I saw this angel, she was dressed in leather

Sex, drugs, parties and cute English accents, what more could you ask for in a cult television show. Fuck new level, Skins take teen dramas to a whole new dimension.

I CAME ACROSS this God-scent of a show one lazy Friday night channel-flicking session. Adolescent attention caught, I watched. Forty-five minutes later I had to turn the telly off and just sit there in the dark to absorb what I had just witnessed.
Seemingly antithetic to the dubious and fabricated sob stories explored within 90210, Gossip Girl and others alike, Skins offer a whole new take on teen dramas. Basic storyline involves the youth culture in Bristol, London with a heavy, HEAVY emphasis on sex, drugs and all things decadent. Know not only are the father-son BAFTA* award winning duo, Brain Elsley and Jamie Brittain on my “People I must meet before I die” list, but also Mr Edward Gibbon – the all mighty, all knowing, all divine show stylist.
Providing style flavours to suit all your tastebuds, Gibbon bestows a fashion fiesta of all the threads you wish you were brave enough to wear. The fore-mentioned angel in leather is no more than the enigmatic and elusive Miss Effy Stonem. Rocking the grunge look, I have never seen anyone look more beguiling and beauteous. With a colour range of black to dark blue, one would think options are limited, but by golly I have never seen such a selection. Juxtaposing stiff leathers with lacy legging, androgynous looks with feminine statement jewellery, and heroin-addict makeup with beautifully trashed frocks.
If the whole “I don’t give a fuck” look doesn’t rev your engines, there’s another two whole sets of cast members to pick from (they completely re-cast for the “second generation”), where no character is analogous. Whether it is Cassie in a retro spiral, Freddie dominating the “I never shower, but I can still pull chicks” demeanour, Cook the archetypal James Dean model or Pandora, the naive virgin who appears to get dressed in the dark but still look adorable.

I should also point out that the show is currently boasting 5 seasons, however unlike a decent red wine, the show did not get better with age. Reagrdless, come one, come all, take your pick, I guarantee whatever your fashion fetish is, it will be in Skins. So check it out on http://www.surfthechannel.com/ and I pledge my soul you too will become addicted

poop, guns and a whole lotta ranch

You know what? I'm just going to dive right on in here.
A kid pooped in the pool.
Yes.
Poop. In the pool.

It was a scorching hot summer camp afternoon and i was sitting high and dry in the lifeguard chair watching all the kids break all the rules we just went over. Ah to be young and ignorant. Next thing i know, Dawn is screaming, shrilling more like it.

'GET OUT! GET OUT!'

Thirty something dripping wet miniature bodies start hurling out screaming, frantic, fearing for their lives.

'POO! THERE'S POO IN THE POOL!' Dawn declares

Everyone was screaming. Finally, after everyone was shuffled from the life threatening poo and back up the hill did one of the campers fessed up. Having previously been given a time-out for throwing a rock at another campers head for no apparent reason, said camper decided to give a little pay back, primative style. Little bitch.

Post camp, Derby and I ventured down to San Diego, her new home and upon return I was meant to stay the night at Dawns house. All in all, it go to be about 2 in the morning with me standing in camps car park after sitting in a hotel lobby getting hit on by creepy yet charming old fellas and a 40 minute vacant hotel search in a cab with it's meter running. Ouch.
Standing in the car park deciding whether or not the owner will take pity on me (she lives on site) and not beat up up for coming a-knocking at God forsaken hours. Bugger it. Knocked on the door to nothing except dog barks. Shit, this means i've got to curl up in a ball under a tree for the night (for those unaware Northern Cali is super cold at night).
While making my choice out a few potential tree trunks i hear the unmistakable sounds of rubber on gravel. I poke my head out from behind the trailer i had strategically masked myself from sex predators.

'WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?'

An elderly man stood with a massive shot gun, barrel down right at me.

'WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?'

This would of been a tad more intimidating if the man had more on than his tightie whities and a singlet on.

Turns out is was the owners pa, who lives just up the hill and whilst i was apparently 'banging away' the owner was lying down in her bathtub, handgun at the ready, shitting her pants.

Luckily, she burst out laughing when finding out the serial killer was me, then pa started laughing, so i joined in.

And yes, i did sleep on her couch. Best sleep i'ld had in a long time.

Sorry I'm such a neglectful bitch

Oh hey...didn't see ya there.
It's been, what? about 2 months? I'm sorry, so very sorry. Things have been just chokas that's all, me being overseas and what-not. Well actually I'm still a fare way from the sunny shores of Sydney, instead I'm in the worlds greatest city......Milwaukee! Kidding fools, New York, I'm in New York.

After an intense 2 months of working at a summer camp i decided 'Fuck it!' Time left on my visa, money still in my pocket, off, off and away!

Before I get carried away in the thrills of being a young gal alone in the big city, lets start from the beginning shall we.

