The Vogue Factor

by Kirstie Clements

  It’s getting harder to find honest, relevant criticism because the new fashion commentators are relentlessly positive in their reviews. It’s within their interest to be so. They want to go to the shows. I would like to see more of them be truly critical, especially if they are in the fortunate position of not yet having any advertisers who could pull out. I couldn’t manage to get to the coffee being served at the Max Mara show last season because a blogger was blocking the way, taking an Instagram of the croissants. I did wonder then: ‘At what point do we have saturation of coverage?’ I have increasingly thought that there are too many very smart people in the world writing overblown nonsense about fashion.

  There was also, of course, Australian Fashion Week (AFW) in Sydney every May, our own antipodean version of the RTW circuit, cleverly designed and strategised in 1995 by Simon Lock, a savvy marketer and entrepreneur.

  Simon did a magnificent job of galvanising a very opinionated and initially naive industry to put on a first-class fashion week. There have been some truly wonderful moments at AFW, including Akira Isogawa debuting his collection in the very first year in a group show—with the models wearing red socks because that was all he could afford. Collette Dinnigan also put on numerous beautiful, high quality presentations and dinners that were generous and polished, while the New Zealanders such as Karen Walker, Kate Sylvester and Zambesi always added a quiet intelligence.

  It was interesting to return to Sydney after the RTW shows and plunge into AFW just six weeks afterwards, because you couldn’t help making comparisons to what you had just seen overseas—especially if a local collection was obviously derivative, which was unfortunately quite common. I missed the very first AFW as I was still in Paris, but I was part of Marion Hume’s Vogue team for the second and I remember being surprised at the backlash she received when she levelled some blunt advice towards the Australian designers. She had praise for many, and was a big champion of Collette Dinnigan and Akira Isogawa, among others, but it seemed that an informed opinion from a seasoned international journalist was unwelcome. Australian designers are unused to criticism and many of them expect a level of editorial praise that outweighs their talent. I’m of the belief that AFW’s founder Simon Lock deserves a medal and/or the Order of Australia for the egotistical crap he had to endure over the years from certain designers.

  In the pre-online era, the rivals to magazines were the newspaper supplements, so we took them on and produced our own mini supplements to cover Fashion Week. We had to work until late into the night to shoot and turn around a supplement in five days and attach it to the next issue.

  For the third year of AFW I was at Bazaar and we slaved until the wee hours all week to get the supplement to the printers—this at the end of long, long days seeing shows. Back then we were dealing with film, not digital images, so the editing process was excruciating. It was all hands on deck. After the issue had gone on sale I received a phone call from a leading designer. His show hadn’t been all that great. In fact, it was also a shameless rip-off, and the clothes were badly made. But we had very generously shot an entire head-to-toe look in the main-page fashion ‘well’ (the section of the magazine with no ads), and had run a review and several runway images in the trends pages. He wasn’t an advertiser. For some crazy reason, when I picked up the phone I thought he was going to thank me, but he had called to complain because, in our exhausted haste, it transpired that one of the runway shots had been mistakenly captioned. I decided then and there, that in the future, if a designer’s collection wasn’t up to standard, they weren’t going to get any coverage. There was no good reason for the charade to continue, because the one losing out was the reader.

  As AFW continued, the coverage moved away from those gruelling nights at the office producing a print product, to online reviewing. When News Limited took over the license for Condé Nast, I convinced the then CEO Tony Kendall to appoint journalist Damien Woolnough as the editor of vogue.com.au in 2008, and his acerbic coverage increased traffic to the website exponentially. Immediacy had become the new currency. No one was going to wait a month for the magazine’s verdict. Our mandate was an informed viewpoint and that was clear in our online edit. If a show was good, it got reviewed. Ordinary, and the shots were posted, unreviewed. Bad, and it didn’t appear at all.

  In a very short space of time, technology had completely shifted how information was translated from the runway to the consumer, and it continues to evolve. Experiencing a show virtually through your handheld device is one thing. But there’s nothing quite like being front row in Milan chatting with Tim Blanks.

