AMANDA AUSTIN FOR FALLEN MAGAZINE

Just found this stunning story styled by Emily Yee for Fallen magazine issue #8. For sure my favourite shot ever of our lace body suit. Thank you Emily. x

HAT INSPIRATION

Now I don't want to go dying on a beach covered in fake tan and arousing the suspicions of Hercule Poirot. But I certainly do want a hat like this crazy red number worn by Diana Rigg's character in the 1981 film version of Agatha Christie's Evil Under the Sun, don't you? In fact all Ms Rigg's headgear in the movie is lust-worthy. Just don't get me started on Poirot/Peter Ustinov's swimming get up - he looks like a demented baker.

This morning getting coffee I was transfixed by this couple dressed very carefully-carelessly unlike anyone else. Well okay unlike anyone else since Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. She was long and lanky with paper-white gazelle legs, heavy long hair the colour of corn with a centre part. Her dress was a vintage crushed turquoise velvet baby doll with long sleeves and so many holes it had a Mark Fast kind of appeal, held together at the side with saftey pins.

She wore tan sandals that looked like my Chloe ones but weren't and she'd painted her lips an incongruous poppy pink. Her pale arms were intertwined with the wool clad ones of her beau, a neo-Dylaner, with a great puff of frizzy beard and a wild mop of hair to match. Even though the sun was pelting down on us, he looked pretty comfy in his three-piece suit. His boots were great clompy leather lace ups just right for hitching down Route 66. They were gooey-eyed over one another and didn't notice me staring but I did stare, because I loved how they seemed so comfortable in their gear, and how that gear really made them stand out. That gear required some major self belief, and I guess subsrcription to a scene that's passing most of us by, but mainly the major self belief.

I went to the park to drink my coffee and there another couple strolled past me. She was wearing opshop brown suede high heels and a strange sundress and red lippy and a man's black fedora. He too was in a mothy-looking suit, with a skinny western string tie like the ones Gram Parsons used to wear. What was happening? Where did all these kooks come from? Were they with the band? Were they the band? It didn't matter.

What mattered was how alive they looked and how marvellous and how free. But also how purposeful. And it got me thinking about self belief and how intrinsic it is to personal style. You really do need a good dose of it to carry off something extraordinary it the get-up department. Without it you just dress like everyone else, or dress to fit in, or to be invisible, or dress like you don't mean it.

So you see self belief is a fantastic thing. And remembering this gave me a bit of mine back.

EXTREME CUTENESS ALERT...

This little girl loved Kimbra's Mrs Press dress so much she told her mamma she was going to ask Kimbra to give it to her at Splendor. So her mamma made her a copy!!!!!!!

Sunday Magazine cover...Zoe Ventoura in our yellow silk "Nancy" dress, woo hoo!

 

Want one? This baby is made to order. Email us on shop@mrspress.com to place. $770 available in sunset yellow, coral, black or cream. xxx

Something to Smile About

Lovely to see Ruby-Jean Wilson from Priscilla's walk the Marchesa runway, okay axeminster, in NYC last week. Isn't she super-beautiful? Not much of a smiler though. But really who cares? Why smile when you look this fabbo straight-faced. RG pulls off hot-grump better than anyone, I reckon. The 3rd pic is Ruby-Jean in our installation show a couple of years ago. It was one of her first jobs. I am loving how she carries that second Marchesa confection of tulle. Divine. Look at those collar bones! She is destined for big things.

Lo

OH MY GOD IS THIS NOT THE BEST DRESS FOR A CAT PERSON YOU HAVE EVER SEEN???

It's Victoria by Victoria Beckham SS'12, and (relatively) cheap as well as seriously cheerful...

