Julia Stegner fashion spot Gallery

Julia Stegner, the daughter of the Central European sales manager for a large American company and an accountant, was raised in an animal-loving household with many dogs alongside her older sister, who currently works in film production. For seven years she was a child model, appearing in commercials and children's catalogs, and for nine years was trained in dance.







In high school she discovered a passion for playing basketball, and eventually she joined a club team in Munich. Being 180 cm tall by that time, she was naturally fit for the sport; her classmates even called her "Beanpole" because of her towering height.


Shortly before her 15th birthday, while celebrating Oktoberfest in her hometown, she was discovered by a talent scout who recognized her potential as a model. Tilla Lindig, a Munich and London based couture label as well as designer of happycoat of which Claudia Schiffer is equally a fan, first booked her. Although planning to study accounting when she left high school, Stegner moved to Paris to pursue modeling afterwards instead.

Gear up for high fashion

Estonian supermodel Carmen Kass

Models at yesterday's press conference for the Audi Fashion Festival, which runs from April 28 to May 2. There will be at least 12 runway shows, with tickets to at least seven shows made available to the public.

GET set for high-octane glamour when the Audi Fashion Festival (AFF) returns next month.

The five-day event, now in its second year, will welcome more designers from top labels and runway stars such as Estonian supermodel Carmen Kass.


The line-up, announced at a press conference yesterday, includes five designers from three labels - Canadian twins Dean and Dan Caten of DSquared2, Roberto Cavalli from Italy, and Marjan Pejoski and Sasko Bezovski of cult British label KTZ.

Only avant garde British designer Gareth Pugh graced the inaugural event last year.


The $2 million budget for this year's AFF, from April 28 to May 2, is also nearly twice that of last year's, said organiser Tjin Lee, managing director of Mercury Marketing & Communications.

The events company launched AFF to succeed the Singapore Fashion Festival, which was put on hold when the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) said in 2008 that it was due for a makeover. This year, AFF comes under an umbrella event, Asia Fashion Exchange (AFX), which aims to develop local talent, draw tourists and shape the city as a fashion hub.

Exotic, daring NY fashion

A model walks the runway at Diane Von Furstenberg Spring 2010 Fashion at Bryant Park on Sept 13, 2009 in in New York City. -- PHOTO: AFP

NEW YORK - DIANE von Furstenberg plays the exotic vagabond, while Derek Lam offers luxury romper suits: New York Fashion Week's pret-a-porter collections this year are adventurous, but not always exactly ready to wear.

For Ms von Furstenberg, president of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, the woman wearing her Spring 2010 pearl- and emerald-embroidered tunics and bohemian skirts is not just any old shopper.


'Rising like a phoenix, she is a modern myth, the queen of the desert, a true adventurer, exploring and enticing,' the programme notes read. That adventurous spirit is a little harder to find in the decision of almost all designers to plunge into the usually specialized, but commercially attractive realm of bathing suits.

Prepare to see a lot of nostalgic, 50s/60s-style one-piece suits in pools next summer, with big crossed straps and colors kept to either single or two-tone.

When it comes to bikinis, they're often red and yellow, either striped or dotted, with high waists and wide elastic belt bands.

But the journey to swimsuit territory strays further into lingerie, with models parading bodies that are not really poolside material - and, with their short sleeves and collars, not exactly typical inner wear either.







Wearers of the Donna Karan body might be loathe to hide the carefully chosen colors under other clothing.

And then there is Mr Lam with what can only be described as romper suits - high fashion romper suits, for sure. Mr Lam opened his show with spotted violet silk dresses, fawn-colored buckskin boleros on green or blue mini-dresses and romper suits, some with and some without hoods.

Paying attention to commercial needs for clothes that are affordable and can actually be worn, the 42-year-old hasn't forgotten about evening wear, with high-waisted crepe de Chine skirts, gold lame mini-dresses and silver-violet lurex outfits.






At 25, Jason Wu is already a veteran. US First Lady Michelle Obama has worn his clothes on several occasions, notably to pose for the cover of US Vogue. The Taiwanese-American prodigy has now unveiled a new collection of tight-waisted dresses with balloon-shaped skirts.

New York's Fashion Week is the first of the world's four leading fashion events of the season before shows in Milan, London and Paris. -- AFP

Documentary a threat to Gucci

Yann Arthus-Bertrand (left) mixes stunningly beautiful natural landscapes with a critical monologue about human consumption. -- PHOTO: AFP

LOS ANGELES - A NEW film about human excess and its impact on Earth's fragile ecosystem debuts on Friday, marking an unusual risk for its financial backer, one of the planet's biggest retailing conglomerates, France's PPR SA.

PPR, the maker of Gucci leather handbags and Puma shoes, paid 10 million euros (S$20.55 million) of the 12 million euro production budget to create 'Home', a documentary that will debut in 127 countries on June 5, World Environmental Day.

In it, filmmaker Yann Arthus-Bertrand mixes stunningly beautiful natural landscapes with a critical monologue about human consumption, along with aerial footage of man's destructive footprint on the planet.

His eye swerves from the African plains to a sea of plastic-topped vegetable greenhouses in Spain and 'concentration camp-style cattle farms' where the narrator says 'not a blade of grass grows'.

Oil-rich and development-crazy Dubai gets a special mention as a 'new beacon for all the world's money' and is criticized for having endless sun but no solar-powered electricity.

PPR co-financed the production with French public broadcaster France 2 and the Qatar Foundation.

PPR Chief Executive Francois-Henri Pinault, whose family controls the company, insisted the film be given away for free to distributors. As a result, it is being shown at discounted rates in some theaters, for free in open-air screenings, on YouTube and 80 TV channels, and sold, sometimes at a discount, on DVDs around the world.

In the United States, the film will be run on the National Geographic Channel on Friday and released on home video by News Corp's 20th Century Fox.

National Geographic Channel spokesman Russell Howard said the network will run ads and collect revenue during the screening, but it bumped programming on its popular Friday night when it usually reaches about 3 million people. -- AP