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Valentino: The Last Emperor — Fashion documentary

A documentary about one of the world’s most famous fashion designers? Hmm. Not a film I’d ever choose to see, but sometimes we do what we don’t want to in order to make friends happy. It’s called compromise apparently, and the experience reminded me that any material, if well structured and presented, can make a decent film. The filmmakers follow the over-tanned Valentino Garavani and his long-term lover and business partner Giancarlo Giammetti.

They bicker like an old married couple, trading bitchy comments and eye rolls, however they also share some wonderfully tender moments. In the background, the business has recently been sold and there’s constant speculation that Valentino will soon be forcibly retired. It’s also fascinating for the behind-the-scenes look at how designs come to be dresses, how fashion shows are put together and the way the industry operates, including the extreme bitchiness and opulence.

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Bright Star: The tender love story of first love between John Keats and Fanny Brawne. In Australian cinemas from December 26th.
We've just launched a new website: The Colour, Australian culture in pictures. Check it out and give props to your favourite Australian artists, musicians and designers.

Also by XAVIER TOBY

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District 9 science fiction thriller

The best films are built on brilliant ideas, and the script behind this science fiction thriller was so good, it was able to succeed despite a lack of star power or a big budget. A movie like this reaffirms my little remaining faith in the industry, but it’s a phenomenon that’s all too rare. District 9 begins with the arrival of a ship full of starving aliens, who are stored in a military-guarded slum in Johannesburg, South Africa. Read more

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Burma VJ

Actual footage from inside Burma, shot by Burmese, many of whom ended up in jail or tortured by Burma’s oppressive military regime. The material is shot using small handycams by Burma’s VJs (Video Journalists), then smuggled out of the country and broadcast back into Burma via satellite and offered free to the international media. Read more

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Samson and Delilah, an Australian movie

This is not an enjoyable film, but it is excellent. Immediately after watching Samson and Delilah, I thought it was awful. Exactly because I thought it was awful, a week later I’m convinced it’s brilliant. There are many different types of films. Some are immensely entertaining, but immediately forgettable. Like Avatar. Others stick with you, no matter how much you wish they wouldn’t, because they show you a truth about the world that you wish wasn’t so spot on. Samson and Delilah is based around the real-life experiences of director Warwick Thornton and present a part of Australia that most people, myself included, suspected existed, but really wish it didn’t. Now, what the hell do we do about it?

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Sebastiaan Bremer’s drawings are some of the most stunning artworks I have seen recently. Words do fail. Read more


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Tim Lee’s illustrations are wonderfully intricate and precise, a tangled world of escapism and realism mixed into one. Read more

Unlike a lot of other web comic artists, the guys at Team Society League can actually draw well. They’re also freaking hilarious. Seriously, can you top pulling God’s finger?

There’s a world-weariness about Two Gallants frontman Adam Stephens. It reveals itself in the Tom Waits-like raspiness that permeates his gin house drawl and in the talkin’ blues narratives that he weaves around his simple acoustic fingerpicking. They are the new superstars of the West Coast scene, majestic showmen in homespun rags.

Listen to the Two Gallants track, The hand that held you down.

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Alice in Wonderland-obsessives take note: the fantastical and whimsically surreal artist, Mark Ryden, will be signing copies of his latest book, The Tree Show, at the MOCA store in Los Angeles on Jan 31st. Read more

Sparks’ album Kimono My House is a demented mix of hard rock, pop, glam, new wave, and baroque pop. Why this record never caught on in the States I’ll never know. The songs will get stuck in your head and prevent you from sleeping. Oh yeah, and the keyboard player has a nice mustache too, as evidenced by this track above — This Town Ain’t Big Enough.

Highly unwearable but aesthetically riveting, Nova Dando is making killer waves in the notoriously hard to crack London fashion scene. Perhaps the reason she is so visible is that her collections are consistently outrageous, exceptional and innovative showstoppers. Read more

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WE'RE POSTING / SOME OF THE BEST

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Diane Koss’ recycled bottle monsters

Check out Diane Koss’ amazing handmade stuffed monsters if you’re looking for a last-minute gift. Her mostly cycloptic creatures are fashioned from felt made from one hundred percent recycled plastic bottles. Read more

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Car from made ice

Forget battery powered vehicles. Cars made from ice are the future of transportation: no pollution, no honking horns, no painful rap music blasting out of souped up stereos. And if they melt, they melt. You just swim the rest of the way down the slipstream.

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Scanners’ new single Salvation

I love this track by London based rock group, Scanners, which is off their latest album, Submarine. Having toured with acts such as The Horrors, The Wedding Present, The Charlatans, Electric Six, and Juliette & The Licks, Scanners could well blow up in 2010. Figuratively speaking, not literally. No, that wouldn’t be fun.

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Creative cupcake design

Yum, yum, cupcakes are fun. These creations are so clever, so arty, so damn bizarre that it would almost be a shame to eat them. Almost! Read more

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Entre Chien et Loup by Amira Fritz

This fashion photo series — Entre Chien et Loup — is the product of a collaboration between Parisian-based photographer Amira Fritz and Matthew Cunnington and John Sanderson. Read more


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From this artist selection of t-shirts comes this Mydeadpony illustrated t-shirt, silkscreened on a limited edition tee, and distributed in a vinyl sleeve, with a biography of the artist on the back of the sleeve. Every t-shirt is numbered and signed by the artist, and comes in organic cotton. Read more

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