Fashion Week is coming to Brew City Thursday through Saturday, with 24 designers showcasing fashions ranging from athleisure to bridal and evening wear.

“Fashion is more than L.A. or New York,” said Deborah Reimer, the event’s primary organizer. “We’re not just about beer and cheese. Milwaukee has a lot of talent and the fashion industry is growing, and it is time that it gets seen in the public eye.”

Nightly fashion shows will feature eight designers each. About half of the designers are new to Milwaukee Fashion Week, while the rest are returning from the 2015 show. The designers range in experience, with students from Mount Mary and the Art Institute of Wisconsin participating. The shows draw designers from the Milwaukee, Chicago and Madison areas.

In its second year, the event moved to the Hyatt Regency Milwaukee in the hotel’s circular rooftop ballroom, Vue. Last year, fashion shows took place at three locations downtown. During intermission and at the end of the show, designers and models will interact with the audience, who will get a chance to look at the garments up close.

On Thursday, see Emily Ristow's unique everyday wear and Erin Aubrey's custom dyed, high fashion designs. The show includes men’s designers too. Allison Jarrett creates tailored looks for men and women.

Friday, check out Moda Muñeca for something with an edge. The line is designed by Chelsea Stotts, who was the RAWMilwaukee Fashion Designer of the Year. Jordan Weber's classic and elegant evening wear will also go down the runway.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-brisbane | www.marieaustralia.com/****-formal-dresses

In Bolivia’s capital city La Paz, indigenous women known as cholas have long been stigmatized for wearing their traditional clothes: bowler hats, handmade macramé shawls, tailored blouses, layered pollera skirts, and lots of elaborate jewelry.

But for the past 11 years, fashion designer Eliana Paco Paredes has been chipping away at that stigma with her line of chola clothing—which she debuted at New York City’s Fashion Week last week. That’s a big deal for a type of clothing that has historically been disparaged in Bolivia because it was worn by poor, indigenous women. For a long time, many indigenous women couldn’t wear chola clothing in certain professions.

Bringing indigenous designs to New York is a huge step for Paco Paredes, though not the first time her clothing has received international recognition. In 2012, she designed a shawl for Spain’s Queen Sofia.

But Paco Paredes’s Fashion Week show is also an important moment for indigenous cholas. Until recently, these women “could be refused entry to certain restaurants, taxis and even some public buses,” writes Paula Dear for BBC News. Such an international spotlight on Paco Paredes’s designs will hopefully increase the acceptance of indigenous women and their culture in Bolivia.

La Paz’s mayor, Luis Revilla, wrote in an email that his city’s response to Paco Paredes’s Fashion Week debut has been a feeling of pride. He hopes that “her designs, which reflect the identity of local woman from La Paz, generate a trend in the global fashion industry,” he says.

“I also hope that in time, people from different geographies of the planet begin to use some of the elements that make the dress of chola,” he says.

Fresh off her Fashion Week debut, Paco Paredes spoke with National Geographic about her clothing and how opportunities for cholas are changing.

What is your approach to your designs?

What we want to show on this runway is the outfits’ sophistication. But the thing I don’t want to lose, that I always want to preserve, is the fundamental essence of our clothing. Because what we want, in some way, is to show the world that these outfits are beautiful, that they can be worn in La Paz by a chola, but they can also be worn by you, by someone from Spain, by a woman from Asia; that these women can fall in love with the pollera, the hat, the macramé shawl combined with an evening gown. These are the outfits we want to launch.

Do you think it's important that you, as a chola, came to Fashion Week in New York?

Of course! I think that it's very important because to have a runway of this international magnitude, with designers of this caliber, with international models, with a completely professional atmosphere, fills me with pride. And it's very important because of the fact that people can see my culture.

Who buys your clothing?

I have a store in La Paz, a national store. Here in La Paz, in Bolivia, this clothing is doing very well, because it's what many women wear day to day.

