iSpyStyle Fashion Workshops: learn about a career in fashion from the professionals

If you’re looking at a career the fashion industry, you’re likely to have a bunch of questions piling up, and possibly no-one to answer them all. iSpyStyle Workshops will leave you feeling inspired, informed and connected about your foray into fashion.

Inspired - A group of industry panel experts will share their knowledge and experiences

Informed – Get realistic tips, advice and guidance about a career in fashion

Connected – Understand the importance of networking and how to connect with others

iSpyStyle’s panel of industry experts come from a variety of fields within fashion, from designing, visual merchandising, styling and marketing. The workshop is split into two 2.5hr sessions:

Creative

Designer: CATHRYN WILLS, Creative Director, Mimco

Styling: PHILIP BOON, Celebrity Stylist

Visual Merchandising: AIMEE McCALLUM, Freelance VM, Husk

Business

PR/Marketing: JADE ROBERTS, PR Manager, Sportsgirl

Media: KATE McKIBBIN, Managing Editor, Drop Dead Gorgeous Daily

Production/Events: RACHEL TUFFERY, Director, Pronto Productions

Tickets are only $35 (+booking fee) per session, or $55 for the whole day.

Click here for more info, or to buy tickets.

Tickets include a fashionable gift bag.

GRLmobile has FIVE TICKETS TO GIVE AWAY for both sessions of the iSpyStyle Workshop on 13 March at the Whitehouse Institute of Design in Melbourne.

To WIN, simply go to the GRLmobile iSpyStyle Competition page and answer in 25 words or less “What question about working in the fashion industry would you most like answered in the iSpyStyle Workshop?” The most creative answer will win!

Costes: Hôtel / Restaurant / Bar / Musique

When it comes to innate chic, you really can’t beat the French. Their deeply ingrained respect for glamour is clearly evident in Paris’s ultimate place to lounge, dine, see and be seen, Hôtel Costes. Nestled into the famous Rue St Honore, Hôtel Costes is the meeting place of Parisian aristocracy, international oligarchs, celebrities, the fashion set and anyone else who could be classified as one of ‘the beautiful people’.

The complex is decadent and luxurious. When the Costes family, who own over 40 esteemed establishments throughout Paris, commissioned architect and designer Jacques García to create and decorate the hotel, the design brief was “all things in excess”. García surely delivered. Every detail is attended to with perfection. Rooms, which range in price from €400 for a single suite up to €2,900 for a night in the maxi-suite (that’s about $4,550 Australian!!), boast hand-carved furniture, silver candleholders, voluptuous velvet drapes, fresh flowers and king-sized beds.

The Italian-baroque style courtyard restaurant and café serves a melange of tasty morsels like smoked salmon, spring rolls and foie gras or you can pick up a club sandwich for a very healthy €24 (AUD$38). One can spot a variety of social x-rays – those size 0s who order “salad, no dressing” or nibble on small pieces of melon as they gush about their latest shoot or scroll through emails on their iPhones. Over-sized sunglasses are a must, and provide great coverage for your deer-in-the-headlights shock when you get your bill for the most expensive coffee in town.

Inside at the Costes bar, black lacquered furniture and mirrors reflect the rich and famous, who lounge around dripping in jewels, draped in couture, sipping cocktails. The BQ (beauty quotient) is astronomical. Every room is theatrically decorated with art deco, renaissance, boudoir and Middle Eastern influences. It is opulent, sumptuous and sexy.

Although you may need to stop, revive, survive after realising you’ve just spent your next five days’ budget on mojitos, and while the catwalk-ready waitstaff may be a little cavalier at times, the atmosphere at Hôtel Costes is an experience not to be missed, and should be on the list as a travel requirement for any jet-setting fashionista.

WANT MORE?

The Costes empire extends beyond hotels and cafes to a vast portfolio of enterprises – a magazine, watches, accessories, luggage, perfume, candles, even a range of ready-meals! Perhaps the most recognised element is its music releases. Hôtel Costes is renowned as Paris’s mecca for lounge music – in-house DJs blend smooth beats with floating vocals to create a den of aural delights for patrons. A CD has been released once a year since 1999, mixed by resident DJ Stéphane Pompougnac, and the series has become a must-have collection in café and lounge bars around the world.

Check it out at http://www.hotelcostes.com/index.html

The legend of Valentine's Day

Back in the 1st Century, the Roman Emperor Claudius II believed married men did not make good soldiers because they were too distracted by their wives and families. To assure his empire maintained a strong military force, he issued an edict forbidding marriage. Legend has it that a priest named Valentine, seeing their anguish, would perform secret marriage sacraments for desperate young lovers.

