastiches of silks, brocades, laces and embroideries. A recurring black ribbon motif lent folkloric charm and daring prints a tribal touch. Yet some time ago Lacroix made the decision to pare down, relatively speaking. Apparently — and happily — he has no intention of veering from that newfound sense of control. For spring, he exercised it masterfully, juxtaposing fluffy trapeze against saucy curves, pouf descendant against lanky goddess, textural montage against simple chiffon. It was captivating, and all that couture should be’.
Gaultier: Reports WWD
‘with mother-of-pearl glazes and fishtail skirts, it was a mermaid moment at Jean Paul Gaultier. In one of those serendipitous conjunctions that we call fashion, the shell inspiration that Chanel showed earlier this couture week floated to the surface at Gaultier.But it was not the only theme on the glassed-over runway, where satin was ruched to look like conch shells. At some point, the watery sirens with doused hair and droplets on their faces were beached on a tropical island. Cue for dense floral embroideries and Gauguin lovelies carrying floaty fabric sunshades (a familiar Gaultier accessory). Gaultier has an idea a minute and some of them — like hose printed with sailor tattoos — are too tricky and facile for what haute couture should stand for. But there was an effective mixing of showmanship and gimmicks with superbly crafted marine tailoring: the perfect navy blue spring coat or sailor pantsuits with chiffon flowing out below the knees. These soft pantsuits — including tops with seashell pockets — were some of the most convincingly wearable outfits we have seen in couture.On the other side of the ocean were the mermaid dresses, their narrow silhouettes fanning out with fringed mollusks or mother-of-pearl shells. They offered an opportunity for a lot of theatrics and a chance to be a siren of the night.’

Lazy Pavlova
Is there any thing more on trend for Australia Day than a Pavlova? Don’t make that face: You can and you will! This is failsafe. And completely and utterly fatteningly delicious.

You need for 25 models or 10 dags
2 eggwhites
11⁄2 cups caster sugar
1 teaspoon cornflour
1 teaspoon vinegar and vanilla
1/3 cup boiling water
Pretty strawberries, berries, kiwi fruit, banana or passionfruit

• Remove your divine new pristine white Jil Sander one-shoulder dress.
• Throw on daggy old Tree of Life Caftan and thongs.
• Tie hair back.
• heads to the bottom drawer and poke around to find a baking tray.
• Line it with foil.
• Find some non-stick spray (no, Please do not use it on your undies for visible panty line).
• Dust it lightly (as you do your face after foundation) with cornflour.
• Preheat the oven to 180°C.
• Now find a bowl big enough to throw in all ingredients (except the fruits - dumb dumb- they are for accessorizing.)
• Beat all ingredients together until they are as stiff as George Clooney on a good night. This takes approximately 15 minutes. George takes 2.
• Pour it onto the baking tray in the shape of a powder puff.
• Throw in the oven ( turn the oven down to about 160) for 20 minutes.
• After 20 mins turn it down again to about 140 for another 20 minutes longer.
• Bring out of oven when it looks like it’s cooked and resembles a pavlova.
• Let it cool.
• Beat up the cream.
• Beat yourself up for eating it (then lick your lips and enjoy it).
• Spread the outrageously naughty cream all over the top of the pav as you would a crème de la mer facemask.
• Toss on all those divine summer fruits.
• Beauty ! It’s a Pav.