At a national level I can tell you we have the pleasure to work with many regions: Oruro, Potosí, Santa Cruz, Cochabamba. At an international level, we dress many people in Peru, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and some products we make go to Spain, Italy. So through this we want to open an international market with sophisticated outfits that are Eliana Paco designs.

We're getting people to learn about what this clothing is at another level, and many women outside of Bolivia can and want to wear these outfits. They've fallen in love with these designs that they can say come from La Paz, Bolivia.

How are opportunities changing for cholas in La Paz?

It's definitely a revolution that's been going on for about 10 years, because the cholas paceñas [cholas from La Paz] have made their way into different areas—social, business, economic, political. And look at this fashion event, where nobody could've imagined that suddenly so many chola designs are on the runway with some of the most famous designers, like Ágatha Ruiz de la Prada, where they have lines of different types of designs at an international level.

The chola paceña has been growing in all of these aspects. And for us, this is very important because now being chola comes from a lot of pride—a lot of pride and security and satisfaction.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/long-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/red-carpet-celebrity-dresses

WHEN Kylie Minogue began the process of tracking down 25 years of costumes and memorabilia for an exhibition on her (literally) glittering stage career, she had one crucial call to make.

“There were a few items the parentals were minding,” laughs Minogue. “I, too, do the same thing as everyone else: ‘Mum, Dad, can you just hold onto a few things for me?’ It’s just lucky they weren’t turfed out from under their watchful eye.”

Kylie On Stage is the singer’s latest collaboration with her beloved hometown’s Arts Centre Melbourne. She’s previously donated a swarm of outfits to the venue, going all the way back to the overalls she wore as tomboy mechanic Charlene on Neighbours.

This new — and free — exhibition rounds up outfits starting from her first-ever live performances on 1989’s Disco in Dream tour. Still aged just 21 and dismissed by some as a soap star who fluked a singing career, Minogue found herself playing to 38,000 fans in Tokyo, where her early hits “I Should Be So Lucky”, “The Loco-motion”, “Got To Be Certain” and “Hand On Your Heart” had made her a superstar.

“From memory, I was overexcited and didn’t really know what I was doing. I just ran back and forth across the stage,” says Minogue of her debut tour.

Disco in Dream also premiered what would become a Kylie fashion staple: hotpants. “Those ones were more like micro shorts, not quite hotpants, but they started it,” she admits. “There were also quite a few bicycle pants being worn around that time, too, I’m afraid.”

That first tour stands out for one other reason: Minogue officially started dating INXS’s Michael Hutchence at some point during the Asian leg.

“I had met Michael previously in Australia, but he was living in Hong Kong [at the time] and I met him again there. The tour went on to Japan and he definitely came to visit me in Japan.”

Fast-forward from Minogue’s very first tour to her most recent, 2015’s Kiss Me Once, and the singer performed a cover of INXS’s “Need You Tonight”. She remembers first hearing the song as a teenager. “I don’t think I really knew what **** was back then,” notes Minogue. “But that’s a **** song.”

Before the Kiss Me Once tour kicked off, the Minogue/Hutchence romance had been documented in the hit TV mini-series Never Tear Us Apart: The Untold Story Of INXS. Minogue said then it felt like Michael was her “archangel” during the tour — “I feel like he’s with me.”

Her “Need You Tonight” costume was also deliberately chosen to reflect what Minogue used to wear when she was dating the rockstar. “It was a black PVC trench coat and hat,” she says. “I loved that. It just made so much sense for the connection to Michael. I literally used to wear that exact same kind of thing, except it was leather, not PVC.”

By 1990, Minogue’s confidence had grown, something she’s partially attributed to Hutchence’s influence. Before her first Australian solo tour, she performed a secret club show billed as The Singing Budgies — reclaiming the derisive nickname the media had bestowed on her. It would be the first time her success silenced those who saw her as an easy target. Next year marks her 30th anniversary in pop; longevity that hasn’t happened by accident.

Minogue’s career accelerated so quickly that by 1991 she was on her fourth album in as many years and outgrowing her producers, Stock Aitken Waterman, who wanted to freeze-frame her in a safe, clean-cut image.

