Robyn Lawley Launches Plus-Size Swimwear Collection
She’s one of the top models worldwide, and now plus-size sensation Robyn Lawley is launching her own swimwear collection.
Lawley, who hails from West Sydney and is the first plus-size model ever to front a campaign for Ralph Lauren, is an Australian size 14, and said that she was tired of trying to find flattering swimwear – so she made her own.
The line was designed by her in collaboration with Bond-Eye Australia, a swimwear manufacturer, and features one-pieces, high-waisted bottoms and one fantastic swimsuit featuring dragon fruit, inspired by her love of food. (She hosts a famous blog called Robyn Lawley Eats.)
“I swim almost daily, and I found most swimwear that came to my size to be boring and unflattering with no real fashion elements,” she told reporters, “and I also couldn’t find any bikinis that supported my bust in the surf.”
The idea, she says, “was born from my own necessity.”
The designer line, available at her own website, is in the $150-200 range, and features vintage high-rise bikini bottoms “to be flattering”, says Lawley. The launch has made headlines around the world, in New York and even in Vogue – Lawley is a Vogue cover model, featuring on the cover of Vogue Italia.
The sizes are 8-18, “a size range that 80% of women live between”, the six-foot-two model explained. And the sizing is meant to be true to shape rather than requiring going up several sizes as with many swimwear ranges.
We love it – and we expect that come summer it’ll be all over Bondi and Bronte.
Will you be buying a piece of Robyn Lawley Swim?
Image: Robyn Lawley’s new swimwear range.
Net-A-Porter Sponsors NIDA Gala
Net-a-Porter is all about finding new designer talent – and now it looks like they’re looking for some artistic talent too.
They’re sponsoring the NIDA Foundation Trust Gala 2013, to “strengthen ties” to the Australian market.
The online designer retailer is putting up part of the fundraiser’s silent auction, including a $1000 gift certificate and a personal style consultation with the brand’s top stylists.
One reason they’re interested in the event? NIDA has some seriously glam alumni, including Sam Worthington, Catherine Martin, Baz Luhrmann, Cate Blanchett and Miranda Otto.
Net-a-Porter loves to feature glorious celebs in its online magazine, so it may be angling to star-seek among the next generation of glittering Australian talent.
Non-glamorous attendees also gain from the sponsorship, though: when they shop at Net-a-Porter after the event, they have the option to donate 20% of their designer goods’ price to the Foundation Trust, to fund new Australian thespians and stage designers.
Image: Net-a-Porter.
Ex-Australian Vogue Editor Admits 15-Year-Old Cover Model Was ‘Mistake’
Kirstie Clements has revealed that when she was criticised for using a 15-year-old cover model on the front of Australian Vogue, she knew it was indefensible.
It was a famously beautiful cover in the 2000s, featuring Katie Braadvedt, a New Zealand model who was at the time only 15.
The backlash wasn’t as loud as it would be now – Vogue worldwide has now instituted a policy of models 16 and over only, with ‘healthy’ weights, though they occasionally quietly flaunt their own rules – but it was still vociferous.
The cover and editorial were excoriated in the Australian media for ‘sexualising of a child’, and Clements has now revealed nearly 10 years later that she knew it was wrong.
“I lamely debated the point,” she said, “claiming that the photographs were innocent and charming, but in the end I had to agree wholeheartedly with the readers. I felt foolish even trying to justify it.”
Clements was famously pushed out of her Vogue editorial seat and released a tell-all book, The Vogue Factor, this year.
To read RESCU’s exclusive interview with Clements about all the titbits of her fashion life, go here.
Image: Katie Braadvedt on the cover of Vogue.
Jean Paul Gaultier Declares War On ‘Cheap’ Critic
Jean Paul Gaultier is not one to take criticism lightly.
He’s now declared war on venerable fashion critic Tim Blanks with an open letter posted on his Twitter, in which he calls his criticism ‘cheap’.
The dust-up started when Blanks reviewed Gaultier’s latest couture show, saying he was bored by it and criticising Gaultier’s casting of reality stars as ‘downmarket’. He said, scathingly, that though the designer was once viewed as ‘the one true heir to the throne of French fashion’, that time had ‘well and truly passed’.
Gaultier responded with all guns firing – namely the following letter, which he posted on the internet for all to see.
“Dear Tim:
Once upon a time you liked my shows ‘but that time has truly passed’ and I respect it. But the Tim I knew before would never have made the attacks more personal than professional. I always had girls in my shows from different strata, treating someone as downmarket is cheap.
In future, rather than be bored at my shows, you can use that time to do something else, for example, brush up on your fashion history, so you’ll know that mille feuille de mousseline didn’t echo Saint Laurent, it was inspired by a Nina Ricci dress from 1967 in homage to Gerard Pipard who recently passed away.
If you’re nostalgic for the time when I was considered the one true heir to the throne of French fashion, please buy a ticket for my exhibition now in Stockholm and London. Good visit.
A formerly yours in fashion,
Jean Paul Gaultier.”
Ouch. The letter is now front page in all the fashion blogs and magazines worldwide, and the part they find particularly scathing isn’t the takedown of Blanks’ model insult but the insinuation that Blanks needs to ‘brush up on his fashion history’ – in other words, that he can’t do his job.
What do you think: petty or deserved?
Image: Jean Paul Gaultier.