Putting the op in shop

FOR A FEEL-GOOD SHOPPING TRIP, JANE PARSONS LOOKS AT THE BOOM IN OP-SHOP EXPERIENCES.

Pay TV - Monday, April 4

Trinny & Susannah's Australian Makeover Mission

Out of the closet

ELLE IN TEARS SUPERMODEL Elle Macpherson broke down while talking of her father��s battle with cancer when she stepped on the catwalk for Virgin Blue��s uniform launch in Sydney last month.

Wrap-pant a hit

THE runway show of Australian label Sass & Bide, with smacks of sequins, suede and silk, reaped instant industry acclaim at the opening night of London Fashion Week last month.

Romano Ricci - Sense of destiny

Helen Greenwood learns that a nose for a fine fragrance can run in the family ... but it's not always that simple.

Around town

FROM RECYCLED CLOTHING SALES TO NEW FASHION OUTLETS, PARADES AND MATERNITY WEAR, THERE'S NO SHORTAGE OF FASHION NEWS FROM AROUND THE HUNTER

Stepping out in style

BOTH MYER AND DAVID JONES HAVE LAUNCHED THEIR AUTUMN/WINTER LINES, AND JANICE BREEN BURNS WAS THERE TO CHECK THEM OUT.

Walking the walk

FOUR STUNNING NEWCASTLE MODELS ARE MAKING A NAME FOR THEMSELVES IN THE WORLD OF HIGH FASHION, AND JANE PARSONS TALKS TO THEM ON THEIR WAY TO THE TOP.

THIS WEEK: IF LIFE GIVES YOU LEMONS - WEAR THEM

There's a new Anna on the fashion block - Japanese Vogue's Italian editor-at-large and creative consultant Anna Dello Russo.

Take it to the street

What would you do if you were Lord Mayor for a day?

Ponies on the catwalk

The ponytail is one of the top trends for the season says KATE McILWAIN.

CBD rent growth surges

DEMAND for shops is driving big rental growth in Melbourne's CBD, with rents having jumped by 10.6 per cent for super-prime property since the start of last year, according to CB Richard Ellis.

Postcode 3000

Other Broady boy walks black carpet

Well-known resident's historic swing in his name alone

BATHURST, home of the Labor icon and prime minister Ben Chifley, has a new political hero, a conservative who fashioned an avalanche of support from factory workers and coalminers.

Your free fashion magazine

THE op-shop revolution has hit the Hunter and you can read all about it in the autumn edition of the Newcastle Herald's fashion magazine FR, free with your Herald on Thursday.

24 HOURS THE ARTS DIARY

GET INVOLVED

O'Farrell takes over in enemy heartland

THIS was a party to which you couldn't afford to be fashionably late. At the Parramatta Leagues Club in the once-safe Labor heartland in Sydney's western suburbs, the Liberal and National faithful knew the celebrations would begin early, and last long.

letters

run out of town

freckle face

Anyone who extols the virtues of bronzer will recommend dusting it everywhere on your face that is touched by the sun. But for unfortunate people like me, even minor exposure to sunlight doesn't so much bring a tan as a bacon-coloured glow - and, if I'm lucky, freckles. Make-up artist Charlotte Tilbury understands this (well, part of it), and drew a sprinkling of sun kisses on the models for the seriously chic Chlo� show at Paris Fashion Week earlier this month. Tilbury used MAC's lip pencil in Hodge Podge to draw the freckles on, one by one, and complemented the look with sooty eyeshadow and a MAC lipstick called, aptly enough, Freckletone. Apparently, she skipped the bacon-coloured blush and opted for a creamy foundation finish instead, which was probably for the best.

Parties

You have to admire Marie Claire's dedication to persuading us that fashion is serious. The mag juxtaposes its frocks and frivolity with world affairs and was the first to dare suggest women could shop and save the world simultaneously - which of course we can, while applying mascara.

Leona Edmiston ... loves US road trips, Turkish antiques and shopping any time in Hong Kong.

Which was your best holiday?