On 1991’s Let’s Get To It tour of the UK, Minogue welcomed onboard her first major fashion designer — John Galliano. He dressed her in fishnets, G-strings and corsets; the British press said she was trying too hard and imitating Madonna at her most sexed-up.

“Of course those comparisons were made, and rightly so. Madonna was a big influence on me,” says Minogue. “She helped create the template of what a pop show is, or what we came to know it as, by dividing it up into segments. And if you’re going to have any costume changes, that’s inevitable.

“I was finding my way. I don’t think we got it right in some ways, but if I look back over my career, sometimes it’s the mistakes that make all the difference. They allow you to really look at where you’re going. I’m fond of all those things now. There was a time when I wasn’t.

“Now I look back at the pictures of the fishnets and G-strings I was wearing ... Maybe the audience members absolutely loved it, maybe they were going through the journey with me of growing up and discovering yourself and your sexuality and where you fit in the world.”

As the ’90s progressed, Minogue started experimenting with the outer limits of being a pop star, working with everyone from uber-cool dance producers to indie rocker Nick Cave.

Her 1998 Intimate And Live tour cemented her place as the one thing nobody had ever predicted: a regular, global touring act. Released the year prior, her Impossible Princess album had garnered a credibility she’d never before enjoyed. But more credibility equalled fewer record sales.

The tour was cautiously placed in theatres, rather than arenas. Yet word-of-mouth led to more dates being added — she wound up playing seven nights in both Melbourne and Sydney, and tacking on a UK leg. All received rave reviews.

The production was low-key and DIY: Minogue and longtime friend and stylist William Baker were hands-on backstage bedazzling the costumes themselves. The tour’s camp, Vegas-style showgirl — complete with corset and headdress — soon became a signature Kylie look, but it was also one they stumbled across.

“I remember the exact moment: the male dancers had pink, fringed chaps and wings — we’d really gone for it. I was singing [ABBA’s] “Dancing Queen”. I did a little prance across the stage and the audience went wild. I thought, ‘What is happening?’ That definitely started something.”

Then came the “Spinning Around” hotpants. Minogue couldn’t wear the same gold pair from the music video during her 2001 On A Night Like This tour — they were too fragile — but another pair offered solid back-up.

“That was peak hotpant period,” says Minogue. “Hotpants for days.”

After the robotic-themed Fever 2002 tour (featuring a “Kyborg” look by Dolce & Gabbana), 2005’s Showgirl tour was Minogue’s long-overdue greatest hits celebration.

Following a massive UK and European run, her planned Australian victory lap was derailed by her breast-cancer diagnosis that May. Remarkably, by November 2006, Minogue was back onstage in Sydney for the rebooted Showgirl: The Homecoming tour.

“I look at that now and I’m honestly taken aback,” she admits. “It was so fast — months and months of those 18 months were in treatment.”

Minogue now reveals her health issues meant she had to adjust some of the Showgirl outfits: “I was concerned about the weight of the corset and being able to support it. I was quite insecure about my body, which had changed. For a few years after that I really felt like I wasn’t in my own body — with the medication I was on, there was this other layer.

“We had to make a number of adjustments,” she adds. “I had different shoes to feel more sturdy ... It was pretty soon to be back onstage. But I think it was good for me.”

The singer’s gruelling performances involved dancing and singing in corsets, as well as ultra-high heels and headdresses that weighed several kilos.

“A proper corset, like the Showgirl tour one, is like a shoe,” she explains. “It’s very stiff when you first put it on. By the end of the tour it was way more comfortable. The fact it made it quite hard to breathe didn’t seem to bother anyone except for me. But it was absolutely worth it. I felt grand in it.

“It took a while to learn how to walk in the blue Showgirl dress,” she continues. “I had cuts on my arms from the stars that were sticking out on pieces of wire. You’re so limited in what you can do. You can’t bend your head to find your way down the stairs.