  12

  SOCIAL STUDIES

  Shortly after the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, the managing director of Giorgio Armani in Australia, Mary Chiew, extended a grand invitation to me. Would I like to travel to New York to attend the gala opening of the Armani retrospective to be held at the Guggenheim? Oh, and by the way, Olympic swimming star Ian Thorpe would be joining us.

  I have no interest in sports whatsoever, but even I am not un-Australian enough to ignore the swimming. Ian had just won three gold and two silver medals at the Olympics. He was a national hero.

  I was beside myself with excitement over the idea of meeting him, and so soon after his incredible achievements. I had arrived in New York and was in my hotel room dressing for dinner when Mary called and said: ‘Come down to the bar and meet Ian and we’ll go to dinner.’ I was flustered the entire way down in the elevator, which is highly unusual for me. He was so sweet and easygoing, and very assured for someone so young.

  I began asking him some searingly intelligent questions along the lines of, ‘Gee, what do you think about when you’re doing all those laps?’ but Ian was patient with his responses. We ordered sushi, which he had never tasted before, so I was a tiny bit thrilled that I was there with the “Thorpedo” when he tried raw fish for the first time.

  The following night was the star-studded opening of the spectacular Giorgio Armani retrospective, filled with the likes of Jeremy Irons, Destiny’s Child, Patti Smith and Robert de Niro. During the evening I wandered alone into a room where the famous scene from the film American Gigolo was screening, the one where a handsome, shirtless Richard Gere proceeds to lay out his Armani clothes on the bed, choosing a tie for each shirt. At that very moment, a handsome, clothed Richard Gere walked in, saw me watching the younger him on the video, and grinned. I nearly died. His wife, the stunning actress Carey Lowell, made an entrance shortly afterwards, and I was equally thrilled to be in her presence. I adore Law & Order. Another Law & Order alumni Angie Harmon was there too, one of the most gorgeous women I’ve ever seen. They made my night.

  The following evening Ian and I attended the VH1 Fashion Awards, a sort of celebration of fashion and music with no earthly purpose, which was also packed wall-to-wall with celebrities from fashion, music and film. I lost Ian on the red carpet because by this stage all the paparazzi knew who he was and were calling out ‘Thorpedo, Thorpedo!’ so I happily made my own way down, trying not to look plain and incongruous. There were reporters stopping all the stars; one crew who kept repeating, ‘We’re from an internet channel, do you use the internet?’ It seems so prehistoric now, but a great deal of the celebrities replied no, they didn’t have time. Supermodel Gisele Bündchen said not really, but she used email.

  I was drinking in all the glamour when I was suddenly dazzled from either side. The queue had stalled and I found myself wedged between Beyoncé in front, Jennifer Lopez behind. They have to be two of the most beautiful women on the planet, with the most perfect bottoms. I’ve met hundreds—no, thousands—of the world’s best looking people, but Beyoncé and J. Lo are beyond words. They literally glow. Now I really did look plain and incongruous.

  Once we were inside the auditorium and seated the evening turned hilarious for many reasons—not just because the awards were so random and pointless—but we also discovered that actor Ben Stiller was in the house, filming a scene for his upcoming film Zoolander. We
were told that it required audience participation: when musician Lenny Kravitz announced that the Male Model of the Year was ‘Hansel’, Stiller, playing the part of the character Derek Zoolander, was going to rush up on stage to claim the award and we were to pretend to be shocked and embarrassed for him. As it happened I was seated two rows behind Ben Stiller, so in the film I am a blur in the frame when he leaps from his chair.

  We had to run through the performance twice, and everyone in the crowd overacted madly. I have such a soft spot for that film. It’s one of the most astute movies about fashion ever made. What really happens in the fashion world is sometimes so ridiculous, it requires a Zoolander level of irony to even come close to replicating it. I am quite proud to be able to claim I’m an extra in Zoolander.

  It was again thanks to the incomparable Mr Armani that in 2006 I was offered another once in a lifetime opportunity, this time to join him and a very small group of journalists on a tour of Hong Kong and Shanghai.