A Californian summer camp with horses, lots of horses, decided to hire me for a summer (I think primarily because the lady doing the hiring happen to have the same name as me, we were very excited at this). When i finally arrived at San Francisco airport a two hour bus ride awaited me to Sonoma County (wine country) from there i was to make a swift phone call to the camp and someone would come claim me. Hmmmmm, the phone booth happen to be out of order....hmmmmm don't actually own a working mobile...hmmmm here'e me stuck at a pick up point with no way of communicating that i needed to be picked up.
Luckily, an older lady happen to be sitting content with her organised travelled plans offered to give me a lift. Hesitant at first, I seized up this apparent 'good samaritan' and her husband to see if need be could i take them. At ease with me fighting abilities I hoped right in and after a lengthy 10 minute drive of 'lets show the foreigner the town' they took me to Cloverleaf Ranch, my home for the next several weeks.

More camp stories will be revealed. Trust me, hilarious shit is about to spill. To get you excited, here's some pics...

Birthdays were had

Slow motion Kung-Foo was taught

Bras consistently stolen

Penis's consumed from

Bestial love

Illegal activities

Unitards were worn...numerous times

Harry Potter themed dance

A dance were the kids disappeared off and the 

counsellors didn't even notice because we were 

too busygetting crunk on the DF.

......and hippos.

My bad. I'm just shit

Well aren't I just the wort blogger ever. To be quite frank i actually forgot, which works out to be rather shit because the forgotten post was the concluding Fashion Week write up. Any who I'm sure y'all sick to death about Fashion Week reviews by now so i'll just pop the photos from BTS Dion Lee (best show of the week).

On a little side note, it took the models and us for that matter, an extremely long time to suss out the choreography.
Two runways + 3 sets of stairs + numerous models + 4am call time = disaster.

mirrored runway

Gorgeous sunrise, shit choreography

Runway numero duo

The ever elegant Julia Nobis

Myf - Yifan - Ruby Jean

RAFW: Sorry which show was which...they all just run into one another

While Romance Was Born was allocated an entire day to bump in and run around like heathens, this luxury was only granted once more, the following day for Lover. It was located deep within the Sydney Opera House in a little playhouse area called "The Studio". It was pretty rad, the runway was a perfect square underneath a massive light up cube thing with images. I realise my descriptions are not doing much justice.....I'm tired, whatever. Back of house was chaotic for this one. Hair was at one end and make-up at a completely different area. This left a lot of meters for the models to get lost, and not to play into stereotypes, by golly they did, as did everyone else who ventured between the two houses. 

I liked this show though I got to rock those head pieces where you say things like 'copy that' and 'model missing' etc etc. Felt way cool.

Lover: Monday night backstage chaos

Lover: The Bible board - model order, outfits, hair, make-up

Next on the cards was Therese Rawsthorne. Her stuff is all this beautiful clean cut silky numbers that scream out that whole new age feminine. Of course it just had to be at 9 in the morning which in our case translated to a 4.30 start.

The highlight of this show was a) the catering - awesome toasted sandwiches and mini bagels, yep and b) Louise falling all over the place because the orchids in her hair were throwing her off balance, priceless

Therese Rawsthorne: Louise with said orchids

Following Therese there was no time pat each other on the back and join in a celebratory mini bagel, instead zoom zoom rush off to Manning Cartell. Luckily i got a chance to view the location the previous day and let me tell you, without all the sheets down (hysteric landlord) and bodies moving around, The Cove building in the City's Harrington street is an amazing site. It's filled with all this marble slabs which tend to remind me of Fernando Frisonis previous S/S collection with all the pink marble print, but of course monotone. Anyway the building was rad. Unfortunately where this particular model is perched is right above where all the punters were lined up, so a little undie action was had....

Manning Cartell: backstage photographers = vultures

Manning Cartell: Alice aka Miss Congeniality 

Zoom zoom again straight onsite to The OPT for Carl Kapp in the evening. The only thing I like about onsite shows is the abundant supply of fizzy water and energy drinks in the fridges backstage, that and the ease associated with the shows that have many production limitations. Onsite shows are given the space (OPT or Cargo) and then given a time frame they can bump in (squat), so cheers to Rachel (boss lady) for vowing to deny onsite designers her time. Apparently though she got roped into doing Carl Kapp as a favour thing for Creative Director Mark Vassallo. Woah. Now Mark is quite the character. Big and bulbous in appearance and personality, Mark knows what he wants and will yell and belittle people till he gets it. Nevertheless, every show he works on turns to gold.

Carl Kapp: every gown had to be individually tied by Mr Kapp himself

Carl Kapp: trust me, with make-up they all pretty much look the same.

The next morning Fernando Frisoni was scheduled at 1pm at the Opera House Point Marquee. Thank goodness the weather took a delightful turn as the pre show beverage space was completely open to rain, hail and shine. I wasn't too involved with this show as I spent majority of the prep driving around the every Officeworks franchise in a bid to get more backstage passes constructed. I came across a lovely little asian couple who owned a Snap Printing and could barely contain their enthusiasm at the time crunch challenge. Passes ordered, back to the show which i made back just in time to kick a couple of show crashing tourists out who just couldn't fathom the idea that you had to get invited to the event and that they would simply just purchase a ticket, and watched the show from the media pit. 

Every single Fernando piece was absolutely heavenly. Ladies get your Google out.

Fernando Frisoni: heaven floating through

So later that night was Manning Cartell but I don't want to overload. So check back in a few days for Manning Cartell and Dion Lee.