“Whether it was the Showgirl costume or the hotpants, or the big silver dress from the Aphrodite tour [in 2011] that was just ginormous, they all present their own challenges of how you’re going to move and how you’re going to do the choreography. There are times the costume can do that [figuring out] for me; other times I really have to wrestle with it to do what I need to do.

“But you’re not meant to know about that,” she adds, “that’s an internal struggle.”

Minogue has spent much of 2016 happily off the radar, enjoying the company of fiancé Joshua Sasse, 28. She gets “gooey” talking about her future husband, whom she met last year when she was cast opposite him in the TV musical-comedy series Galavant. He proposed to Minogue last Christmas.

Just like the “secret Greek wedding” that was rumoured but never happened, reports of summer nuptials in Melbourne are also off the mark.

“I hate to let everyone down, but no,” she says. “People’s enthusiasm is lovely, we appreciate that, but there are no wedding plans as yet. I’m just enjoying feeling girly and being engaged.”

Minogue will be in Queensland next month filming the movie Flammable Children. The comedy, set in 1975, features her former Neighbours co-star Guy Pearce and is written and directed by Stephan Elliott (The Adventures Of Priscilla: Queen Of The Desert ).

“It’s Aussie-tastic,” laughs Minogue. And she is also planning a sneaky visit to check out her own exhibition when she’s back in Melbourne.

“I’ll probably try to move things around the exhibition,” she says. “And they’ll probably tell me off: ‘Who’s that child playing with the costumes?’”Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-sydney | www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-2016

When I was chief creative officer for Liz Claiborne Inc., I spent a good amount of time on the road hosting fashion shows highlighting our brands. Our team made a point of retaining models of various sizes, shapes and ages, because one of the missions of the shows was to educate audiences about how they could look their best. At a Q&A; after one event in Nashville in 2010, a woman stood up, took off her jacket and said, with touching candour: “Tim, look at me. I’m a box on top, a big, square box. How can I dress this shape and not look like a fullback?” It was a question I’d heard over and over during the tour: Women who were larger than a size 12 always wanted to know, How can I look good, and why do designers ignore me?

At New York Fashion Week, which began Thursday, the majority of American women are unlikely to receive much attention, either. Designers keep their collections tightly under wraps before sending them down the runway, but if past years are any indication of what’s to come, plus-size looks will be in short supply. Sure, at New York Fashion Week in 2015, Marc Jacobs and Sophie Theallet each featured a plus-size model and Ashley Graham debuted her plus-size lingerie line. But these moves were very much the exception, not the rule.

I love the American fashion industry, but it has a lot of problems and one of them is the baffling way it has turned its back on plus-size women. It’s a puzzling conundrum. The average American woman now wears between a size 16 and a size 18, according to new research from Washington State University. There are 100 million plus-size women in America, and, for the past three years, they have increased their spending on clothes faster than their straight-size counterparts. There is money to be made here ($20.4 billion (U.S.), up 17 per cent from 2013). But many designers — dripping with disdain, lacking imagination or simply too cowardly to take a risk — still refuse to make clothes for them.

In addition to the fact that most designers max out at size 12, the selection of plus-size items on offer at many retailers is paltry compared with what’s available for a size 2 woman. According to a Bloomberg analysis, only 8.5 per cent of dresses on Nordstrom.com in May were plus-size. At J.C. Penney’s website, it was 16 per cent; Nike.com had a mere five items — total.

I’ve spoken to many designers and merchandisers about this. The overwhelming response is, “I’m not interested in her.” Why? “I don’t want her wearing my clothes.” Why? “She won’t look the way that I want her to look.” They say the plus-size woman is complicated, different and difficult, that no two size 16s are alike. Some haven’t bothered to hide their contempt. “No one wants to see curvy women” on the runway, Karl Lagerfeld, head designer of Chanel, said in 2009. Plenty of mass retailers are no more enlightened: under the tenure of chief executive Mike Jeffries, Abercrombie & Fitch sold nothing larger than a size 10, with Jeffries explaining that “we go after the attractive, all-American kid.”

