Penelope's Style & Fashion

Jackets are a classic fashion piece that you should invest in. There are many designer jackets in Australia that provide the finest in quality, durability, originality and class. In particular designer jackets from Sportscraft, Kirrily Johnston and Lisa Ho provide classic of examples of catwalk jackets that are accessible to consumers.

Sportscraft was founded in 1914 and has established a reputation for outstanding quality, consistent fit, fabric innovation and great value. Sportscraft has both men and women’s designer jackets with the brand becoming truly iconic in the fashion industry.  Jackets range from blazers to suit jackets to knitted jackets. The latest Sportscraft range in jackets includes stretch cord blazers, plaid double breasted pea coat, pocket memory zip jacket, double breasted travel trench, classic stretch cord jacket, boyfriend ponte blazer, 2 button birdseye suit jacket, wool suit jacket, waffle wool suit jacket, as well as casual knitted jackets. Sportscraft’s seasonal winter inspirations are based around their knitwear collection that is classic yet contemporary, including a range of colours in jackets and cardigans.

Next, Kirrily Johnston provides the latest in original designer jackets. Johnston launched her label in 2004 with a collection named, ‘Meet me at the magic club’, which received outstanding reviews from Australia’s influential fashion editors. Based in Sydney, Johnston’s aim is to blend elegance with innovation by focusing on luxury fabrics and quality craftsmanship. In terms of jackets, they are detailed and tailored yet maintain a sexy modern edge. Current jacket varieties include the descending jacket, dwellers long hoodie, passages cape, passages wanderer, underground lovers tassel coat, undergrowth leather jacket. Johnston names her jackets with a mystical touch to them, featuring in the colours of the season. Prices range from $500 to $1000, where you will be guaranteed with a unique and long lasting fashion item that will be treasured in your collection.

Designer jackets in Australia are lead by one of Australia’s premium fashion designers, Lisa Ho. The Lisa Ho brand has been at the forefront of the Australian Fashion Industry for over 24 years. The brand has a strong celebrity following with signature pieces being worn by the likes of Jennifer Lopez, Elle Macpherson, Olivia Newton John and Sarah Wynter. They have also been worn at Awards events by Nicole Schezinger, Carmen Electra, Tyra Banks and many more celebrities on the red carpet. In Australia, there are 10 national signature stores as well as featuring in the exclusive department retail store, David Jones as well as in over 250 boutiques that are both local and international. Her jackets range from blazers to suit jackets, leather to knitted pieces with a range of premium and unique pieces that are sure you provide you with instant physique.

Fashion tape is the perfect solution for gapping dresses, unraveled hemlines and other wardrobe malfunctions. It is a double-sided adhesive tape that is used to secure the edges of clothing to your skin to keep the item of clothing in place. It can be used to secure the edges of a strapless dress or top, maintain cleavage that is not too revealing and secure bra straps from slipping. The tape has been around for decades, with designers and celebrities using the tape to prevent a fashion disaster from occurring if a piece of clothing was to slip out of place. Now consumers, particularly females, widely use fashion tape as it is very easy to use, is clear so it can be hidden and has a simple removable backing with adhesive on both sides. You can adjust the tape to certain angles and tightness to suit your outfit, by pressing the tape firmly against your skin or the fabric. The tape is then peeled off the other backing as it is secure and the item can remain firmly fixed. The tape is hypoallergenic, meaning it leaves no residue and is very gently on the skin. It also has the added benefit of providing protection for a good duration of time as it will not lose the effect adhesion for some time. Fashion tape can also be used to create instant tailoring on specific clothing items. Whether it be to shorten the length of your pants to be suitable to wear with flats or tailor a shirt to securely fit your body shape, this tape is the solution.

The tape is readily available to those consumers who need it to solve their fashion inconveniences. The most popular type in Australia is Hollywood Fashion Tape which is the easy-to-use, clear double-stick, “do everything” apparel and body tape. It is gentle on your skin, hypoallergenic, doesn’t leave residue on fabrics and is more discreet and fabric-friendly than safety pins as it blends into your skin tone. Each Hollywood Tape comes with 36 pre-cut, 3-inch disposable strips in each box. You can customise the length of the tape to suit your intentions, with a simple peel, stick and go routine. As the name suggests, Hollywood tape is used by the stars to create a perfectly fitted outfit for any occasion.

Other online websites that sell this tape include Shopbot, Getprice, Myshopping, Ebay, Supre, Girly Essentials and FabSugar. It is also sold in many fashion retail outlets. Make sure you buy fashion tape to solve all of your fashion problems!

Wholesale fashion jewelry is for businesses or individuals who like to buy their adornment in bulk. Jewelry is very apparent in today’s society as it highlights our beauty, shows off our wealth, improves a fashion outfit and overall makes us look and feel good. The jewelry suppliers have a range of selection, deals, and stages of what jewelry is “in”. Overall, by buying jewelry in bulk you will receive a discounted price which will allow you to slash prices when selling your jewelry.

Overall, wholesale fashion jewelry requires you to find real legitimate wholesale suppliers. There are a wide variety of sources on the internet that you can buy at competitive prices. Make sure to check the difference if the online store is a general jewelry store or wholesale company. There is a difference between stores that sell jewelry at retail prices as opposed to those who provide true wholesale prices. Real wholesalers are interested in selling in either bulk quantities or with minimum orders. They usually ask for a tax id or reseller’s permit number, to verify you are a legitimate business. These are the main tips to ensure you identify a true wholesaler and not a discounted retailer.

There are many varieties of jewelry from earrings, necklaces, watches, rings, bracelets to more abstract forms of jewelry such as naval rings, toe rings, and various facial rings. There are many online Australian suppliers where you can purchase wholesale fashion jewelry.

