2012 Fashion Week Australia

A big, fashionable Fab congrats goes out to Elise Crossman who won our Intel fashion week competition! We asked for your best front row-worthy outfits, and our six well-dressed finalists certainly made it hard to pick a winner — but it was this Sydney-sider's way with two of this season's biggest trends, the animal print skinny and the ever-present peplum, that got her over the line. Elise popped by Fab H/O yesterday to take ownership of her brand spankin' new HP Ultrabook™ — Inspired by Intel, looking just as effortlessly stylish as she did in her submission snap. Hope you enjoy your prize, Elise!

Not to get all weird and stalkerish, but Taylor Tomasi Hill is the kinda girl you want to be your best friend. Friendly, down to eath, ridiculously stylish in that impossible to replicate, effortless kinda way, we were bowled over by how — well, normal — the super stylist was when we interviewed her during Fashion Week. Taylor is an industry superstar of sorts thanks to her flawless street style status (Tommy Ton is a fan), but her editorial CV proves she's more than just a front row fixture, clocking up time in the fashion departments of Teen Vogue, US Marie Claire, and now e-tailer Moda Operandi. Ms Tomasi Hill was flown in to lend her styling skills (again) to Oroton for the brand's MBFWA debut. Between ironing shirts backstage (yes — not her assistant) and posing for pics with die-hard fashion fans, we stole five minutes of the flame-haired Texan's time. We were warned that she wasn't super keen on interviews, but during our wee chat of the MCA steps Taylor was nothing but happy to chat; telling us about her about her gig at Moda, getting massages with her old boss in Bondi and why she won't be hitting the lecture circuit anytime soon. . .

How has it been working on the Oroton show? We pretty much have the same vision, in terms of the styling, so it’s been really easy.

To hear more from TTH, just . . .

Fashion week was awash in style inspiration for us. Not only did we sit down with Whitney Port (so doe-eyed in person), talked shop with Taylor Tomasi Hill (cue killer girl crush!) and discussed wedding dresses with Yasmin Sewell (life envy, plus some) we also had a cup of tea with blogger extraordinaire-turned-designer and all round Swedish style queen, Elin Kling. If you’re not familiar with her site Style By Kling, we suggest you do some research. Even after a long haul flight, losing her luggage, and a slew of press duties she was lovelier, tinier(!), and more stylish in person than we could have thought possible. See what Elin had to say about her latest Nowhere collection, her suitcase essentials, and on making spelling mistakes on the internet. . .

When did you start designing? And was that always the idea behind the blog? Actually no, a couple of years ago I started thinking that it would be so fun to actually have my own brand. But I knew I’m not, you know, a designer, and I got a lot of requests to do collaborations, but I thought maybe one day I am going to have my own design, so I don’t want to use my name like that. I made jokes, like, “If I’m going to do it I’m going to do it with H&M” and because, you know, that’s never going to happen. And then they asked me! And I was like, “What?!”... I was the first blogger in the world to work with H&M, and I worked with them for one year on my collection, two times a week, and I discovered it was possible to make good design, within a good price range. And that’s kinda of like where I’m from, my history. I’m from a small farm in a small city and I think I got my first designer bag, like, five years ago. So I thought it would be fun to create good design for a great price for my readers. After the H&M collection.. I was like “Wow!”

To hear more from Elin about her fab collection just . . .

When we heard Whitney Port would be flying down under (as a guest of NW magazine) to present her Whitney Eve and WE by Whitney Eve lines at fashion week, we were on the phones faster than you can say Cali-girl-cool. We've only watched every-single-episode of both The Hills and The City, so it was a total treat to sit down with the reality show star-turned-fashion designer the morning after her MBFWA presentation. See what Whit had to say about her style icons, her take on Australian style and her plans for global domination. . .

How did you get involved with MBFWA? Well, I worked with George who is a partner at Whole Brands and I knew him through Jay (Jay Lyons is her ex-boyfriend, and Tamarama front man), and he wanted to help with expanding my line, and he knows that expanding my line broader than the US is obviously a gold mine, so he had all these connections and showed my line to a bunch of the retailers here, and thought it was a good time to launch it at Fashion Week.
Were you familiar with Sportsgirl before? Yes. Last time I was here we went to Sportsgirl and I love Sportsgirl, I actually went into Sportsgirl this morning! I just thought it was the perfect fit — I think the aesthetic is similar, I think the price points are similar and I just thought it was the perfect spot for it.
For more from Whitney just. . .

Fashion week is done and dusted for another year (sob), but we're still talking about the top line shows, backstage blunders and fash-pack gossip. We thought we'd share some of the highlights, and lowlights, of the crazy week that was Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Australia.

• No toilet paper in the downstairs ladies. On day one. At 9am.
• Napoleon's latest Birkin inspired some major handbag envy. This year's addition to his collection was BIG, and deep chocolate. Yum.
• Blogger-mania! There were more online media types than mag-girls than ever before, causing a social media jam of Tweeting/Facebooking/Instagramming (yes, us included!).
• Yes, fashion people do eat. The teeny, tiny salad portions at the upstairs cafe that barely touched the sides.  More generous portions would be appreciated next year, per favore.
• Daily sartorial inspiration from the Sun Herald's Kate Waterhouse, Emma Read from Grazia, Allanah Pickup from Cosmopolitan, Genevra Vanderzeil from A Pair and a Spare and snapper extraordinaire Candice Lake, who managed to look impeccable day after day.

For more fashion week funny stuff just . . .