This a design failure and not a customer issue. There is no reason larger women can’t look just as fabulous as all other women. The key is the harmonious balance of silhouette, proportion and fit, regardless of size or shape. Designs need to be reconceived, not just sized up; it’s a matter of adjusting proportions. The textile changes, every seam changes. Done right, our clothing can create an optical illusion that helps us look taller and slimmer. Done wrong, and we look worse than if we were naked.

Have you shopped retail for size 14-plus clothing? Based on my experience shopping with plus-size women, it’s a horribly insulting and demoralizing experience. Half the items make the body look larger, with features like ruching, box pleats and shoulder pads. Pastels and large-scale prints and crazy pattern-mixing abound, all guaranteed to make you look infantile or like a float in a parade. Adding to this travesty is a major department-store chain that makes you walk under a marquee that reads “WOMAN.” What does that even imply? That a “woman” is anyone larger than a 12 and everyone else is a girl? It’s mind-boggling.

Project Runway, the design competition show on which I’m a mentor, has not been a leader on this issue. Every season we have the “real women” challenge (a title I hate), in which the designers create looks for non-models. The designers audibly groan, though I’m not sure why; in the real world, they won’t be dressing a seven-foot-tall glamazon.

This season, something different happened: Ashley Nell Tipton won the contest with the show’s first plus-size collection. But even this achievement managed to come off as condescending. I’ve never seen such hideous clothes in my life: bare midriffs; skirts over crinoline, which give the clothes, and the wearer, more volume; see-through skirts that reveal *******; pastels, which tend to make the wearer look juvenile; and large-scale floral embellishments that shout “prom.” Her victory reeked of tokenism. One judge told me that she was “voting for the symbol” and that these were clothes for a “certain population.” I said they should be clothes all women want to wear. I wouldn’t dream of letting any woman, whether she’s a size 6 or a 16, wear them. Simply making a nod toward inclusiveness is not enough.

This problem is difficult to change. The industry, from the runway to magazines to advertising, likes subscribing to the mythology it has created of glamour and thinness. Look at Vogue’s “Shape Issue,” which is ostensibly a celebration of different body types but does no more than nod to anyone above a size 12. For decades, designers have trotted models with bodies completely unattainable for most women down the runway. First it was women so thin that they surely had eating disorders. After an outcry, the industry responded by putting young teens on the runway, girls who had yet to exit puberty. More outrage.

But change is not impossible. There are aesthetically worthy retail successes in this market. When helping women who are size 14 and up, my go-to retailer is Lane Bryant. While the items aren’t fashion with a capital F, they are stylish (but please avoid the cropped pants — always a no-no for any woman). And designer Christian Siriano scored a design and public relations victory after producing a look for Leslie Jones to wear to the “Ghostbusters” red-carpet premiere. Jones, who is not a diminutive woman, had tweeted in despair that she couldn’t find anyone to dress her; Siriano stepped in with a lovely full-length red gown.

Several retailers that have stepped up their plus-size offerings have been rewarded. In one year, ModCloth doubled its plus-size lineup. To mark the anniversary, the company paid for a survey of 1,500 American women ages 18 to 44 and released its findings: Seventy-four per cent of plus-size women described shopping in stores as “frustrating”; 65 per cent said they were “excluded.” (Interestingly, 65 per cent of women of all sizes agreed that plus-size women were ignored by the fashion industry.) But the plus-size women surveyed also indicated that they wanted to shop more. More than 80 per cent said they’d spend more on clothing if they had more choices in their size and nearly 90 per cent said they would buy more if they had trendier options. According to the company, its plus-size shoppers place 20 per cent more orders than its straight-size customers.

Online start-up Eloquii, initially conceived and then killed by The Limited, was reborn in 2014. The trendy plus-size retailer, whose top seller is an over-the-knee boot with four-inch heels and extended calf sizes, grew its sales volume by more than 165 per cent in 2015.