Q&A

Are fascinators still fashionable at the track?

the rules

Autumn demands old-fashioned style at the track, writes Maggie Alderson. Sure, you can go to the autumn racing carnival in a brightly coloured strappy summer cocktail dress, open sandals and a straw hat. No one's going to stop you, but it's so much more fun to go looking truly fabulous within the quaintly old-fashioned "correct" dress code.

streetseen

I AM a bar manager at Atticus Finch.

Shop talk

Where 595 Malvern Road, Toorak,

Corrections

The story yesterday "Old-fashioned star in an age of celebrity" should have said Elizabeth Taylor was married to Paris Hilton's great-uncle, Conrad "Nicky" Hilton.

Beyond a caring bedside manner

Jamilla Simonsen isn't the first person to say she chose a nursing career so she could help other people. In fact, Reasons for Entering and Leaving Nursing: a Regional Study, a research paper published last year in the Australian Journal of Advanced Nursing, shows that having the chance to care for people was the second-most popular reason why respondents became nurses (behind "finding the work interesting").

AUDREY AFFAIR

It is a modern girl's duty to imitate style icons such as Audrey Hepburn.

Follow the laugh lines

On a journey from Lucerne to Lugano, Lance Richardson discovers storybook towns and the Swiss sense of humour.

Lew eyes Colorado

RETAIL kingpin Solomon Lew is considering buying stricken fashion group Colorado ��� if the price is right.

Stricken Colorado group lined up

SOLOMON LEW is considering buying the whole of the stricken fashion group Colorado ��� if the price is right.

Grand design given a fresh new image

THE glamorous $300 million makeover of Melbourne's Myer Emporium will be officially opened at a party hosted by chief executive Bernie Brookes and chairman Howard McDonald, as well as Premier Ted Baillieu and 500 of the city's movers and shakers next Thursday.

Street cred in the country

Sheriden Rhodes finds galleries, collectables and fine food made with passion in a town shopping strip.

i spy

50 (little) WAYS TO CHANGE THE WORLD #1

A clean-cut approach to the 'mass fashion' label

"I'm a classicist," Richard Nicoll tells fashion editor Janice Breen Burns.

In, then out, of fashion

Feathers are flying in the Sydney fashion world over claims that a poaching mission by Collette Dinnigan backfired. A one-time sass & bide retail operation manager, Olivia Du Blet, who describes herself in her application as well-known within the fashion industry, is suing the altogether better known Dinnigan for reneging on an offer of nearly $100,000 to run Dinnigan's proposed first Brisbane store. Du Blet's claim states that between February and October last year, she was led to believe she had the gig with Dinnigan but it unravelled messily just after she had given notice at Edwards Imports, a wholesaler of trendy frocks. Du Blet claims that two days before she was due to take her first step on the Dinnigan runway she took a call from Dean Ridgwell, Dinnigan's headhunter, who told her the deal was off. Ridgwell told Du Blet that Dinnigan believed Du Blet to be dishonest about her bona fides because although she, Du Blet, had told Dinnigan's chief numbers boffin she had worked for the designer Lisa Ho, that information was absent from her CV. Du Blet denied she had been dishonest and claims to have demanded an opportunity to address Dinnigan's concerns, but Dinnigan allegedly refused. Du Blet is not only suing for $66,500, but has demanded a formal apology from Dinnigan for "damage to her reputation, integrity and good standing". Dinnigan's lawyer, Darren Perry, says the fashion label denies it misled Du Blet and will be defending the claim.

your say

Our annual fashion issue elicited a variety of responses...

Ocean Street

When it comes to shopping in Woollahra, those in the know head here for French antiques, fine furnishing fabrics, vintage straw hats and colourful glassware, writes Julietta Jameson.

THIS WEEK: FOLLOW THE TRACKSIDE DRESS CODE AND WIN

Sure, you can go to the autumn racing carnival in a brightly coloured, strappy summer cocktail dress, open sandals and a straw hat. No one's going to stop you but it's so much more fun to go looking truly fabulous within the quaintly old-fashioned "correct" dress code.

Shopping for a new strategy

Clothing retailers must face up to finding ways to manage falling demand, writes Michael Baker.