Firstly, check out Fashion Attitude. There are one of the leading costume and fashion jewelry with both retail and wholesale companies in Australia. They manufacture and import fashion jewelries such as bangles, body piercing jewelry, bracelets, necklaces, pendants, rings as well as men’s jewelry. They come in a range of materials such as gold plated, gold filled, stainless steel, 925 sterling silver, acrylic, natural shell, fine wood and more to customise to your favourite tastes. They also use Swarovski crystal, citrine, amethyst, sapphire, cubic zirconia, ruby, emerald, jet, pearl and carbon fibre to create more attractive and valuable wholesale fashion jewelry pieces.

Next, try CheapWholesale Jewelry Australia who specialise in cheap Tiffany jewelry replicas. They use 100% sterling silver in their high quality jewelry, providing more than 600 type top grade Classical jewelry. Their items are manufactured in accordance with the same styles, weight, measurements and engravings as the originals. They also provide wholesale fashion jewelry for Gucci, Dior, Chanel, Cartier, Juicy and Links of London.

Fashion design software is useful as overcomes the mundane tasks of manually drawing, sewing, creating and engineering examples of a certain finished product so the design would work for the potential buyers. The software is computer aided design, or CAD, software. The CAD software can create professional looking designs as well as other applications including, designing fabrics, garments and fashion accessories. Other functions with fashion design software include digitizing pattern engineering, marking, grading, 3D imaging and other new and improved software functions. The main benefits include assistance to speed up a project for those mundane tasks. The best varieties are those that allow the user to alter colours, cuts and fabrics on the computer.

There are various types of fashion design software that utilise different features. Compusoft Australia is a partner with Pebblestone Fashion Software which offers a useful integration of all the processes within a fashion company including manufacturing, CMT, wholesale and retail companies. Pebblestone is the leading “Microsoft Enterprise Resource Planning” software for companies in apparel, footwear and sporting goods. It is based on Microsoft Business Solutions and Microsoft Dynamics NAV, providing a unique solution to meet all fashion requirements. The features include easy adaption to changing requirements and growth of the organization, officially certified add-on for style, colour and size dimension and functionability across industry specific processes including presales and project management. Pebblestone is fully integrated and has a complete coverage of all company processes in the fashion industry. Overall the main target areas are PDF Model Management, CRM sales, production purchase, warehousing inventory, distribution financial accounting as well as sales, purchase and inventory. Overall Pebblestone Fashion is an integrated solution to support all primary processes and market requirements.

Another variety of fashion design software is Niche Boutique which includes Niche boutique, Nice fashion RMS, Niche garments and Niche web. Firstly, Niche boutique is a single store point-of-sale fashion software that is designed around the colour-size matrix. It is a cost effective, user friendly and fashion specific POS software that is reinforced with an incredibly powerful management system. Next the RMS, retail management software, for multi-store fashion firms incorporates a new generation in fashion software. It allows fashion companies to better manage their wholesaler functions, manufacturing and multi-store retailing through vertical integration with Niche garments. Overall Niche fashion RMS is fashion specific and has a cost effective design with guaranteed results. The Apparel Management Fashion Software is the most comprehensive apparel management fashion software available. Its features include user friendly templates and formats, simple customer and style selection menus, colour size matrix for sales orders, and easy set up of customer files at time of order entry. There is even an artificial intelligence function that closely matches and predicts customer names when typed in. Lastly, Niche web provides an online shopping and ordering experience that impact on how efficiently and effectively your business is run.

Lastly, Compus of Australia’s Digital Fashion Pro or Professional Fashion Design Software includes training, customisable templates and a fabrics and graphics programs wrapped in one. It uses cutting edge designs without limitations at a great price, with standards above the fashion industry standard.

Fashion sketching is a way of drawing out designs of fashionable clothes. It gives you a guide or outline as to how you will design your fashion clothing creation using the designers’ concept. It is an important tool that illustrates the phases of garment creation, from fabric and colour selection to action construction of your clothing. Sketching allows you to communicate your ideas to others by planning the design details. A handy tool is ‘flat schematics’ where you can create perfect symmetry of your model by marking the centre front line so your drawing is in proportion and flows. You can also try the ‘trace-and-full approach’ where you slide an existing figure under a blank sheet of paper and draw the garment to fit the outlines of the figure. By using the croquis, a systematic figure, you will achieve accurate proportions for creating flat garment sketches.

There are various places where you can learn how to utilise fashion sketching. The FIDM, Fashion In Design and Merchandising) school has many courses from the basics to expert advice. For beginners, try out the ‘Chanel Basics’ course where you will gain a better understanding of how designers work their magic by learning to sketch basic fashion designs. It is run by FIDM instructor, Barbara Sultan who brings to life innovations that have been pioneered by Coco Chanel, such as the classic Chanel suit.

Another fashion sketching course is run by the FBI (Fashion Business College), such as the ‘Fashion Design Illustration, Rendering and Trade Sketch’. You will learn how to use a variety of drawing and painting medium in fun and exciting way to illustrate your designs. You will utilise trade sketches for the production of your own clothing designs.

Lastly the AIFD, the Australian Institute of Fashion and Design also holds courses in local areas for fashion sketching. They have fashion design and styling distance courses that are aimed at aspiring fashion designers from all regions. The ‘Fashion Design and Styling Correspondence Course’, shows how designs can be created through research and development. They target key processes of developing your creative side, drawing and illustrating, finding inspiration, working to a brief, understanding the market, and designing a cohesive collection using a portfolio of designs. There is also an instructional DVD to show you how to draw the fashion figure, colour and render different fabrics.

So as you can see, there are various fashion sketching courses available in all regions to help improve your fashion creations.