The line up for this year’s Fall unwrapped is very impressive. There are whopping 70 designers showcasing their talent in South Perth foreshore. It’s going to be a lovely day if today’s weather is anything to go by. Perfectly blue sky (which we tend to get week after week as Gilles Peterson ‘lamented’) and a nice temperature of 25C? Perfect!

Unwrapped has also taken its marketplace online by opening an eboutique. This isn’t going to get my big tick for now as it feels rather too confined (design wise) and the category listing is not at all logical. It’s obvious that it’s (once again) built by someone who doesn’t understand online retail. It’s not that difficult but very few get it right. Anyhoo, the whole point of Unwrapped market place is about meeting the designers face to face and buy directly while having some chit chat with them. I wish all the best for the unwrapped team for their effort (I know a lot of work goes into creating an online store) but I’m still liking the idea of going out to an open air market more. I’d save online shopping for eBay, Etsy or Amazon where the choice is absolutely endless and the buying experience is seamless (until other online retail sites catch up and American sites decide to ship to Australia)

There might be an answer though. As you know, there are a few craft and fashion markets are coming up. Well, I missed Bazaar 09 in Fremantle today. I couldn’t face going out after yesterday’s hideous heat (37C). There’s, of course, Oxford Street market every Saturday. My favourite of all is unwrapped. I went to one in Subiaco, and South Perth. To solve my x-mas gift problem unwrapped is popping up again in Leedervile on December 19. Great timing.

These are just a taster for what you’d expect from Unwrapped:market place in Leederville. I’ve found quite a few interesting designers before as you’ve seen in my Subiaco and South Perth coverage. I’m expecting more this time and I hope weather to be bearable. Let’s hope so anyway.

Unwrapped:
Leederville
 runs 
from
 10am
 to 
5pm 
on
 Saturday
 19
December 
on 
the 
grassed 
area
 of
 Leederville 
Tafe,
 196
 Oxford
Street,
 Leederville. 
Entry 
is 
free.


I’ve encountered Christobel for the first time in April at the Unwrapped South Perth market day. So curious about its style and whimsical materials used I wanted to see where all the goodies were created. Nested in a quiet area of Mt. Lawely amongst 1920′s old houses, the exterior of the house had well trimmed rosemary hedges and an old kids’ bicycle was sitting on the veranda. It was such a lovely space all throughout. At every corner I saw bits of old and new displayed in harmony. It didn’t seem like she had to do some massive re-organisation or cleaning because someone was coming to take pictures of her space. The whole house was simply packed full of stuff – impeccably organised I must add – that it could not have been possible to create that space just for one off photo shoot. According to the artist, it has to be organised as she had so many things. Many things indeed but they were all incredibly beautiful.

Our conversation naturally drifted to her next outing, Made on the Left where she will be showcasing cuffs made with colourful fabric and vintage buckles. You can buy these on Saturday, 25th July at Hyde Park Hotel. You might have to hurry.. knowing the intended price I think they will sell fast.

Christobel goodies are created based on ‘findings’ – antique buttons, books, vintage buckles and other small pretty things- I cannot wait to see what else will come out of this charming ‘studio’. There’s an afternoon tea planned at the Christobel studio at the end of this month. That should be pretty cool. Watch this space to see what will come out of that little girly gathering.

Image from Perth Fashion Festival 2008, Graduate Collection, Jessica Shirras

A couple of exciting media releases arrived today. One of them was about Unwrapped market place getting included in the Perth Fashion Festival 2009′s program.

What does it mean exactly? Well, new and upcoming talents will gain more exposure as Perth Fashion Festival is the biggest fashion event in Western Australia. Also, this means the program is becoming more diverse. It’s no longer just about mainstream fashion and major retailers. We’re are getting more of ‘fringe’ stuff which can only mean a good thing. Having said that Unwrapped is pretty major when it comes to the street market scene in Perth anyway.

Images from unwrapped South Perth, April 2009

I say to you all who are into designing clothes, jewellery and anything wearable to go and apply for your spot at The Sunday Best by Unwrapped. Applications will be accepted from Friday 10 July to Friday 31 July and are open to all WA designers that design and manufacture their products within Australia. Not much details are available at this point but check out the Unwrapped website a few days later. I also suggest sending a quick mail to unwrappedperth [at] gmail.com to get listed in their mailing list.

