Berlin Fashion Week...Reality Studio

My absolute favourite "show" in Berlin was Reality Studio .Girls, and the designer herself, on super cool Electra Townie bikes* cycling around Mitte. Brilliant!

*Want one! How cool are these bikes? Okay, so mostly I wouldn't ride it (something about the London traffic doesn't inspire confidence, particularly for a nervous rider like me), it would just sit in my foyer looking sweet!

Berlin Fashion Week...Ask Keith About

Berlin Fashion Week....Vintage at Mongrels in Common

Vintage dress at the Mongrels in Common show.

Paris Men's Fashion Week SS 2011....Sarah

Sarah Grittini from L'Uomo Vogue. I actually met Sarah last year while I was wandering around in the Marais trying to decide where to go for lunch.....I think she said she studied law at university before working for Vogue.

Paris Street Style...The Panama

Paris Street Style....Juliette

Paris Men's Fashion Week SS 2011

I am off back to Paris again tomorrow until Tuesday to shoot for a client (sadly there will be no couture action for me), and then flying to Berlin on Wednesday to photograph at fashion week for a couple of days. So excited about visiting Berlin- it has been on my "list" of places to visit for a very long time. If any of you know of any cool places (shops, coffee places, restaurants, whatever!) to visit in Berlin it would be brilliant if you could let me know.

Paris Men's Fashion Week 2011....Kristina

Kristina Gisors from Your.Private.Shopper in the cutest little knitted shorts. I asked her where they were from (I do try to ask for you guys!). And she told me. And I promptly forgot :( But somewhere in the deepest, darkest recesses of my brain I am thinking Gap, Zara or Cos (hmmmm that really narrows it down doesn't it?!)

Paris Men's Fashion Week...Laura

German model and student, Laura Kading at Ann Demeulemeester.

Captains of Industry

A bespoke tailor, a shoemaker, a barber, a cafe....Captains of Industry in central Melbourne has everything the thoroughly modern gentleman (and his partner) could possibly want.

A chorizo, olive and grilled cheese sandwich with your short back and sides from Herr Blick? Why certainly sir!

A latte and a mars bar crackle to help ease the dilemma of which fabric (Italian or English) to choose from the 90 odd available for your new suit from Statler & Waldorf? But of course, sir!

I stumbled across Captains of Industry as I was wandering around Melbourne with my camera and flat white in hand (from Brother Baba Budan cafe, just around the corner from Captains in Little Bourke Street). It is tucked away up a flight of stairs (which I always find strangely intimidating -you never know exactly who or what will greet you at the top!) across the road from the GPO centre. It is a gorgeous light-filled space with the cafe in the centre (nab one of the tables overlooking Elizabeth street to do a spot of people watching from above) and little rooms off to the side where barber Steven (Herr Blick), Thom Grogan (Statler&Waldorf*) and bootmaker James (J.S. Roberts) work their bespoke magic.

Lovely Thom was repairing a vintage typewriter when I wandered in (the guys also sell vintage goodies and men's grooming products) and was kind enough to down tools and let me take some quick portraits of him and the shop. Embarrassingly, I still had my Brother Budan flat gripped in hand so I didn't get to try the coffee but if the glorious red coffee machine propped on the cafe counter is anything to go by, the boys take their coffee as seriously as their sartorial crafts.


And if you are sitting there thinking, oh, okay Vanessa, that's great for my man but what about me? Don't fret. Bootmaker James will fit you out for a pair of handmade loafers or derby's or even motorcycle boots if that is what you desire (prices start at around $500 Australian). One of the lovely girls I have met through blogging and who I caught up with while I was in Melbourne, Bec, from Koh&Co (you might have seen her witty comments on the blog) has ordered a pair of jodphur riding boots from James all for herself. Let us know how they turn out, Bec!

So if you are visiting Melbourne, make sure you pop in to Captains. And don't be scared of what awaits at the top of the stairs, the boys couldn't be nicer :)


*yep, named after the 2 ornery characters on the Muppets (the ones who used to sit on the balcony).

