Retail therapy: High tech shopping and down-sized designers

Perfect excuse

If you need an excuse to get over to Melbourne for a bit of shopping, the Melbourne Fashion Festival is a pretty good one. It runs from February 26 to March 4, based at Waterfront City in the Docklands area. An impressive line-up of about 40 designers will take part in the L'Oreal-sponsored event, where runway shows will be open to the public. One of the most exciting should be that of Melbourne-born, Paris-based Martin Grant and our own Kate Sylvester.

There will also be fashion from Easton Pearson, Mad Cortes, Toni Maticevski, Vicious Threads and Nicola Finetti.

More information at the link below. 

Going the extra mile

New Zealand Fashion has joined the mile-high club. Anyone travelling on Air New Zealand's refitted long-haul planes can watch the inflight fashion channel that's all about local fashion news.

It starts with highlights from Fashion Week and has shows, interviews with designers and behind-the-scenes news presented by Charlotte Dawson. It also features a look at the creation of the Zambesi-designed Air New Zealand uniforms that will be worn from March.

"About five million passengers travel on our international network every year so it's a great way to showcase New Zealand fashion, particularly at a time when our designers are making headlines overseas," says Air NZ marketing chief Norm Thompson.

A British-based distributor saw an inflight feature on Insidious Fix at a Fashion Week and - on the strength of the clip - contacted the knitwear label to represent it.

Stay tuned

Soon, that shameless pick-up line "is that a joystick in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me" won't be a tasteless joke. Levi's new RedWire DLX jeans are iPod compatible with a docking cradle built into them which is invisibly housed in a side pocket, so there is hardly any VIL (visible iPod line). There's also a special joystick designed into the watch pocket so operation is easy. There's a bit of a wait though, they're due here in September.

Mollini moves in

Always on the alert for new places to buy shoes, we were excited to hear Australian label Mollini has opened a shop in Newmarket. And such lovely surroundings too. The shop's got touches of hot pink and a full-length sepia mural of various European cities to make the retail experience all the more pleasing. The address is 222 Broadway, ph (09) 523 4020.

Philo's finale

Chloe designer Phoebe Philo is leaving. Boo hoo. It's the most newsworthy designer resignation since Frenchman Roland Mouret bowed out from his self-titled label citing differences with his backer, and Tom Ford's departure from Gucci before that. Philo, 32, who gave birth to a daughter last year, says she wants "to spend time with my new baby in the coming months". British newspaper the Independent says rumours of her successor are already rife and Mouret is tipped as the forerunner. Swings and roundabouts.