the launch

Dion Lee for Cue is officially in select Cue stores nationally today. The people at Golightly PR were good enough to send over a lookbook and boy - does this look good. The press Release highlights points that I was struck with by the images in Vogue, this is all about taking Dion Lee's innate skills at tailoring, draping, shape and cut into a "Real World" setting. Just like Olivier Theyskens at Theory - today is all about the real world, huh? - Dion Lee's designs sometimes have an air of the unreal about them. Not because they are overly romantic in the manner of Theyskens, in fact Lee's 'unreality' comes from the fact that his stuff is so architectural and, well, cool. You have to be a certain sort of girl to pull of his infamous pleat-tuck dresses or rorscharch ink blot prints. It takes confidence (body confidence, that too) and balls to wear a dress so obviously 'fashion'. The kind of confidence that you need for designers like Christopher Kane or Mary Katranzou. Evidently great tailors and masters of shape and cut, but with an added edge of detail and design that can scare most devotees of utilitarianism away completely.

I think this collection bridges the gap perfectly. Searching for the perfect white shirt, jacket or khaki skirt that can take you from the office to the party - which is, after all, Cue's bread and butter - look no further. These pieces are so simple and practical but stamped with the Dion Lee edge become so desirable. First of all, I can't get enough of that white tuxedo shirt. Buttoned all the way up to the collar - it's all about that slightly prim and proper look right now. And second, maybe I should ask myself how many utility jackets is too many utility jackets, but that parka is amazing. And the colours! Rich, Taylor Tomasi blues and that rasberry red mixed with stark whites (what Dulux Paints would call White number 1) and khakis. A mix of colours to slip perfectly into my newly renovated room and wardrobe - after a massive and I mean massive cull of clothes I have whittled my wardrobe down to one shelf. It's like a rainbow of neutrals in there with the odd smattering of pastel and jewel tones. Now, if only I had that parka, that blue trench, that white shirt and that red tuxedo jacket I'm sure my wardrobe would be complete!

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ps. more on my renovated room to come I promise! I came home to find my parents had completely painted my room and taken everything out. I'm still trying to sort it all out - my magazines are just overflowing and taking over the house. ahh!! But as soon as I can work out my camera/computer situation I promise to post pictures. It's so fabulous - a real grown up's room! But I think my mum accidently threw out my wall of Celine - I had lookbooks and had torn out Celine in editorial to make a big wall of love. Oh well, I'll just have to start a new one.

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Start Cue-ing

vogue australia march 2011

 

Often when designers collaborate with the high street it ends up becoming a watered down version of their current designs. I have nothing against the recent Lanvin for H&M collection, or even the Stella McCartney for Target Redux - they were wonderful capsule collections that brought high fashion design to the high street. That is, after all, what we want. We want those beautiful plisse Lanvin slips, the bejewelled and beribboned bags, the signature Lanvin laissez-faire, and we want it at a quarter of the price. That is why designers tend to go simple, recognisable and easy for the high street. The point of the collection is not to design something completely new, it is to give the plebs a taste of what they can't have. I understand that, I really do, and a lot of the time I buy into it. But what I really applaud is when a designer collaboration brings something completely new to the table. 

Witness Dion Lee's collection for Cue, recently unveiled in the spectacular March Australian Vogue. This utilitarian collection is nothing like what Lee has previously shown. Sure, there are the hints of the ruffles, the pleating, the gorgeous gathering that he has become known for. But now it is stiff, starchy calico and topped by a crisp white shirt and not a Roscharch inkblot blouse. It's a serious, business-woman's idea of Dion Lee, which I think is fantastic because Cue is a serious, business-woman's kind of label. Can't you picture some of the more daring customers in that white shirt and camel skirt number at their offices? Dressing up with the sleeveless trench over a plain skirt suit? I love it. I love how new and fresh it is - especially for Lee. This could easily have made waves (no, tsunamis) on the catwalks of Rosemount Australian Fashion Week in April, but no. He's given it to Cue. And with that he has signalled that his customers will come to Cue too, to shop his 'new' collection and buy just another piece of that Dion Lee magic. Why separate the high street and the designer shopper when you can bring them together spectacularly like this? Well done Dion Lee. Well done.

Ladies, form an orderly Cue (har har har).

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Aussie, Aussie, Aussie

Vogue Australia March 2010

Mod: Abbey-Lee Kershaw

Ph: Max Doyle

St: Naomi Smith

"Life Aquatic"

Today is Australia day, so to all my fellow antipodeans (and even those of you who aren't), eat some lamingtons, swim in a pool, throw another shrimp on the barbie, and have a couple of beers.  Fittingly, today is my last day in Sydney before I jet off overseas. I can't think of a better way to spend my last Australian day than pool-side, listening to the triple j hot 30 countdown. Now, If only there was a Dion Lee dress hanging up in my wardrobe that I could do it in...

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absolute geometry

tommy ton/jak and jil

It's not even my thing - but Dion Lee makes me want to cut holes out of the sides of my clothes and pleat what's left into a geometric oblivion. I want to wear pastel colours with crystal heels,  twisted and tucked and draped and hung, and everything simple and oh so clear. He's like Josh Goot but ever so slightly more crazy, he takes the verticality and the clean lines of Goot's centennial point tower and turns them into the wild curves of the opera house. Which is, incidentally, where he held his latest show at RAFW. And as the light spilled in from the curved windows and the models lined up with that blue, blue sky outside the fashion ice queens melted. Black is all good and well, but you can't deny that on a day like that, with the harbour bridge in the background and sparkles everywhere - on your eyelids, bouncing from your crystal heels, reverberating off that sapphire sea - you want to be the girl in the dion lee dress who paints her lips red, baby, red. 

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