Although it’s a little cold things are gearing up in my neighbourhood. All graduate shows are lining up. I don’t say this often but watch this space. There will be interviews with student designers, well known designers, retailers and all fashion goodness all over the place. I’m happy to say I’ll be taking a week off from work to just cover Perth Fashion Festival 2009. How does that sound?

Luck would have it I got to actually talk to her last night and I had an interesting conversation with the talented lady. Christobel is her childhood name by her parents. Cute. She started Christobel about 18 months ago after working as a lawyer for twenty five years. Now she is working part-time as a consultant and putting more energy into her newly found love for creating whimsical pretty things with vintage books and other findings. She has a great sense of style. The evidence? Those necklaces in the photos (she is wearing one as well) were made with her ‘reject’ buttons. After picking usable and nice ones she was left with a mountain of rejects and she thought there should be ways to use them so that’s how these chunky and fun statement pieces were born.

I do have a bit of soft spot for charming old things whether they are practical or not. All things that Christobel is offering take me right back to Les Puces at the edge of Paris. The very first photo is with her daughter Claire and Gemma, her other daughter, is working at ici et la. I hope I got that right. Was it Claire working at ici et la? hmm Anyway, It’s a small world. After talking to her I had a strong urge to revisit ici et la and also pop into see Elaine at Behind the Monkey where you can find some Christobel goodies. Christobel is also available in William topp. I’m now inspired and energised after a long day (rather a long week too although Monday was a public holiday). I’m hoping to see more of Christobel goodies by all three, Claire, Gemma and Christine Lovitt. Girl power!

Update: I’ll be at Jailhouse Frock tomorrow night and possibly going to another show organised by Skatt soon. Plenty more opportunities for me to practice shooting shows. One of those days I get better at it. Let’s wait and see. Shall we?

There’s a legend in my household which is often told to embarrass moi. Back in the old days, I’m talking early 90′s. I bought a top of the range Nikon.. which was named F90 (N90 in the USA). I was a complete dummy when it came to SLR cameras. I did not know what aperture meant and what shutter speed did when making photos. I shot everything in the Auto mode and I didn’t know any better for many years. Fast forward 10 years. My friend Charlie who is a little more cluey about cameras was having a look at my SLR gear one day. I presented two lenses from my camera bag which has been tucked away in my closet and only saw some daylight once a year. One of the lenses was 70-210mm. This really meant squat to me. I only knew it as a telephoto lens but never found it useful until Charlie pulled the lens barrel out to extend the length. My eyes widened. Charlie and my guy couldn’t stop laughing at me. Look Ma, it’s a TELEPHOTO lens! For ten years, I only used it at 70mm and I didn’t know that the lens was meant to be pulled out to be used for 85mm and onwards.

Time flew without me attempting to know anything about my cameras. I’ve been a good ol’ ‘point and shoot’ happy snapper and everything was honky dory. Then digital cameras came out. The same story. It was even better as I could dump any bad shots without wasting paper. As with any amateur gadget hungry chicks, I bought a DSLR (Nikon D50) without much thought three years ago. The ‘shooting auto’ saga continued until this year. I finally started understanding what I was doing this year thanks to Mr. Ken Rockwell. The result of this enlightenment can be found in many of my posts: Elsa Couture and Unwrapped and High Street collective to name a few.

Today, I had one of the happiest moments. When I was rambling on about different film formats and vintage film cameras my guy pointed out that he also had a vintage camera. Olympus OM10 with a 50mm f/1.8 lens has been hidden in the darkest corner of our house for years until today. I was so eager to start shooting but it didn’t have any power. Batteries were flat. They might have been sitting in there for over 10 years without being used. Oh well, first thing tomorrow, you know what I’ll be doing.

This camera first came out in 1979. This is older than you maybe? This 30 year old manual is going to be my bed time reading tonight. 2009 is going to be exciting. I’ll be making pictures with films. I’ll be having fun.

I hope this is going to be my last rambling on cameras. I do hope to get my hands on a decent medium format camera such as Hasselblad, a toy camera such as Holga 120N(or CFN), a rangefinder like Mamiya 7, wide format digital like Leica D-Lux 4, full frame film SLR such as Nikon F5 or F6, and oh the list goes on and on. There’s a definite risk of this blog becoming a camera blog. Yikes.