Despite the huge financial potential of this market, many designers don’t want to address it. It’s not in their vocabulary. Today’s designers operate within paradigms that were established decades ago, including anachronistic sizing. (Consider the fashion show: It hasn’t changed in more than a century.) But this is now the shape of women in this nation, and designers need to wrap their minds around it. I profoundly believe that women of every size can look good. But they must be given choices. Separates — tops, bottoms — rather than single items like dresses or jumpsuits always work best for the purpose of fit. Larger women look great in clothes skimming the body, rather than hugging or cascading. There’s an art to doing this. Designers, make it work.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/cocktail-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/black-formal-dresses

Jonathan Saunders, the newly appointed presumptive heir to DVF, paid homage to the brand's heritage while showcasing his own vision during an intimate presentation Sunday at New York Fashion Week.

The Scottish designer took the reins as DVF's chief creative officer in May, but made it clear he's not necessarily filling Diane von Furstenberg's iconic shoes.

"It's just different shoes, you know? It's not like I'm replacing her in any way. It's just a different chapter for the company," Saunders said while insisting von Furstenberg is still very much the cornerstone of the brand.

Von Furstenberg, a Fashion Week staple, was not on hand for Saunders' debut presentation at a sparse industrial space in the Manhattan's Meatpacking District.

The collection played with bold colors, patterns and mixed textures.

Romantic florals paired with playful polka dots, and metallic dresses were adorned with fur wraps.

"I wanted the collection to be kind of this melting ***," Saunders explained. "Eclectic mixtures of different prints from different places and times brought together in one collection. I thought that was kind of an exciting way to start."

The signature wrap dress appeared throughout with fresh silhouettes and asymmetrical hemlines, including a structured kimono, a silky romper and a color-blocked scarf dress.

Sometimes the wrap was simply implied through cuts and movement on plunging blouses and sequined, layered frocks.

"It's more about taking it not so literally and just trying to transfer into a product that feels considered and modern and developed. A lot of the bias-cut dresses still have that same sense of ease, but they are pushing things forward," said Saunders.

Von Furstenberg is known for splashy fashion shows featuring celebrity-driven social media buzz. Last season's event included It Girls Kendall Jenner, Gigi Hadid, Karlie Kloss and Irina Shayk.

But according to CEO Paolo Riva, priorities have shifted.

"I think that the fashion show is trying to cover too many things: speaking to press, inviting celebrities, opinion leaders, bloggers and friends, and now see-now, buy-now. It's too much for one moment and because this is the first collection from Jonathan, this is a moment where we really wanted to have the opportunity to leave the noise out," said Riva.

Saunders' back-to-basics approach included one-on-one meetings with journalists, a simple display of clothes on racks with six models perched in the background.

"I think at the end of the day the customer is interested in clothes and I'm hoping we're entering into a chapter where all of the nonsense doesn't matter as much as having something that you just feel fabulous in," he said.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-brisbane | www.marieaustralia.com/vintage-formal-dresses

If anyone can make a feral animal print cool it’s Arabella Ramsay. The designer, who skipped the city in favour of the coast a few years ago, has launched a new lifestyle brand in collaboration with her dad Dougal Ramsay, an accomplished artist who has designed ranges affectionately named after all things Aussie; Hello Cocky, G’day Love, Veg Out.

Burnt out from more than a decade in the fashion industry rat race where she had amassed a cult following among adoring 20-somethings and private school girls for her unique apparel, Arabella shut her Melbourne shop five years ago and moved to Jan Juc where her husband has a yoga studio, her daughters play with bunnies and organic eggs are collected from the backyard coop.

Yet the fashion industry has come calling again, albeit in a different guise born of her slower lifestyle and rearing two children. A born and bred farm girl from Kyneton, she has forgone on-trend collections and retail overheads for family-friendly leisurewear and an online boutique.