Meooooow

My Cat Mamma is going for it

SUNDAY LIFE STYLE QUEENS STORY

In case you didn't catch my story in this weekend's Sunday Life (photographs by Chris Colls), here it is:


"Fashion fades, style is eternal." This oft-quoted sound bite from the late fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent has never rung truer. We live in the age of the rapid-fire trend, with designers at leading houses churning out more and more collections each year. According to British Vogue, John Galliano, the scandal-beset former creative director of Dior, was producing 32 ranges a year before his contract abruptly came to a halt (after an anti-Semitic tirade in a Paris cafe). With so much fashion, so fast, style becomes more important than ever. For style, although slippery to define, is different from simply wearing what is "in fashion".
Style is the way we put our outfits together, but it's also the way we hold ourselves, the way we deal with others, the way we talk, walk, dance, fight. Those who possess style exude personal flair, panache, that certain je ne sais quoi. Or to quote another famed couturier, Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel: "Fashion is not simply a matter of clothes; fashion is in the air, borne upon the wind; one intuits it ... it comes from ideas, manners, events."
While we might struggle to define it, we certainly know style when we see it. It could be the red lip on a groomed-to-the-hilt Lauren Bacall lookalike, the jaunty tilt of a fedora, or a scarf knotted just so. Some people have style so abundant that it fairly shines out of them; they could wear an Australia Post sack and get away with it. And yet style is not beauty. Indeed some first-class style mavens aren't conventionally beautiful at all – the famed US fashion editor Diana Vreeland had more style in her little finger than the much prettier models she worked with on her photo shoots.

I interviewed four Australian fashion players, with very different personal aesthetics, about what style means to them, and why it is worth celebrating. Clockwise from top: Eva Galambos, Kym Ellery, Zanita Whittington, Terry Schwamberg.

Read the interviews here: http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/fashion/flair-over-fashion-20110912-1k4z6.html#ixzz1XialNnho

FLOWER POWER, BECAUSE SPRING HAS SPRUNG

Cliche overload? So what. This picture has been my screensaver for ages and now I've forgotten where I found it. It's so inspiring.

It's by London-based photographer Natalie Watts. Check out more of her beautiful work here:
http://www.nataliejwatts.com

FAIR ENOUGH

I just worked out that you can buy limited edition prints of drawings by one of my favourite fashion illustrators Kelly Smith. My pick? Eliza from My Fair Lady in Cecil Beaton's iconic costume. Visit Kelly's Etsy store here http://www.etsy.com/listing/78003881/eliza-original-illustration
P.S Love the idea of Cecil matching his characters in that striped pullover.

MRS PRESS BY APPOINTMENT COLLECTION

Sunny floral? Check. Ultra-flattering silk organza cap sleeve? Check. Nipped in waist? Perfectly formed pencil skirt? Check mate, ladies!
Our By Appointment Collection of very special dresses is made to order. Just the thing for bridesmaids, racewear and parties in general we say!













Full look book coming soon to www.mrspress.com
Email us for more info or to book your appointment. Shop@mrspress.com

Photographed by Luisa Brimble, model Bronte Cincotta, styling Clare Press, hair & makeup Dee Tran

THANK YOU...

Two such modest little words really. But delightful aren't they? One of the best things you can do with "thank you" is to write it on a pretty card and post it - with a real stamp, snail mail style - to the person who deserves your gratitude. When I was a kid I hated writing thank you notes, but my mother made me. Snaps to mum! Because these days I am thank you note woman. Love to get them, love to send them.
So which ones to buy? This boxed postcard set of vintage advertisements for shops will do for starters. It comes from the State Library of New South Wales gift shop. Grab some quick.

SACKED IN

What is it about women and handbags? Put 200 glamazons in a room, okay on the bloom-clad terrace of Government House at Kirribili, with 20 luxe leather objects of desire, artfully displayed on plinths festooned with blooms by fab artist James Gordon (he did the delicious invite too), to be auctioned off for charity and what do you get? A guilt-free excuse to outbid one another! Genius!

The lovely Ellie Aitken, Sophie Baker, Alina Barlow, Cindy Blencke, Kirsten Carriol, Kirsten Dale, Monica Saunders–Weinberg, Rachael Ruddick and Emma van Haandel put on this fab event on Thursday to raise money for The Sydney Children's Hospital. Style Me Romy shot a gorgeous magazine to showcase the bags by such luminaries as Chloe, DVF and Christian Louboutin. A beautiful idea and a beautiful day, all for a good cause too. Yay to that.

Yours truly and Cindy pretending Kirribili is our pad

Prada dress & Chloe bag styled by Romy