When Claudius was alerted to this treason, he had Valentine promptly arrested and placed in confinement. He was offered salvation, if we were to renounce his beliefs and recognise the Roman gods as his sole faith. As an ardent believer in Christianity, Valentine refused and had the audacity to try to convert the angry Emperor in return! Claudius immediately condemned the priest to be executed.

While awaiting the fateful day in prison, Valentine is said to have fallen deeply in love with Claudius’s daughter, who was blind. He prayed for her night and day until the girl’s blindness was miraculously cured. Just before his execution on the 14th day of February, he wrote her a love note, which he signed ‘from your Valentine’. And thus the practice of sending notes to the one you love on February 14 began.

Kung Hei Fat Choi: Happy (Chinese) New Year from GRLmobile!

The Chinese New Year festival begins this Sunday. It’s the longest and most important of all traditional Chinese celebrations, the origins of which go back centuries, into the realm ancient myth.

During the festival, families decorate their houses with red coloured paper and banners with messages of happiness, wealth and longevity. People dress in red which is considered to bring the wearer a bright and sunny future, and fire is believed to drive away bad luck.

It’s traditional to clean the family home thoroughly, so as to clear out bad fortune and make room for good luck. All cleaning tools must be put away before new year’s eve though, and no more cleaning can continue, in case good fortune is swept away.

On new year’s eve, families gather and feast on extravagant meals together, setting off fire crackers to send out the old and ring in the new. On new year’s morning, children are given money in red envelopes, to bring them good fortune.

The Chinese believe your status on new year’s day will set the precedent for the new year. So all debt should be paid off by this time, loans should be avoided, and people resist punishing their children to avoid them crying for the rest of the year.

Some abstain from using bad language or negative words, and refrain from talking about the year just passed. People aim to be happy and maintain a cheery attitude, in the hope that the feelings will stick for the next twelve months. New Year celebrations provide the perfect opportunity to lift grudges and sincerely wish for peace and happiness for everyone.

The festival ends after 15 days with the Lantern Festival, where people hang lanterns round the home and local temples. The highlight is the dragon dance, a favourite of children and adults alike.

Many Australian cities celebrate Chinese New Year and the dragon dances, firecrackers and lanterns draw huge crowds annually. Find your city’s celebration this year and join in with a spirited ‘Kung hei fat choi!’

Tavi: the new girl who’s now firmly established in the neighbourhood

It was only a matter of time before we blogged about Tavi, who some tout as the next Anna Wintour. In case you’ve been living under a blanket of fash-apathy, here are a few facts about Tavi Gevinson, the new girl in town:

1. Her blog, Style Rookie, is rumoured to get around 1.5million hits a month.

2. She mingles with fashion royalty, and sits in the front row at NY and Paris fashion weeks, while celebs and editors sit behind her.

3. She worked with Rodarte (and was their muse) on their diffusion range for Target.

4. She describes herself as a “dork that sits inside all day wearing awkward jackets and pretty hats".

5. Everyone is talking about her. From Vogue to the Guardian to everyone on the blogosphere.

6. She is only thirteen years old.

Style Rookie is a playful commentary on Tavi’s obsession with fashion, replete with collages, runway photos, videos, ‘screensnaps’ from TV, and ripped out pages from books and magazines. Her cute-as-pie writing style is complemented by automatic-timer self portraits in vintage outfits she’s found when out ‘thrifting’, coupled with a spackle of high-end designer pieces. Her latest statement was dying her hair blue, which turned out “way too green” and “kinda soccer mom-ish, only a soccer mom that is a smurf, an anime character, and not the one you want to carpool with because she may be housing rats in the glove compartment.” Pow!

Tavi started Style Rookie when she was only 11 years old. Her parents were unaware of exactly what it was, or of her appeal, until she asked their permission to be featured in and article for the New York Times magazine. Most of her friends at school still don’t know about her blog, but the rest of the fashion world is falling over itself to get to her. Her insights into fashion are so discerning that some even doubt her genuineness, believing the blog must be written by her parents.

But designers like Rei Kawakubo, Marc Jacobs, Yohji Yamamoto and the Rodarte sisters feel differently. Pop magazine has commissioned her to blog for them – she attended Dior’s runway in Paris on their behalf, and Tommy Ton (another blog sensation) has taken a bunch of photos of her for Paris Vogue. It would seem her future is on a steady course to severe success in the fashion industry, but when questioned on it, she replies with a youthfully unconcerned “fashion I think I could imagine, but I'm not really sure.”

Whatever she does, we sure hope we’re invited along to watch, read and absorb. For now, best find out what the hype is all about. You can check out Style Rookie here: http://tavi-thenewgirlintown.blogspot.com/.

Mwah Mwah

From MissGRLmo

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