VFNO - Miranda Kerr & KORA - & The Crowd Went Wild!

Vogue Fashion's Night Out, is it really a year since I christened it Vogue People's Fashion Night Out! It must be; and someone at Vogue must have read it and cancelled my VIP pass, alas there was no inner sanctum and freely flowing glasses of Belvedere Vodka for me. Never mind, KORA had called and let me know that Miranda Kerr would be, herself, putting in an appearance in Martin Place and I would be able to get some great deals on organic skin care products! And what with half the local fashion bloggers jetting off to New York New York "if I can make it there I can make it anywhere" for some reason or another I thought "what the hell";  mounted my trusty bike and rode all the way to Sydenham station then trained it all the way to Martin Place with my lovely Fujifilm X-Pro1 and lenses safely tucked away in their new bag, ready to be put to the acid test of will-they won't-they focus quickly and accurately enough in low light..

What I found at Martin Place was a lot of people keen, anxious, excited to get a glimpse, a shot, an autograph of one of Australia's most successful and I certainly got the impression of; most loved fashion models. And as such I decided that the story was really more about the crowd, and maybe about mobile phones and cameras and the strange new way we seem to approach everything these days - by taking a picture of it & doing the mobile phone salute. Really people what are you all going to do with those blurry pictures of Miranda!

I asked this chubby lipstick what he/she thought of Miranda and this is what big lippy said.

And because I know you are all dying to know... How did the X-Pro1 go with the low light; well as you can see it went very well indeed and 1000 iso never looked so good to me. In fact this whole high iso business is just quietly freaking me out; but then it works so I'm happy and well, I might just have to change Street Fashion Sydney's motto from "The Best of The Blurry" to something new. Any suggestions please let me know.

White Rabbit - 'Double Take' Opening Night.

I think its pretty obvious to everyone by now that I do make it to quite a lot of art openings - and I have no doubt mentioned before that like all 'art gigs' be they Theatre, Concerts - Rock or Classical or the Opera or Ballet; every gig gets its own unique crowd or audience in attendance. It was probably my Dad who more or less enlightened me to this 'art' phenomena by telling me that some people would see him perform in a show at one theatre but would never set foot in that one...

So yes, every crowd is different, and part of the difference is the reason they are there, and its been something I have long been intensely interested in; I don't just look at the art, see the performance, listen to the music; I check out the nature of the crowd as well.

I had heard about the White Rabbit openings, I had heard that you would have to queue to get in. Queue for a 'normal' gallery opening. Surely they must be joking! Well, it was true, and on a chill late winter evening I joined the 100 meter or so queue for my first taste of the White Rabbit and I knew I was in for something different; the girls were dressed for summer clubbing - but then in Sydney that's the go all year round, though not something I would normally associate with art openings and on a night like this that was a different kind of cool.. The crowd was large, the full capacity one-in one-out policy was tightly enforced, 40 minuets after joining the queue I was inside in the warm well lit and spacious gallery.

While there were quite a few familiar faces at the opening, the whole affair had something of a Gala Event feel to it and that was reflected I think in a very different crowd to the type I usually see at openings. That's great of course, great for the gallery and great for art in Sydney in general. The work is distributed over three levels and while there was a 'loose crush' on the drinks allowed ground floor it was not too hard to get a good look at the art on the upper levels. Tu Wei-Cheng’s Valentine’s Day chocolate shop, was just one of many outstanding installation pieces and although most of the chocolate is made of silicon there is the delectable and unmistakable aroma of real chocolate wafting over the counter. Love or War? Lets make chocolate instead. Will I be back? Absolutely, and sooner rather than later as I want to get to know the art and these artists much better.

http://www.whiterabbitcollection.org/

30 Balfour Street
Chippendale NSW
Thursday to Sunday, from 10am to 6pm

RM Williams Boots & Spotted Fishnet Stockings

Friday night 'out-back' at the Clare Hotel, RM Williams Boots - "5 Percy St Prospect" - it's probably all you need to say to an owner of a pair of RM's, with the address of the original store woven into the two tug pulls, if you have ever owned a pair you will get the reference immediately!  I wonder if there is another shoe  manufacturer that embroiders its home address right there on the product in such a way, name on the front, 'we are here' on the back.

I love the way young women wear boots like these ones from RM Williams. They are instantly recognizable and have the perfect inner city art school chic look - especially if you team them as they have been here with a denim jean jacket, 'print' tee, spotted fishnet stockings and black skirt, jumper wrapped around the waist until required. its a bit of a cool urban assault outfit that should get you into any club in town.

