Cocktail Mummy fashion editorial by Miles Aldridge

I received this fashion editorial by Miles Aldridge in my inbox last week and really loved it. It's Cocktail Mummy - very nostalgic! I wish magazines in Australia would feature more fashion editorial like this.

Miles has more shots on his site - www.milesaldridge.com.

EDIT 3/08/08: I must eat my own hat, whilst lazily using my Sunday to flick through past issues of Vogue Australia, I saw that they had used an image from this shoot for a typical article about not possessing maternal qualities

Australian Glamour to launch in 2009 and Grazia... me no like

News Magazines/Limited have finally confirmed they will be launching an Australian version of the high selling handbag-sized women's magazine, Glamour in 2009. It will complement their other female fashion title: Vogue Australia. From my experience with UK Glamour, I am not really a fan of the style and content in the publication but I think it will definitely be a serious contended in the already crowded marketplace. It should sit in that older more mainstream fashion and celeb-loving market well.

This is more than I can say for the recent ACP launch of the weekly Grazia. After checking this out on newstands I must say I was rather disappointed. I didn't like the saddle stitch binding on it as it didn't go with the more luxurious glossy style (it's fine for Who and New Idea though but Grazia should differentiate). The printing and finishing also seemed poor, almost like it was from the office XEROX! The content was a bit hit and miss too... it's like a weekly monthly, which makes it difficult to find a balance - some content was already no longer in touch with the zeitgeist. At $5, it is a bit steep for a weekly, for a few bucks extra I'd rather buy another monthly which I haven't read yet for more content and better editorial (shoots and articles).

(Thanks for GWAS for the Grazia cover shot - she's in the link's list to right...)

Plant Rant

Someone stole a plant outside the front of my house today.

It was only a $15 Yukka from somewhere like Bunnings with a cracked terracotta pot, so I can't understand why they would have unless they were on crack. Seriously who does that! Now the porch looks all bare and there is nowhere for the postie to hide my online hauls. No one else in the street had their plants stolen and let me tell you, their offerings are much more appetising to steal.

Brands brands brands

I got asked tonight to name my most loved and hated brand, and after some impulsive thinking I named Burberry as my most loved and Playboy as my most hated.

So why Burberry? Although I love fashion I think there's nothing worse than an aspiring fashion marketer naming a 'label' rather than a brand as their most loved brand. Whilst I know that labels can be brands and brands can be labels, I value a brand's history and 'empire' as well as its strategy and positioning, and I think a lot of new designers' establishing labels out there simply design clothes and that's it.

Perhaps it's also because these labels are still in brand infancy, after all Burberry started somewhere with Thomas Burberry creating the iconic trench coat for English and French soldiers in WWI, but with the choice of all the brand giants out there why choose a boutique fashion label as a most loved?

For me, Burberry has this beautiful history behind it, established in 1856, it's really stood the test of time, and successfully repositioned itself along the way through challenging times (eg. 'Chavdom'). I just love the feeling of British heritage and culture, and feel that their products, extensions and designs have always stayed relevant to the core brand.(My profile picture is even a shot of Kate Moss from the 2005 Spring Summer Burberry campaign).

Playboy on the other hand has just diverged into so many product categories that the initial brand has been cheapened so much, if that was possible! One of their taglines is "Head to Toe: We've Got You Covered", which is exactly the problem; too much, too varied and bad quality. Don't worry about buying fake Playboy as the craftsmanship is probably better than the real thing. Anyway moving on...

A book which I recommend (especially since you can read it for free on Google Books here) is Matt Haig's Brand Royalty which differentiates brands into great categories such as distraction brands, muscle brands, consistent brands and responsibility brands. It really does cover most of the top brands discussed today. He also, has a less popular book Brand Failures, which would be a good retrospective read to get an insight into what went wrong with some brands.

Thanks but no thanks

Ok, despite wanting an iPhone since early 07, I was not much of an apple consumer-pet when the Australia launch came up as I did not line up overnight to secure one. I then admittedly took my sweet ass time getting down to an Optus store (Vodafone and Telstra's offerings are a joke!) to see if I could finally get my hands on one.

Anyway at first I was told that I would have to sign onto the contact and wait to receive the phone, which would take around one to two weeks. I was planning to sign up to a 24 month contract (which in modern day mobile phone terms, may as well see me through to retirement!) and on one of the higher-spend packages. I also currently reside in pre-paid brick land (... a mobile that dates back at least five years) so to start being charged for a data package and plan when I can't use it seems somewhat absurd.

After further enquiry today however, I was told the phone won't be available for around four weeks after signing a contract! That would mean I would be paying for a whole month's contract to do nothing but sit and smell the roses until the phone arrived. What would happen to customers who had no phone I wonder!

I simply do not understand this service ethos - it's like Optus are of the mindset that they are doing customers the favour rather than the other way around. They told me my order would be rainchecked, but this ain't no Target, if I want a semi-expensive item and its out of stock, simply order it and let me know when its in. If its sold out, fair enough but don't bother me with this raincheck babble!

Edit 23/07/08: I must confess I caved in today and signed up :(

The Dark Knight Spoof

I saw the new batman movie recently, The Dark Knight and thought it was well worth every accolade it gets. It has received rave reviews, aside from Perez Hilton's bizarre self-important critique, and I can understand why! I'm not sure what the word is on the street yet, but hopefully it will be the Penguin as the nemesis in the next movie, Danny Devito style, or perhaps Catwoman.

Anyway I thought this TDK trailer spoof was hilarious and well done for a budget production. Check it out!