  The day of my arrival in Hong Kong I was taken to meet Mr Armani, who was doing a walk-through of the enormous Armani shopping complex in Chater House, checking on the refurbishment of the Armani bar and the Armani Casa interiors store. My lovely friend Sally Pitt (head of Armani PR in Sydney), and I picked our way gingerly through the construction site and she introduced me to Mr Armani, who was surveying the scene, impeccable in his navy pants and sweater and bright-white sneakers. ‘This is the editor of Vogue Australia,’ said Sally. ‘And what a beautiful editor!’ he exclaimed in Italian, kissing me on both cheeks. I’m sure he says that to all the editors but it worked and I immediately developed a crush on him.

  There were only a handful of journalists on the trip, which meant that we had incredible proximity to Mr Armani throughout the entire six days. It was as if we were on tour with him.

  The first evening in Hong Kong we were treated to an Armani Privé show, which is the couture arm of his collections. Mr Armani does not speak English, but will speak in French, so when the PR discovered I could hold my own in that language I was placed next to him for most lunches and dinners. It was such an honour to spend time with this great designer, there in the inner sanctum of Armani. Also on the trip was his niece Roberta, who was an absolute delight. She and I bonded over lunch at the Cipriani in Hong Kong when I asked her what she had wanted to do before she joined the family firm and she replied: ‘Acting.’ Given that I am Australian, we moved on to the obvious. ‘I love Russell Crowe!’ exclaimed Roberta to which I protested, ‘No, I love him more!’ and we spent a good half an hour raving about Russell and Gladiator and Maximus and how we could dream up an event in Sydney to which we would invite him so we could sit next to him. Roberta, of course, had actually already met Russell in Rome after Gladiator was released, and shared a car with him, which had driven around the exterior of the Coliseum.

  The Armani team were so inclusive and so effortlessly chic in their navy-blue cardigans and trainers, I wanted to join the family. I even flew with Mr Armani from Hong Kong to Shanghai, and it was remarkable to see the stir he causes when he is out in public. He is as striking as he is famous, with his white hair gleaming against his tanned face. For the flight, he wore a white t-shirt under his navy jacket that said Al. ‘It’s always my seat number,’ he laughed. I complimented him on the scent he was wearing and he sweetly gave me the bottle, which was a lab sample that the fragrance house was working on. I still have it.

  When we arrived at Shanghai airport, the 72-year-old Mr Armani, true gentleman that he is, walked over to the baggage carousel and picked up my suitcase.

  There were many more dinners and lunches in Shanghai, one I recall that had about ten courses of food, every one of them a greenish black colour. Mr Armani skipped that one, as he much preferred to eat Italian, traditional-style: three courses, one glass of wine. He is so disciplined and energetic, I found him to be a real inspiration. I spoke at length to him throughout the tour, culminating in an interview conducted on a sunny outdoor terrace after lunch. He had me hooked: on his values, his taste, his remarkable work ethic. By the end of the week I was tossing up buying a navy Emporio Armani outfit and some sneakers and just following them all back to Milan, hoping they wouldn’t notice I hadn’t gone home.

  Armani visited Sydney the following year, in 2007, to attend a dinner at the Sydney Theatre Company and be acknowledged as a patron by the STC artistic directors Cate Blanchett and her husband Andrew Upton. I joined up with the Armani posse once again, and we all ended up at Trademark nightclub in Kings Cross, Roberta and I chatting on a banquette while Mr Armani promptly got mobbed. Not quite the same level as the China experience.

  In May 2010 I returned to Shanghai, this time to attend a Dior Cruise show and the lavish afterparty. The day of the show I was granted a very quick meeting and interview with designer John Galliano, on the vertiginous 93rd floor of the Park Hyatt hotel. I had never met Galliano, despite many seasons spent admiring his dazzling couture and RTW shows. On this occasion he was accompanied by a number of PRs who stayed in the room while we chatted, which I always find terribly disconcerting. I think it’s impossible to conduct a thorough and spontaneous interview when there is a PR present constantly looking at their watch.

