The Australian Fashion Week Transseasonal shows scheduled for October have been moved interstate to Sydney, home of the Spring Summer shows.

“This decision has been made following detailed discussions with the industry, Rousemount Australian Fashion Week partners and also internally with IMG’s global offices,” said Simon P. Lock, IMG Fashion Asia Pacific’s managing director. “The overwhelming view is that, for the future growth and development of the event and the Asia Pacific industry as a whole, the Transeasonal Collections should move to Sydney.”

The transseasonal shows are scheduled to run from October 9 to 11, at the location where the Spring summer shows were held this May - at Sydney’s International Passenger’s terminal.

P.S. For everyone who’s wondering why the ‘Fall/Winter’ shows are called ‘Transseasonal’, it is because winter in Australia isn’t as freezing as it gets in other parts of the world, so many Australian’s don’t respond as well to it.

No doubt this moves comes as the Transseasonal collections don’t have as many designers or media attending. Though Toni Maticevski did show last year in Melbourne, albeit to a smaller audience than usual.

[Via: AFW.com.au]

– Covering Australian fashion because we’re an Australian fashion blog

As we reported last month, Sunsilk are releasing a limited edition collection of fashion shampoo and conditioner in collaboration with Australian designers Bettina Liano, Wayne Cooper and Akira Isogawa.

The launch was held last week at swish Italian restaurant, La Sala, with the who’s who of Sydney in attendance. Which basically meant a lot of photos were snapped, and the canapés were extra yummy. The event was hosted by TV host, Sophie Falkiner, and featured a small fashion show featuring the Summer 2007 collection from Liano, Cooper and Isogawa (none of which showed their collections at Australian Fashion Week, instead hosting show rooms together instead).

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The Alice McCall show was always going to be a highlight of Australian Fashion Week, even though she’s pregnant, she knows she’s found a niche in the market and how to design for it. The collection was called Welcome to the Dollhouse – which just makes me flash back to the Devil Wears Prada (the book) where one of the characters said it to Andrea on her first day.

Alice used her usual old hand craft embellishments like lace and crochet appliqué and mixed it with modern fabrics for something a little more modern and futuristic than usual. Neon accents were used like most other designers this week, but she did it with accents and trimmings on the clothes and shoes. The collection was full of her signature cute little mini dresses but missing were her usual array of prints. Instead a striped pieces were popular, as well as dresses trimmed with silver glomesh or neon green crochet.

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Covering Australian Fashion Week for two different blogs is starting to buuuuug me. It really can be fashion week over kill and all the designer pieces and collections are blurring into one pretty and dress filled show. I’ve tried not to cross over coverage, but sometimes you love the pretty dresses so much you have to blog twice about them.

Take Fleur Wood for instance, it was so modern Jane Austen novel-like that you really must watch this video.

And instead of me saying the same thing I said on CQ, I should just quote myself. Gosh that just sounds weird.

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I’m taking a break out of my Australian Fashion Week coverage. Standing in line for hours has officially gotten old. You see, unless a PR/seating people want to, you end up being stuck with General Admission seating which means you’re standing in watching fashion editors and buyers and so forth swan past you (late of course) after their inbetween show drinks. Needless to say I stopped wearing heels after my allocated seating from some lovely PR people, had run its course.

Enough whining about fashion week, at least I get to go right?

What do you think of Gemma Ward on the upcoming May 2007 Vogue Italia cover? Shot by Steven Meisel, I think Gemma is looking more mature and her look is evolving to one that is very sophisticated. Compare her to the older covers she’s done and you can really notice the difference.

See below the fold for the Catherin McNeil / V Magazine cover

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Seems that Stephanie Conley can do no wrong, after breaking up her one time designer partner Stephanie Cranford on their Stephanie label, Conley has produced a few collections of very pretty dresses. Her solo Rosemount Australian Fashion Week runway debut featured 1950s inspired A-line dresses in vintage print with something for every occasion. From adorable cotton sundresses with puff or bell sleeves, to fitted satin cocktail dresses in buttercup yellow complete with a belted waist. Conley’s designs are very wearable and fast becoming a fashion favourite, I especially loved the sweet bows adorning the model’s heads.

But like the other shows this week, the hemline was short, thankfully not micro mini short. See the show video below the fold.

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A rocking soundtrack introduced Nicola Finetti’s spring summer collection at Australian Fashion Week last night, it was so cool that even Harpers Bazaar’s Fashion Director, Claudia Navone, was bopping to the beat. With other 550 people squashed into The Cargo Hall, the temperature of the room was hot. But unlike the Azzolini show earlier in the day where fashion editors left after being made to wait an hour for the show to start, everyone stayed in their seats.

Renowned for his intricate and feminine designs, Finetti didn’t disappoint his fans. Like all the other shows at fashion week so far, the Finetti show was all about the dress and the above-the-knee hem. Described as new romantic, the collection was full of ruffles, round necklines and higher waistlines. The already soft silk and cotton materials were softened with airily soft hemlines and more ruffles. Intricate embellishments added to the futuristic elements with sporty metallic silver pieces that pleated, draped and ruffled.

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It’s Australian Fashion Week, and a girl hardly has time to stop and eat (all I seem to be doing is queuing up to get into shows), let a long blog about all the fashionable news of late. So here’s a round of what’s been happening in the fashion world.

• Gisele Bundchen clips her Victoria’s Secret Angel wings. Apparently it is because they did not agree on the terms of her new contract. Rumour has it that they wouldn’t pay her enough. If you ask me, Victoria’s Secret won’t seem the same without Gisele.
• Christian Lacroix is calling. Well Christian Lacroix for Avon. He’s launching two perfumes under his name for the beauty giant, Christian Lacroix Rouge for women and Christian Lacroix Noir for men.
• Plum Skyes, American Vogue contributing editor and Anna Wintour favourite, looks set to adapt her book, Bergdorf Blondes, into a screen play for HBO.
• Nicole Kidman looks set to star in a remake of How to Marry a Millionaire, the movie that put Marilyn Monroe on the may. The report said the film would be a contemporary interpretation of the 1953 classic that helped propel Monroe to stardom.

The Nicola Finetti spring summer 2008 show at Australian Fashion Week was packed with over 500 people squashed into The Cargo Hall.

Stay tuned to SASSYBELLA.com for my show review coming tomorrow!

- Interesting tidbit… who ever organised the seating plan had the Australian Vogue fashion team sitting opposite the Australian Harpers Bazaar fashion team…