FREE|STYLE
Editor-at-large Julie Roulston brings FashioNZ readers the very best from her fashion beat, each week…
WORLD's 2010 NZFW show at the Langham
EVENT OF THE WEEK
WORLD’s SS 12/13 ‘Black Tie White Noise’ show at the Langham this Wednesday is a guaranteed fabulous time. The label already showed in The Great Room as part of New Zealand Fashion Week two years ago, and it’s a gorgeous venue. That event included a High Tea but this time the “night of couture fashion and five-star elegance” will see the tea stands used for canapés to complement Lanvin champagne and Man O’ War wine.
Although this is an in-season show, Designer Benny Castles says that some of the couture garments that will be shown are only available by order and won’t ever have been seen elsewhere.
Hair will be by Michael Beel (Buoy, Wellington) for ghd – he promises “smooth elegance meets Alien.” Makeup will be by James Luii for Shiseido.
In addition to the runway show, WORLD will be debuting a video showing fashion shows from WORLD’s history, going back to the 1990s.
NZFW INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
You may have read that Nels Frye from Stylies.net in China is attending NZFW, as Annette Lamothe-Ramos from Vice magazine. Thought you might like to know a little more about the visiting VIPs…
Nels Frye
US-born Nels Frye is the voice of blog Stylites.net, which gets just over 50% of its traffic is from Greater China itself. His blog says “Stylites documents the blossoming of self-expression in contemporary China, providing a pictorial record of the most fascinating pedestrians in Beijing at the start of the 21st century, the moment when China had risen and its new greatness had become apparent to all.” It’s essentially a a street-style blog which has seen Frye gain currency as an English speaking, Western-origin expert in Chinese pop culture. Photographs from Stylites.net have appeared in Chinese Vogue, Grazia, Beijing Walk (“yes, it’s the magazine in every taxi”) and The Beijinger.
Vega Wang, “one of Beijing’s best known young fashion designers” – from Stylites.net
At “35,000 to 85,000 unique views/month” Stylites’ traffic doesn’t seem huge, but you have to acknowledge that an English language Beijing street style site may have a fairly niche audience. Stylites has some 3,700 Weibo followers (China’s twitter) – a quick look online would indicate that’s pretty solid, as “44.06% of accounts on Sina Weibo have fewer than 10 followers (March, 2012).”
Annette Lamothe-Ramos
Want some bigger stats? Vice.com gets 4,000,000 unique visitors/month, and Annette Lamothe-Ramos has been Fashion Editor of Vice US for the past six years.
Annette currently lives in New York,and is also a stylist and casting director who has worked on shoots for many international brands, including Reebok, Nike, Adidas, Palladium, Levi's, and Lee Jeans.
On searching Vice.com you’ll see that her most recent post is “I Walked Around in a Burqa All Day (And I’m Not Muslim)” – gotta tell you, FREE|STYLE loves this NZFW guest already.
Annette Lamothe-Ramos in Burqa c/- vice.com
Here are some more of those big stats: launched in 1994 as a newsprint monthly in Montreal, VICE has 700+ employees and 3,500 contributors, with VICE magazine’s global circulation at 1.2million (6,720,000 readership). In Australia and New Zealand, VICE magazine has a circulation of 50,000 (280,000 readership).
PLAYING CATCH-UP
FREE|STYLE was so excited about the release of the New Zealand Fashion Week schedule last week, we didn’t get a chance to tell you:
* Meadowlark have released two limited edition styles in celebration of Superette’s 10th birthday. The custom leopard ring and matching necklace are only available in Superette stores from the first week of September – and are online for pre order at www.superette.co.nz. The Leopard Charm necklace is RRP $79.00 and the Leopard Ring is RRP $195.00.
* iD Dunedin dates for 2013 have been released: 10 March – 17 March.
* Bendon’s online store has opened for business, selling 1,500 products across 12 brands including Lovable, Elle Macpherson Intimates, Davenport, Pleasure State, Bendon, Bendon Man and Stella McCartney, at www.bendonlingerie.co.nz.
– Julie Roulston