In the first week of October, the Jeanswest Pink Ribbon charity project is launching in all stores nation wide, and we are SO excited about it!

What’s even more amazing about the launch, is that Genevieve Er, designer of ‘This is Genevieve’ has become a big part of it, with her design featuring on one of the bags. When Gen caught wind of the support the project was going to give Breast Cancer research, she locked in her participation – and the result was one super gorgeous bag which you will see in store this October!Gen has her own inspirations for her bag including that of her Mum, which makes the design that much more special.

Other designers who have taken part in the project are White Suede, Aurelio Costarella and Gorman – all in all an amazing group effort in support of Breast cancer research.

 Other exciting news – Genevieve has been a very busy lady also having just launched her online store! Check out some of her gorgeous summer designs online now – www.thisisgenevieve.com

Lots of Love,

X Ange

Pamela Makin has recently re-opened her Newport Beach Store, Les Interieurs after selling all items from her last collection. After painting her store from all black to a striking white, Makin has filled her shop with amazing finds including stunning natural and neutral pieces, from exquisite Indian day-beds to stunning Belgium linen cushions. If the unique and one-of-a-kind pieces Makin houses weren’t enough to draw you to her Newport store, the fact that she donates a percentage of the profits from items sold from Les Interieurs to the community based charity Ma Afrika Tikkun Australia certainly helps!

Les Interieurs can be found at 5/349 Barrenjoey Road, Newport, 9999 5881

Astrid X

Internationally renowned florist, Saskia Havekes has teamed up with photographer Andrew Lehmann to bring us an amazing, behind the scenes look at her wonderful world of floral arrangements.

The living art that Havekes creates is captured by Lehmann every step of the way – from visiting growers, preparing the blooms for display, to produce installation onsite. There are over 60 arrangements that will blow you away and inspire you, including floating wreaths, floral chandeliers, dressing tables and wedding concepts, all illustrating boundless talent and ingenuity.

Saskia believes that her “passion and inspiration come directly from what Nature produces. All the elements of composition – line, texture, form, colour, and pattern – are found there and it provides a good springboard from which to then re-interpret. I am constantly amazed by what Nature has to offer and never tire of the endless possibilities one can create with natural elements. I rarely start out with a preconceived idea – I look to what is offered naturally by the floral world and then take my cue from that”.

Ah-mazing!

Annemarie Xx

Vogue Italia continues to cause a stir with their recent September Issue starring British model Stella Tennant who has  gone under transformation in homage to Ethel Granger. Donning a dark Prada gabardine coat, Stella is cinched in with a 13th inch corset and sports a myriad of facial piercing in the style of Granger. This is the second so called “shock tactic” which Vogue Italia has come under fire for after the controversial “slave earring” statement which was followed by a public apology after much criticism.

I have to say I think it makes a good change from the run of the mill Vogue cover

Jess W Xx

Until the 18^th of September, ‘paper dynamo’ Carly Fischer is showing at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery in Hobart, Tasmania. She is one of only 41 short-listed artists for the 2011 City of Hobart Art Prize. Carly currently works between Berlin, Germany and Melbourne, Australia and has exhibited in a variety of group, collaborative and solo projects and exhibitions in Germany, Australia, the US, Japan and Austria.

Fischer’s installation style art works focus on the idea of reproduction, and the idea of ‘how our world is being slowly stolen and sold back to us through irony as replica and commodity’. Much of her work deals with replicating everyday objects from her surrounding urban environments as intricately constructed paper models.

Fischer’s practice has been influenced by the gradual gentrification and redevelopment of spaces in Melbourne, Tokyo and Berlin, where she has lived. The banal and mass produced nature of the objects she reproduces reflects the ultimately unavoidable and all encompassing impact of globalisation.

Astrid X

Gone are the days of uni–colour hair styles – ombre hair is here and its making a huge splash among Hollywood celebs and models alike. Ranging from subtle tints to in-your-face colour blocking; done right this unique trend can brighten up an otherwise dull hairstyle!

Now I do realise hot pink streaks through the ends of you hair is a look most definitely not for everyone! Plenty of people prefer a more understated hairstyle (myself included) and may feel such a trend is only suitable for the extreme trend setters and very young at heart. Not so! You don’t have to go all out to embrace this look. Lauren Conrad sported a whole lot of very light blue streaks through the ends of her hair in July of 2011 at the HTC Status Social Event at Paramount Studios, LA. The look was bang on trend, but it was so subtle, that if you didn’t look hard enough, you might miss it!

So you wanna go dip dye?

For the hair-brave, there are a wide selection of YouTube tutorials and step by step guides to doing it all within the safety of your own home or bathroom.

http://thebeautydepartment.com/2011/07/tipped-out/

If you’re like me however, and DIY isn’t for you, plenty of hairdressers can offer you this service. Varying shades of pink and blue work well, with blonde and lighter shades of brown locks seemingly the most suited to the look. Try one, two or even three different colours together ombre style, graduating throughout the ends of your hair.

On that note, good luck – and happy colouring guys!

Astrid X

We here at Sweaty Betty HQ realised something was a foot when the entire office came in on Friday in red pants! After further investigation we have come to the decision that we are totally trending – here are some of our favourites below.