The print-heavy collection features irreverent Australiana imagery created by her dad: “Bonza” bunnies, cheeky runaway gnomes, larrikin cockatoos, and come summer, a “******” croc print. The coloured sketches run across all-over yardage on leggings, hoodies and T-shirts for men, women and kids.

Dougal says his brief comes from his daughter who then “weaves her magic so the next time I see those drawings they are transformed into cute frocks and tops”.

She has a great eye for pattern and scale. “I enjoy seeing the finished product where a small crab on a skinny leg can grow into a giant monster crab on a rounder leg.”

A successful illustrator and author, Dougal has been fascinated with Australian culture for years, his nostalgic pencil sketching idiosyncratic scenes of country town lifestyles and coastal culture; seedy caravan parks, fishing hamlets and an architectural vernacular that “sadly has pretty well gone now”, he laments.

It was these scenes and Arabella’s own wholesome rural childhood that inspired the father-daughter label. In the spirit of Linda Jackson and Jenny Kee, Arabella wants to “show people the exciting things our country has to offer”, she says of her desire to “celebrate what’s in our back yards and in doing so, tap into the tourist market with a bit of style”.

Manufacturing is done in Australia where possible; a favoured maker is Cheryl, a woman Arabella’s nan found years ago while shopping at Spotlight in Ballarat. “She works from her small shed and has been making my clothes for years. It’s nice having quality control so we don’t overproduce.”

Lighthearted and a little bit kooky, the Dougal range is cultural cringe re-imagined as contemporary cool. Its Instagram (@wearedougal) is a feed of everything from Aussie idioms (Stoked! Strewth!) to summer vacations in Menorca, photography honouring Rennie Ellis, Dougal in the home studio, surf reports and Arabella’s idyllic beach house that has graced the pages of international magazines. Her own sartorial style is an inimitable mix of “70s vintage, preppy, **** and even a bit dorky” that’s equally at ease with the yuppies and the grommets.

“You can basically wear your pyjamas to school pick-ups and your wetsuit to the supermarket,” she says of the local surf town look. “But I still love high fashion and just bought a pink lace Gucci suit for my best friend’s wedding.”

An online purchase, it arrived via the dirt track leading to her secluded beach house. Fair dinkum.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-sydney | www.marieaustralia.com/blue-formal-dresses

A fashion designer has defended models who were labelled as "gaunt and unwell" on Facebook.

Andrea Moore's I AM range is sold at Farmers, and an image from its current campaign was posted on that company's Facebook page on Friday.

The picture features Chiara and Norina Gasteiger, who are twins represented by Clyne Model Management. Farmers customers did not react well to the now-deleted post.

"They so look gaunt and unwell. I'm really disappointed," Newshub says Anna Webster commented.

"You cannot look at these girls with their bones sticking out and believe that they are a good role model for a family store," Jo Austwick wrote.

"I have enough trouble with body image arguments with my daughters without these images being depicted. They do not look healthy."

Moore said the imagery had never been intended to cause offence, and that she felt for the Gasteiger twins, who have worked with the brand for three years.

"The twins are actually healthy, fun models who are busy university students... We love working with them because of their sense of self-worth and uniqueness as twins," she said.

"We have been in touch with the models and they were most upset by the whole thing. Fortunately, they have received a lot of support from their peers.

"The campaign was about preppy grunge, print with an edge. [It was not] about promoting unhealthy body types [or] anything else," Moore added.

Farmers posted the following statement on Facebook after deleting the I AM image:

"Dear valued Farmers customers! We appreciate you taking the time to send us your comments and concerns on a recent post for I AM. Please know it is not taken lightly and we in no way mean to promote an image for women in NZ to follow that could be regarded as unhealthy.

"We understand that no two bodies are the same and we always seek to show a range of body types throughout all our advertising. These images were supplied by the brand Andrea Moore as part of a wider campaign and were published by us. We will endeavour going forward to work closely with all our partners to ensure an appropriate image is portrayed.

"Thank you once again for your valued feedback."

Clyne Model Management have been approached for comment.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/cocktail-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/one-shoulder-formal-dresses