  Galliano wore his hair in braids, a jaunty feather in his hat, rolledup trousers and a vest. I was taken aback by how handsome he was, with golden skin and huge brown eyes. He was so guileless and unaffected, sitting close to me on the lounge and flicking through an album, showing me photographs from his recent travels. He was chain-smoking cigarettes which he lit with a huge crocodile-Dunhill table lighter, and drinking a juice at the same time. ‘Detox, re-tox,’ he joked.

  A model entered wearing one of the exits we would be seeing that night, and he took me piece by piece through the ‘Nouvelle Vague’ collection which was hanging on a rack nearby. I cannot say that we had a particularly profound conversation, but I found him to be charming. I watched with sadness as the unfortunate events at Dior later unfolded, and he was dismissed due to anti-Semitic remarks. Galliano was such a global traveller in real life and in his wondrous collections, the incident seems so incongruous. I do hope he returns to the world of fashion one day. I’d love to interview him again—with no one else in the room.

  There were many other trips around the world, quaffing champagne at fabulous parties courtesy of the great fashion houses, in particular the incomparable Louis Vuitton. In 2000 I found myself chatting with Xena, Warrior Princess, aka actress Lucy Lawless, at an ice bar for the Louis Vuitton Cup. Another time, I was at a roller disco held in a spaceship that had been built in a Tokyo park, watching Grace Jones perform while the designer Marc Jacobs danced happily next to me. At perhaps the best party I have ever attended, I wandered through a mind-bending maze of curiosities in a London warehouse with Gwyneth Paltrow and Kirsten Dunst, and then clapped along to Donna Summer and Marc Jacobs singing together on stage.

  Another trip to Tokyo, courtesy of the executive vice president of Global Communications for Calvin Klein, Malcolm Carfrae, who is an Aussie expatriate and a great friend. Over a long lunch at the Park Hyatt I interviewed both Francisco Costa, the designer of Calvin Klein Collection, and Kevin Carrigan, global creative director of ck Calvin Klein, who are both so talented, open and unpretentious. Although I was part of a group of Asia-Pacific journalists, the boys decided that I needed to stay with the Calvin Klein team and thus I ended up after the event at the official Calvin Klein company dinner, sitting in between Malcolm and Francisco. The company’s CEO Tom Murry rose to congratulate everyone and talk a little business when he noticed me. ‘Kirstie, you just need to put your hands over your ears for a few minutes,’ he said.

  Later that evening we ended up in a windowless, smoke-filled nightclub in Tokyo that was about the size of a small living room with the entire Calvin Klein team, and all the male models who had been part of the installation. Having the good fortune to be the only woman in the room, I began talking to one gorgeous nineteen-year-old boy from
Germany, with the regulation floppy hair, long Roman nose and bee-stung lips. There was a line of them along the banquette who all looked exactly the same—that is, perfect. I started in with some unwanted lecture about how he should think about a career outside of modelling and once you’d done Calvin Klein you’d pretty much peaked, blah blah blah. He listened to me very politely until I stopped to take a self-important breath and said very politely, ‘Thanks for your feedback. I should be okay. I’m studying to be a nuclear physicist.’

  It is difficult to compare and contrast all the wondrous events that I was invited to be a part of, but the fortieth anniversary celebration of Ralph Lauren in New York would have to be a standout. My publisher Grant Pearce and I travelled together to attend the Spring 2008 collection show, as well as the black tie dinner afterwards for a select 450 people worldwide. The show was held in an enormous white tent that had been erected on the edge of Manhattan’s Central Park Conservatory Garden. Immaculately dressed celebrities and guests filed past the enormous flower-filled urns at the park gates. It was the pinnacle of American power, glamour and refinement.

  The show itself was a triumph, and at the finale Ralph Lauren walked out to crazy applause and Frank Sinatra singing ‘The Best is Yet to Come’. At that point the painted backdrop at the end of the runway slid back to reveal—with precise timing, and to great dramatic effect—a magical garden, replete with a flowing fountain, waiters with silver trays of champagne and a platform built high in the treetops strung with crystal chandeliers. This was where we would be dining.