Last month was all about two of my favourite things, fashion and travel...
August was a whirlwind of photo shoots as I put in some hard stylin' yards in my role as Melbourne Spring Fashion Week ambassador.
First off, I teamed up with some incredible young dancers from the Melbourne ballet for a gritty shoot in one of Melbourne's famous laneways. Perching on that scaffolding in a beautiful Jane Hill dress was quite a challenge - so it was hard to look relaxed. (I'll bring you the final shots as soon as they're released!) The dress was a little bit big for me and because of the heavy beading we couldn't bulldog clip in case we damaged it so we used another secret stylists' secret to create the illusion of a perfect fit. What you can't see is the 500ml water bottle down the back of the bodice. (Usually you'd use an empty toilet roll but given the location it was a bit of a challenge finding one of those at short notice!)
That day's shoot started to feel like part two of My Melbourne as we headed to another of the city's icons, Pelegrinis Espresso Bar in the heart of the city. It's a Melbourne institution famed for its coffee (of course) its traditional Italian cooking and its generous (to put it mildly) portion sizes. The meals coming out of the kitchen were making my mouth water but I didn't think it would be too clever to try and eat a big plate of spag bol wearing a gorgeous Aurelio Costarella dress. I loved the 1930s feel of the photos. I felt like a screen siren from the golden era of Hollywood (and not like "an old Hollywood screen siren" as one member of my management team described me!) It's all about the order in which you say those words in people!!!
Next up was a surreal shoot with a hot air balloon, a circus troupe and me wearing the glorious J'Aton gown I also wore for the photograph on the cover of My Style. This photo was postponed once because of bad weather and, even when it happened, I think it was a bit of a nightmare for the resident health and safety guy. Credit to him that, in spite of the stilt walkers, jugglers and balloon that wasn't supposed to leave the ground (but somehow got momentarily airborne on the tiniest puff of a breeze), he didn't appear to leave the shoot with any more grey hairs than he arrived with.
There was a bit of a change of pace mid-month when I shot the cover of Grazia Australia in a plush apartment in St Kilda. The funniest moment of this one – me writhing around on the marble floor giving the photographer some of my very best photo shoot moves, as one of the apartment's resident dogs wandered into shot, plonked himself down and started having a good old scratch in the background. Oh, the glamour!
The final shot for the MSFW campaign was at Melbourne's Domain Interchange, one of the city's main tram depots. We drafted in some girls from a local Auskick group (the Australian Football League's starter program) and, while they ran around high-fiving and pretending to shoulder-charge each other I balanced on a fishing tackle box and clung to the side of that tram for grim death. (See photo above!) I have to say that even decked out in my J'Aton Couture finery, I envied their muddy knees, just a tiny bit. Check out the cutie on the tram's front bumper – he was the only boy on the shoot – and my UK manager Nathan even had a cameo as the tram driver. Ding, ding.
My pre-MSFW commitments completed, Kris, Ethan and I jetted off to Thailand for a gorgeous beach holiday at the Six Senses resort. You'll have to wait for the full scoop in my My Thailand article for My Daily later this month but I can tell you that we had a fabulously relaxing time and that I'm still having sun lounger withdrawal symptoms!
See you back in London very soon. Dx