A fitout that defies fashion stereotypes

This city boutique proves "practical" can also be "playful", writes Stephen Crafti.

Sizing up void in the market

EVER tried to buy clothes for a healthy, growing pre-teen daughter? There's nothing. Or at least, very little.

Continental kids

There's strong European influence when it comes to 2011 autumn/winter clothing for kids, especially in knitwear, jackets and dresses. Red, navy and olive colours are making a strong statement. Close your eyesand dream of Paris or Rome.

Amen to that - atheist Gillard just loves the good book

THE Bible - it's a good book.

WHAT I DRINK WHEN ... GEORGE GORROW

Champagne may be the drink of choice for models fresh off the catwalk but fashion designer George Gorrow's tastes are not quite so highbrow.

A level playing field

A popular indigenous AFL show goes mainstream, writes Nicole Brady.

pay tv

Great Thinkers of Our Time: Geoffrey Chaucer Fashion Fanatic

streetseen

I AM an apprentice hairdresser.

Gate Crasher

Dreams come true LMFF graduate showcase rehearsal, Peninsula

the rules

Calvin Klein, poor lamb, has given new definition to sheepish fashion crimes, writes Maggie Alderson. Why shouldn't Calvin Klein have a gorgeous boyfriend nearly 50 years younger than him?

Etc

MAD MEN NIGHT

Driven to abstraction by deathly prose

BY FAR the most-asked question of a writer is "Where do you get your ideas?" Well, from absolutely everywhere. From personal experience, from a random thought that flies into your head, from an overheard conversation in a coffee shop, from the unhappy expression on the face of the attractive woman sitting opposite you at a dinner party while her drunken husband rabbits on about real estate.

From law to fashion

Angie Dickschen always said she'd retire by the age of 50. She did, for five years at least. While she didn't realise it at the time, her retirement would only be until she discovered a new career, switching from the high-flying legal profession she'd been part of for 24 years to running her own Melbourne fashion boutique.

Free

ONE80 PROJECT

Walking billboards supplant NRL history

THE black-tie dress code at the university formal was supposed to encourage the perversely egalitarian notion that those in the penguin parade were equally privileged. Yet there were always three distinctive styles. The old-money types wore tailor-made dinner suits with hand-knotted ties. We tag-alongs turned up in crumpled op-shop suits, and risked asphyxiation from elastic bowies. And the campus anarchist wore a T-shirt tuxedo.

THIS WEEK NEXT WEEK

It's not just the airlines feeling the pinch from rising oil prices; they're making sure that passengers feel the pain too. Unable to absorb the costs despite a desire to remain competitive, the carriers have been lifting ticket prices in response. Virgin Blue was the latest to do so on Monday with its second increase in fuel surcharges in less than a month. That has added $100 to an international return trip and $10 to a one-way domestic ticket. Virgin can at least argue that Qantas and Air New Zealand are in the same boat, having seen them respond in similar fashion.

The jig is up - wigs, sequins out for little Irish dancers

IT IS Saturday morning at the Sylvania Heights Primary School hall and students of the Anne Derwent School of Irish Dancing are preparing for the start of the competition circuit.

Big local retailers will thrive if they embrace online trading

It's a lobbyist's lot to exaggerate the misfortunes of their cause. As does the Retail Coalition, the pressure group backed by retailing heavyweights Solomon Lew, Gerry Harvey and Bernie Brookes. They're pressing the government to introduce GST on products bought from online retailers overseas, in the interests of protecting local livelihoods - their own clearly included.

'My blue heaven' for fans and festival organisers

IN ONE of the GPO shopping centre's elegant arched halls yesterday, designer Tim O'Connor relished the opportunity to get his frocks up close and personal with 200 strangers.

#104 Animal motifs

Fashion pedigree

Echo of beaches

Fashion snaps with a relaxed vibe. Natasha Silva-Jelly reports.

fashion police

News, trends and style secrets from the front line.

THIS WEEK: MEN CAN BE MUTTONY TOO

Why shouldn't Calvin Klein have a gorgeous boyfriend who's nearly 50 years younger than him?