Paris Fashion Week SS 2011....The Dress and The Braid

I'm not sure what I adore the most about this girl.....her cinched-at- the-waist dress, her gorgeous (very complex looking) braid, the grown-up, classic handbag or her espadrille wedges. Mostly I think it is a combination of everything.


At Cerruti.

Paris Men's Fashion Week SS 2011....RLCO Club Rowing

Old school or rowing blazer sitting around in your cupboard gathering dust and attracting moths???? Pull it out, pray it still fits and do what Ester Quek from The Rake magazine has done and team it with a neat pair of trousers, pocket square, two-tone brogues*, a striped tee and a pair of very pretty, very feminine, very tiny flower earrings (which I know you guys can't really see but I can!). Taking influence from the boys but keeping it girly with accessories (note also her gold necklace- I can't quite make out what is on it, little birds maybe?)

*Are they Ralph Lauren?

Paris Men's Fashion Week SS 2011....Carine

One of my fav looks on Carine Roitfeld. How she kept those white jeans so fresh and, well, white the whole day is a complete mystery to me (I took this at Galliano which was at 8:30pm at night). For sure I would have spilt my cafe au lait down them by about, oh, 10am in the morning :)

Paris Street Style....Summer in The City # 2

I am ever so slightly obsessed with tiny-ish denim shorts at the moment (think it's because I have no hope of ever fitting into a pair again)....they scream summer, festivals, hot, humid weather, the beach, Pimms, and holidays. Helps when they're teamed with endless long, tanned legs, cute little plimsolls and a fab Hermes-orange handbag.

Sydney Street Style....Leather and Chucks

Okay, because it is so hot in London at the moment (and it was even hotter in Paris), all I could think of while editing this photo was how much baby powder one would need to apply to squeeze these leather numbers on (without doing a Lindsay Lohan of course! Remember when she wore those heels and all the talcum powder came puffing out as she walked?!). Mmmmm maybe best confined to the Autumn months or when it is a little less humid. I love that she teamed the trousers with the Cons. Keeping it Real.

Australian Fashion Week 2010

Model Annabella Barber (Priscillas Model Management) in Zimmermann body/swimmers and Lisa Ho leather shorts.

Paris Men's Fashion Week 2010.....Boys, Boys, Boys and a Dog (actually 2 dogs!)

Boys, Boys, Boys at Paul Smith's men's show on Sunday, absolutely my favourite collection of models during the shows. Bravo to the casting director for using guys of all ages, races and varying degrees of facial and bodily hair.

And an additional bravo to the person whose idea it was to serve Magnum Temptation Fruit ice-creams before and after the show! Genius. It is always lovely to have champagne of course, but an icy treat in the searing afternoon heat was perfection. Some people (not naming any names of course) managed to score two ;)







Robert Rabensteiner, Fashion Editor L'Uomo Vogue, with a friend's puppy (below). Another photographer and I looked after him while his owner was watching the show....we tried to give him some water but he was more interested in trying to snuffle up the ice-cream drips which had landed on the ground than the water :)

One of the models with Anastasia Barbieri (below):

One cute puppy I sneaked a photograph of on my long, hot walk to Paul Smith:
Models, Magnum ice creams and Beer after the Paul Smith show:
p.s. you can click on the collage to make it larger

Paris Men's Fashion Week SS 2011...Girls Under The Influence

Girls Under the Influence of Boys.

One of my absolute favourite looks is women wearing menswear inspired pieces (or indeed actual clothes borrowed from their man). So I was especially excited at the Kenzo men's show to see girls on the runway (Valerija Kelava, Caroline de Maigret, Hannelore Knuts, Joana Preiss and Jenny Shimizu) wearing pieces Kenzo's creative director, Antonio Marras, had created for the boys.

After the show, Caroline de Maigret, model and record producer (her label is Bonus Track Records), above and below.

Paris Men's Fashion Week SS 2011....Suzie Bird

The incredibly pretty and super nice model Suzie Bird outside the Paul Smith show.

Paris Men's Fashion Week SS 2011....Wild Child

Outside Kenzo