But it can't just be me who loves this look, my somewhat similar 'Summer' picture of Blundestone Boots and a denim skirt from 2009 is still getting daily clicks from people searching 'Blundstone' and is one of my most viewed posts..

Shot with the incomparable Fujifilm X-Pro1.

MCAP'12 - Video Art Wins the Day!

MCAP, that's the Marrickville Contemporary Art Prize, it's now in its Sixth year and it just keeps on getting better. Apart form the artists, Video was the big winner this year with George Shaw's 'Oedipus Rising' taking the main Gong with video works by Alex Wisser and Cigdem Aydemir taking tied (I think) runner up spots; Julian Day (of ABC FM Music Up Late fame) taking a Gong for his Sound & Physical Fixed Keyboard(s) installation piece 'Requiem'.

Its a pretty fabulous showing by the 30 finalists, congratulations to you all. MCAP'12: Finalist's Exhibition Chrissie Cotter Gallery (Pidcock Street Camperdown) 30 August - 16 September.

L-R, Brendan, Alex, Cigdem and George with Alex's daughter in the foreground..

Julian Day

Camilla, " I like jeans with a seam down the front & no pockets on the back, they suit every woman."

But wait there's more!

MCAP'12: The rest of the best!

ESP Gallery (228 Illawarra Road Marrickville)

8 - 23 September

Launch, Saturday 8 September, 4-6pm / Gallery Hours: Thurs-Fri 3-6pm, Sat-Sun 11am-4pm

+

MCAP'12: Solo Showcase (MCAP'11 winners' exhibition)

Georgina Pollard, Through Line II & Diego Bonetto, Storytelling

At The Vanishing Point (565 King Street Newtown)

23 August - 16 September, Gallery Hours: Thurs-Sun 10am-6pm

And as I think you can see from the shots, everyone was having a pretty fabulous time.

All pictures made with the Fujifilm X-Pro 1, I think I'm getting the hang of my new camera!

MCAP + Black Docs - Blue Jeans - Red Scarf

Taken outside the opening of the Marrickville Art Prize 2012 tonight. OK maybe that ribbed scarf is more Indian Red or Rust but lets face it, whatever red it may be, it sets off the the blacks of the Doc Martin boots, long sleeve Tee and blue jeans perfectly, and I love the leather shoulder bag too.
"I recently graduated from architecture at UNSW."
Art meets design and style at yet another art opening! More style shots and a full post of the MCAP 2012 opening coming; but if you can't wait you can see the show yourself.
MCAP, Chrissie Cotter Gallery, Pidcock Street, Camperdown, Sydney, NSW. 30 August 16 September 2012. Wed-Sun 11am-5pm

And...

MCAP'12: The rest of the best!

ESP Gallery (228 Illawarra Road Marrickville)

8 - 23 September

Launch, Saturday 8 September, 4-6pm  

Gallery Hours: Thurs-Fri 3-6pm, Sat-Sun 11am-4pm

Thanks to my Sponsor, http://www.fujifilm.com.au/

tenmoregirls - glory box - the art of the wearable object.

It's a curious thing this business of wearable art - objects of art that function - the decorative blending with the practical (or maybe not so practical) and the world of high art. And if it was not for having a few friends who were well versed in the three dimensional arts at the very beginning of my art career I think my uneasiness; my fear (!) of understanding the three dimensional art object would probably still be quite strong. I had again, the similar good fortune at a later point in time - a time when two dimensional quality; or is that the one dimensional quality of 'surface' ruled my own world absolutely, to have met someone who believed very much in the world and the art of craft; to again enable me to see beauty in creativity that I had sometimes previously been unable to acknowledge..

This is a beautiful show of art, craft and design with widely varied interpretations on the 'glory box' theme. Although I loved Radka Passianova's '...a dream of fear....,' Daggers in Silver Steel and Ebony; finding those at the bottom of  a glory box is both a beautiful and frighting proposition! there are all manner of imagined glory box pieces and many of them are certainly luxurious and affordable art.

The pictures start with five of the artists portraits, some of the work and then some equally styling attendees. 'glory box' August 27 - September 8th; Salerno Gallery, 70 Glebe Point Road, Glebe. Web links at the bottom of the page.

And I have my own piece of  'wearable' Luxury now too thanks to Fujifilm Australia who are very kindly sponsoring Street Fashion Sydney with thier fabulous X-Pro 1 camera and lenses. The 'glory box' opening is my first SFS post using the new camera which a lot of people seemed to notice is quite artfully stylish itself! Thank you Fujifilm Australia.

http://tenmoregirls.com/
http://www.salernogallery.com/
http://www.fujifilm.com.au/