Getting real on the runway

Sexy designs for larger sizes turned heads at the fashion festival yesterday, writes Janice Breen Burns.

Building a department store for the next century or more

WHEN a private equity group took over Myer, it wasn't just the management team and the company culture that underwent big revamps. The historic building in the Bourke Street Mall had to be thoroughly transformed.

Design duo snares coveted prize

Two talented young designers won a big break at the fashion festival yesterday, writes Janice Breen Burns.

Festival salutes fashion's finest

Melbourne's fashion luminaries were honoured in a nostalgic festival opening, writes Janice Breen Burns.

Front is the position that's in fashion

DURING the L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival, more pertinent than "Who are you wearing?" is "Where are you sitting?" Only the front row will do for creative director Grant Pearce and, boy, has the GPO got a show for him. On Thursday, it's front row only, as it has been since 2008, with the thrones lining the airy, second-floor loft space. The GPO believes every guest is a VIP and this way there is no chance of affronted guests walking out in a huff because they weren't, well, in the front. Event producer Valentina Jovanoska has orchestrated a pret-a-porter winter parade of the GPO's labels interspersed with tunes from roaming songman Ryan Ritchie from the Raah Project. The front-row treatment is akin to that L'Oreal slogan "because you're worth it", and American actor Andie MacDowell (pictured) is the guest at today's L'Oreal lunch at Central Pier's Maia at Docklands. Tomorrow night, there will be a soiree at the Melbourne Museum to celebrate her 25th anniversary as MAQuillAGE ambassador, then she'll walk a few metres to the Royal Exhibition Building for the Alex Perry red-carpet runway show. That's a Sydney designer launching his spring/summer collection in Melbourne ��� lucky us! MacDowell is being styled by stylish stylist Virginia Dowzer and is being given a choice of frocks from Perry, Aurelio Costarella and Scanlan & Theodore for when she takes her front-row possie.

Heavenly feasting

Parramatta locals reveal their favourite dining destinations, writes Carli Ratcliff.

Roast rolls, $9.95

IT'S noon. Crowd-control barriers are out. Already, there's a queue past the cellar, up the Foodhall stairs, spilling into Sensory Lab. But it's not for oysters and champagne, nor sushi. It's for Schwob's soft baguettes plump with tender roast meats. At the counter, rotisserie chickens and juicy joints of lamb, pork and beef, fresh from the oven, are carved to order, chopped into chunks, tossed onto rocket-strewn rolls then slathered in caramelised onions. Apple sauce, horseradish, mustard, mayo and mint jelly are optional. Sweet, crunchy pork crackling sells fast. And if "deliciously ugly but difficult to manage" appeals, there's gravy as well. Good value for an old-fashioned roast on the run.

Online fashion good fit for buyers

BRITON Jo Hunt of online fashion giant Asos.com makes no bones about the motive for her visit to L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival.

Brisbane roars back from dead to win

BRISBANE Roar scored two goals in the last three minutes of extra-time to equalise with Central Coast Mariners and force a penalty shootout to win the A-League grand final in the most sensational fashion in front of more than 50,000 fans at Suncorp Stadium last night.

A holy moment

Brisbane stage a miracle ending to their season of perfection

BRISBANE ROAR came back from the dead with two goals in the last three minutes of extra time to win the A-League grand final in the most sensational fashion.

An 'amazing journey' to a job as a buyer

Charlotte Grigg, 30, is one of seven buyers for Sportsgirl. Her job includes travelling overseas twice a year, collaborating with young designers to create ranges, sourcing vintage clothes for the stores and putting together the gift range. She is also responsible for developing the product that raises money for the Butterfly Foundation, which works with young people with eating disorders.

Broady boy out of fashion at home

HE'S Australia's hottest fashion export, having worked with Jean Paul Gaultier, Raf Simons and Marc Jacobs, and he was willing to come home and work for a pittance. So why won't Andrej Pejic be walking the catwalks at this week's Melbourne Fashion Festival?

