Sarina store celebrates vintage fashion

VICTORIAN styling combined with steam power- era clothing best describes the fashion that has swept over the Mackay region in recent months, a genre being called steampunk.
                                               

A new store dedicated entirely to the theme has also popped up in Sarina, selling everything from steampunk to rockabilly and vintage style clothing and furniture.

SteamPunk Time was opened by owners Barbara and Rick Davis, who were looking to fill a vacant retail space on Broad St and decided they wanted to bring something unique to town.

They've now been in business for over a year and have managed to generated quite a following of new SteamPunk and rockabilly lovers from across the region.

Sales attendant and son to the couple, Frazer Davis, said the store offers a total mix of mis-matched and unique items, including lots of leather, black, crazy patterns, goggles, top hats and more.

"It started when my mum Barbara visited England and purchased a leather Around the World in 80 Days-style top hat. She was like 'wow, I love that' and from there learned all about what steampunk was.

SANDIE has left the building and Gypsy Lane owner Leanne Pomering said she was not coming back following the recent change of name and revamp of the popular Normanby Street shop in Yeppoon.

Leanne said the rebranding of the shop was a natural progression and fitting for the direction her business had taken.

Leanne said the shop was looking fabulous with new lighting that was much more environmentally friendly and there was accessibility for everyone, including mobility aides and prams.

Leanne's greatest pride in Gypsy Lane is that her daughter now assists her with merchandising.

Remembering fashion's lowest moment: low-slung jeans

Hit the road Paris Hilton then, now and always. With the amount of time I spent being inundated with images of your hip flexors throughout uni I could have graduated as a doctor of physiotherapy instead of just scraping through with an arts degree.
                                             

Get into the sea Bella Hadid with your new Off White low-slung denim trousers that cost more than a new Corolla (with non-faulty airbags).

I came of age in the early 2000s. An era of Lara Bingle beauty, The Hills and Anna Nicole Smith endorsed diet pills. Blonde and waif-ish was "hot" and low-riders were everywhere - in clubs, in shopping centres and in my chiropractor's waiting room. I was such a slave to the fashion of the time that I'm pretty sure I developed scoliosis while simultaneously trying to contain my dignity and peach emoji-esque derriere while wearing  trousers that had a rise the size of a Tic Tac.

This was around the time Hilton's fame (and infamy) was peaking. She was an oversized sunglasses wearing, low-rider jean advocating queen. A statuesque, monosyllabic monarch of the zeitgeist. Her Ladies in Waiting, like Nicole Richie and Kim Kardashian, were always shorter, size 10ish brunettes who, at the time, resembled what women looked like in reality instead of reality TV.

With the amount of money I, a broad with legs my grandmother once proclaimed at Christmas as "thick", wasted at Forever New  trying to emulate women like Hilton, I could now be living large in a Bondi penthouse, having my smashed avo and eating it too. My legs comfortably ensconced in activewear, because it is 2017 and leggings are pants.

Indie brands create products that leave minimal waste in their making

As fast fashion -manufacturing of garments quickly, by large retail brands -leads to increasing wastage of fabric and resources, smaller indie brands and designers in Bengaluru are working in their own little way to create products that are not only responsibly sourced but also leave minimal waste in their making.
                                     

Akin to slow-cooking, the process is time consuming, involves a high degree of human intervention and is expensive.But then, that is the price one would have to pay for the drawbacks of assembly-line production, they argue.

What's more, the fabric used in the collection is hand woven.“The easiest way to think about sustainability is being mindful of raw materials, using sustainable textiles, limiting wastage, preserving skills and providing employment,“ says Narayanan, 36, the creative director of Brass Tacks, which opened in the city recently.

Ierene Francis, who runs Corvus, an online store that sells hand-made cotton bags has a similar thought. Worried about the impact of plastic on the environment, Francis decided to experiment with cotton to start her small enterprise. “I am glad that I run a business that is not adding plastic in the oceans,“ she says. Francis does not allow plastic packaging of her products even on ecommerce sites. She, in fact had to reason with ecommerce platform Amazon for sustainable packaging. “I am amazed how ecommerce is unaffected by the plastic ban,“ she says.

JD Institute of Fashion Technology last month conducted its annual design awards titled Future Origins. The theme was innovative, ethical and sustainable fashion. Designers and students Krithika PB and Jaisel Jain who won best contemporary design collection, worked a firstof-a-kind fabric called Nettle, which is neither dyed nor bleached. “The fabric is manufactured from a weed that can grow in any kind of soil and does not need pesticide or extra water, unlike other fibers. It is also an all-weather fabric,“ say the 20-year-old fashion innovators of the brand The Closet Queen.

Beauty, fashion and looking ‘hot’

Last September, comedian Amy Schumer posted pictures of the covers of two US magazines – Girls’ Life and Boys’ Life – on Instagram with the caption “No.” The Conversation

The pressure for girls to focus on how they look or fashion themselves after adults has been much discussed. Most of this, however, has focused on “traditional” forms of media – books, magazines, TV shows – but this does not accurately depict the changing mediascapes of girls’ lives, in particular, the growing significance of YouTube.

YouTube has attained a global watch time of over 500 million hours daily. Growing by 60 per cent each year, it is prevalent in many young people’s everyday lives. But how do YouTubers typically construct and celebrate what it means to be a girl? In 2014, there were at least 45,000 YouTube channels that featured beauty-related content. In June 2016, there were more than 5.3 million videos that capitalise on the female appearance on YouTube.

Fashion

Haul videos are one of the most popular genres uploaded by young female YouTubers. In haul videos, YouTubers typically introduce and describe the products that they have purchased, after each shopping trip.

If you like fashion films and documentaries on designers then Frock Club - a group that goes behind the scenes to learn more about the fickle, fast-paced world of fashion - has something to offer.

Local freelance pattern engineer Ruth Povall started Frock Club to educate people about the fashion industry, and hosts concerns about the sustainability of fast fashion, the decline of quality hand-made fashion in Australia and the loss of skilled technical trades that contribute to Australia as a global design hub.

Introducing ELLE's Fashion Now

This week, ELLE is launching a global intiative to find and celebrate the world's best new fashion designers, and you're invited to have your say! 46 edition of ELLE from around the world have each nominated their country's most promising rising design talent, with the overall winner to be voted by you, dear readers.
                                       

ELLE Australia selected sisters Beth and Tessa Macgraw from Macgraw for the honour of representing our nation on this global platform, adding yet another feather to their already rather full fashion-award cap.

ELLE's fashion director Rachel Wayman said of the decision "Australian label Macgraw embraces the joy of the feminine, fun, fashion extrovert. Designers and sisters, Beth and Tessa Macgraw mix lace, frills, bows and ruffles in a modern way that has attracted the attention of Australian and internationa celebrities alike."

The scale of the tragedy was such that the world could no longer turn a blind eye to the people who make our clothes, often in substandard conditions in some of the poorest countries. And many are paid below what is considered a living wage in their respective countries, meaning they are unable to lift themselves and their families out of the poverty cycle.

The Fashion Revolution movement and organisation was set up in the aftermath of Rana Plaza, with more than 80 countries involved in its message of ethical fashion production, and this week marks Fashion Revolution Week. The overriding message is to urge consumers to ask a simple question of the brands they wear: Who made my clothes?