 Some RED HOT inspiration

Where to get red hot legs…

Mavi

Sass & Bide

J Brand

Dotti

Junk

Jess W Xx

Unless you steered away from newspapers, radio and television yesterday, you’ll have heard the BIG news in Australian fashion; supermarket chain Coles has launched a clothing collection, MIX, which is dropping in to selected stores from 6 October. Fresh, affordable fashion; Coles MIX pieces all retail for under $40 and the launch range includes nautical summer pieces, elegant basics, swimwear, and complimentary accessories. The perfect grocery store pick-me-up, which is set to seriously change the way we shop for everyday fashion…

We were lucky enough to get a sneak peek of the first Coles MIX collection on Thursday 25 August, as the brand was launched at an exclusive media lunch in the yet-to-be-opened Coles concept store in Burwood, Victoria. Maz and I jetted down to Melbourne for the day to manage all media relations at the event – and here’s where our PR skills really came in to play; to an outsider we were the picture of calm, juggling a fashion shoot with the Herald Sun while overseeing filming in the aisles by the A Current Affair crew, who had already shot product on our gorgeous Publicist Natasha in the Sweaty Betty PR showroom that morning. While Amy was dressing models for ACA and persuading the fabulous (but shy) stylist to speak on camera, Maz was directing her own MIX shoot for The Australian snapper, who arrived just minutes before the lunch kicked off. Then it was a quick stop to enjoy the lunch and catch up with our favourite Melbourne media gals, including the ever-stylish Alyx Gorman of The Vine and the Herald Sun’s gorgeous fashionista Anna Byrne, before wrapping up with final snaps of the Coles MIX collection and a super quick journey back to the airport.
But we can’t resist opening the lid on the REAL story from the day –

Don’t get us wrong – things started off very smoothly, arrival at the airport via chauffeured car, coffee overlooking the runway, magazines to keep us occupied were purchased and the plane was boarded without fuss. Pickup at the other end again via chauffeured car…. and this is when the day curved slightly to the right at first (manageable) and then well U-TURNED entirely!
On arrival at the event ‘location’ – we noticed something a LITTLE strange. 45 minutes drive past Melbourne city and The Coles we had been delivered to was in full swing. Customers, overflowing trolleys, very busy checkouts. Hmm was our lunch not to be held in an empty, yet to be opened version of this?
One look at each other, said it all – time to get moving! In the highest of heels, our chauffer driven car long gone, we began the 10 minute ‘run’ to the beautiful, brand new and shiny Coles which a bystander had instructed was around the corner. Don’t tell the boss. Meanwhile – Melbourne is cold this time of year? Not so much – boiling sun, leather pants, suede heeled boots, trench coats, blazers, scarves and EXERCISE – we were sweating!
On arrival we had 15 minutes to get ourselves acquainted with the brand new MIX concept area before the media frenzy HIT and when we say HIT – WOW! There were TV crews who needed spokes-people to film STAT, models who needed to be styled, Journalists who needed the yet-to-be styled models to interview and multiple photo shoots going on in a store that spanned what felt like we were covering and 100km square space – from the cereal aisle to cosmetics and back to MIX – more running/sprinting in heels. At one point we were writing down credits for clothing used in two separate shoots (someone had pinched both our pens, fantastic!) trying to locate a trolley for another shoot (lucky we had already visited the still in operation Coles that had many a trolley and we could facilitate with EASE) and finding a box of some sort for a photographer to stand on so he could get a little extra height over the MIX area (who knew supermarkets sold TOOL Boxes these days too! Perfect). Not to mention whilst one of us greeted guests for the lunch that, to be honest, we had near forgotten was even happening, the other was trying to smuggle models stashed in the back room around through the loading dock to be shot by ANOTHER photographer without being seen pre-parade.
The CLINCHER, so we may have stayed a little too long at the MIX launch – who knew your could arrive to an airport at 4.22pm and STILL make it on your 4.30pm flight. NOT us. As 4.20pm rolled around and we were still on a freeway the sheer look of panic on our faces must have been priceless and as we ran through security pushing in front of fellow travellers yelling ‘can we go first’ – there was no sign of the cool, calm, collected PR girls who had handled a media frenzy for which 6 arms and legs each would have been useful. Still trying to re-accessorise and get our shoes back on our feet, the flight board flashing that our flight had closed, we were THOSE ‘idiots’ running through the airport that had clearly not allowed the correct amount of time. Cringe.
Somehow we got ourselves onto that plane – I credit our great negotiating skills – and our fellow passengers found it hilarious when we let out a massive cheer as the wine trolley came to a stop next to our chair – we needed it! Landed back in the office just in time to see a FAB piece on ACA for MIX – PHEW!
xx Amy and Maz

“HER spectacles, as round as soup tureens, lend Iris Apfel a startled look. If she seems surprised, she has good reason. Mrs. Apfel, the subject of a string of museum exhibitions, a coffee table book and even a fashion advertising campaign, has long been a magnet to aficionados, those devotees of fashion who dote on her style — a more-is-more mix of haute couture and hippie trimmings that appears at a glance to have been blended in a Cuisinart.

But now, at 90, she seems baffled, and clearly tickled, to find herself on the cusp of pop stardom, an unlikely celebrity whose fame has been constructed almost entirely around her look. “I’m a geriatric starlet, my dear, don’t you know…” The New York Times

To read the full article click here

Club QT (www.clubqt.com.au) brings the world of international shopping to Australian consumers at the click of a button – to celebrate Sydney Fashion Festival, the fashion experts from Club QT will be taking paparazzi shots of the best dressed guests outside Sydney Town Hall on Thursday 25 August 2011.

From 10.30am, fashionistas should make their way to the huge ‘Fashion Festival’ sign outside Sydney Town Hall, to be snapped in their most stylish ensembles. The Club QT paparazzi’s will be uploading the snaps straight to Facebook (www.facebook.com/ClubQTcom) and emailing each fashionable guest to confirm they have been featured as one of the most stylish Fashion Festival attendees. The snappers will be back on site from 3pm – 5pm, capturing guests arriving at the Myer runway show.

This is your chance to show off your ‘street style’ – see you by the runway! www.clubqt.com..au