Roar's miracle ending to the perfect season

SUNCORP STADIUM

Column 8

"A high school teacher friend of mine used to tell the story of the time he asked his students for an essay on 'courage'," writes Sam Collyer, of Drummoyne (Tales of exams, essays and school reports, Column 8, all this term). "One student's submission was simply a piece of paper with the word 'This'. I think he received full marks."

Dramatic finale as Brisbane roars back from the dead to win penalty shootout

BRISBANE Roar came back from the dead with two goals in the last three minutes of extra time to equalise with Central Coast Mariners and force a penalty shootout to win the A-League Grand Final in the most sensational fashion in front of more than 50,000 fans at Suncorp Stadium last night.

Gate Crasher

Ladies, girls, beauties Beautiful Girls fashion lunch, Flemington Ladies, girls, beauties

Black Caviar a fashion plate

THE fastest horse in the world is not only changing the face of thoroughbred racing, but also that of fashion. A little confusingly, the great mare Black Caviar is the new black, but her colour of choice is salmon pink.

A minitriumph

Armed with a pile of clothes she no longer wears, Natalie Craig turns to some creative Melburnians for help - and finds everything old is new again.

Gussets out, Gatsby in as fashion gets in a flap

THE new hit TV series Boardwalk Empire is about to do for 1920s fashion what Mad Men did for 1950s and early-60s looks.

SNITCH

SIX BURNING QUESTIONS FOR ...

YOU'LL LOVE IT

Guy St Leger Director/ auctioneer Biggin & Scott Prahran

The rules

The older you are, the easier it is to make a fashion statement. So go on, be bold, writes Maggie Alderson.

streetseen

Who BLAKE CHITTY, 21

Assault on the senses

It might not suit everyone's taste but Lisbon's Internacional Design Hotel has the wow factor, writes Rob Woodburn.

A cry for freedom beyond the veil

TWO young women, eyes blacked out to conceal their identities, pose either side of a sign amid a desolate landscape. There are pink desert hills in the background and the women dangle headscarves from their fingertips with cheerful defiance. The sign warns that failure to wear the chador or hijab is an offence against Islam, punishable by two months' imprisonment. A paragraph of Farsi script, under the heading "I do not want the veil", accompanies the image. "On Tuesday March 8 [International Women's Day] we'll cry out for freedom," it reads, "32 years of misogyny, anti-women laws, compulsory hijab, flogging, executions, stoning."

Bongos in the mist

Helen Anderson encounters rare creatures and old-fashioned Hollywood glamour at an equatorial safari club.

Top 10 Films

1 THE TENANT (125 minutes) MA

New trend is old hat

Boho chic is reborn as floppy headgear makes a comeback, writes KELLIE HUSH.

LUNCH WITH . . .

GRANT PEARCE may have put fashion before the stage, but he's not quite done with dramatic exits, writes Janice Breen Burns.

KATZ: THE COLUMN

HITTING a person who wears glasses is a terrible thing, nobody should ever do it, there��s no instance where it��s acceptable ��� except of course, the instance where the person is wearing a pair of those clear-lens nonprescription fashion-glasses that they don��t really need to wear. Then if the mood takes you, feel free to stroll right up to them and schhhmack them in their inner-city Buddy-Holly-themed non-visionimpaired retro-faces.

Jack be chic

One of fashion's most intriguing designers steps out of the shadows for Janice Breen Burns.

Peacocks aflutter at Manstyle launch

MELBOURNE'S fanciest fops, dandies and peacocks were mustered by the National Gallery of Victoria last night for the long-awaited opening of Manstyle, an exhibition tracking the history and meaning of menswear.

SHAPE

Placing Aboriginality in the urban context

Looking at the beautiful people

Films about fashion reveal surprising depths to an industry often assumed to be shallow and self-obsessed, writes Jake Wilson.

Tots' fashion

Who says grown-ups are the only ones who should be on-trend? The fashion landscape for tots is now so stylish and sweet that dressing up has never been more fun. Here we introduce this winter's pint-sized looks; just like for big fashionistas, they include cosy shearling, bursts of red and military-inspired pieces.

POSTCODE 3000

This Costello gets a kick out of football