Best On Show For Fashion Fun

Sun Herald

Sunday May 13, 2007

William Petley

GIORGIO Armani spring/summer 2007, the uniform of the efficient, was paraded at the brand's Martin Place clubhouse on Thursday. Jane Douglass sensibly settled a four-hander argument explaining she was first in the door and the jacket hers. Bob Lim looked over the racks (Tim Cahill called to cancel, his son, Shae, being unwell; he's now perfectly OK), as did Judy Swan, there with Maggie Joye, here from Hawaii and at home in Bellevue Hill's Barford. Fiona Beevor, having walked Martin Place, said she'd seen cleaner pavements in China. This surprised Anna Joel. As a molten gold beaded gown slithered by, the model's nipple a nibble away, Marcia Resch produced her Shoo Sticks - the slingback adhesive - suggesting, "This'll do the trick." Sydney Theatre Company's publicist Sally Noonan simply smiled and smiled.

Sisters dining for themselves

TUESDAY'S budget led to a round of serious dinners in Parliament House, Canberra. Attending Senator Helen Coonan's Women of Power pow-wow: Broadcast Australia's Linda Anderson; Cato Counsel's Sue Cato; Microsoft Australia's Tracey Fellows; MacBank's Karen Halbert; Braveheart's Hetty Johnston; Sussan Group's Naomi Milgrom; ASTRA's Debra Richards; and Mrs Ros Packer. It was certainly the place to be, given the Treasurer's generosity to one of Coonan's portfolios: the arts. Ashley Dawson-Damer accepted Pat Farmer's invitation, dining with him. Later, Millennium Forum's Paul Nicolau, Greg Daniels, anyone-vaguely-in-between and Senator Bronwyn Bishop, reconvened to the Hotel Canberra, which is always a great idea.

Golden idea

GOLD Week, another Sydney Children's Hospital, Randwick initiative, commences on June 1 with a lunch at Nick's Bar and Grill, King Street Wharf, organised by Marianne Penklis. Or, once registered (www.goldweek.org.au), you can, within reason, do whatever you like. Since the hospital functions for every child in NSW it's hoped that communities all over the state want to raise money to help. Purchase a Gold Week pin from NSW branches of NAB, Big W, The Coffee Club, Coles, Bi-Lo and Miller's Fashion Club stores, or donate at any NAB branch. There's nothing grimmer than a sick kid.

The good, the bad, the party

THE Clemenger May Party, a night of tantalising debauchery eagerly anticipated by some (industry rivals shamelessly attempt crashing), is on May 25 at its St Leonards headquarters, retitled for the occasion: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly Saloon. The invitation, interestingly, is in the form of an old-fashioned $100 bill. Clemenger BBDO's Danny Searle departs next month to take up a post as chairman and chief creative officer of BBDO Singapore, which won the Visa Olympics brief.

Government House goes green

THE National Trust of Australia (NSW) is holding a "green" dinner at Government House on May 23 to raise funds for its new campaign to make its properties environmentally efficient. Phone (02) 9258 0129. Reflecting the night's mood, the auction contains a solar house conversion, an urban commuter bicycle, and lunch with Tim Flannery and/or Ian Kiernan. Pianist Ambre Hammond, who in July performs at the Opera House with James Morrison and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in the premiere of Lalo Schifrin's double concerto for classical piano, jazz trumpet and symphony orchestra, will play. You might remember Hammond's unsuccessful paternity suit a few years ago, citing Jimmy Barnes as father of her child, Baillie Jordana.

Big business for art exhibition

WAYNE Tunnicliffe, the Art Gallery of NSW curator, recently picked through the UBS art collection, one of the corporate world's finest; the result goes on show at the gallery on Saturday: An Incomplete World. (UBS has a three-year commitment to sponsor the gallery's contemporary collection programs.) Hung: Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Damien Hirst, Ed Ruscha, Lucian Freud, and that crazy Cindy Sherman. UBS's Brad Orgill said: "The selected works provide an insight into the variety and depth of the UBS art collection." Sotheby's Justin Miller will be hammer-itchy.

Logies, league and lost grammar

EVERYONE seemed thrilled receiving their Logies; good show and who doesn't appreciate acknowledgement? (The finite description of the award has to be Dame Edna's - that it sounds like something you'd find in an Oriental handkerchief.) However, there's much to ponder in the fact that those sports from the NRL The Footy Show, presumably rewarded with six-figure salaries for their award-winning roles as communicators, do so with past- and present-tense confusion, homonyms, malapropisms and dazzlingly confused personal pronouns; vocabularies so surreal, they're truly awesome.

NOW YOU KNOW

IF you're of a mind to understand writer Truman Capote, the subject of last year's surprise hit Capote, you'd better see Infamous, which opens in selected cinemas on Saturday. Toby Jones plays down the sinister while upping the malice. It's also the supreme lesson in making sure just to whom you tell who, where, what and when.

ON THE RISE

LISTENING from the gallery of the NSW Parliament for Pru Goward's maiden speech on Thursday: husband David; daughters Katie (just in from LA), Penny (with six-week-old daughter Adelaide) and Alice; Chrissie and Tom Hughes, QC; Michael Yabsley; Ainsley Gotto; James Bell and some who caught the 7.45am train from Goulburn especially. And all the sexist pigs, the old tricksters, licked their chops and congratulated her.

© 2007 Sun Herald

Back to News Index | Back to Home