MISS SHOP BLOGGER PROJECT

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of shooting with my favourites Pedestrian TV for an exciting new campaign with Miss Shop Myer, one of Australia's largest and leading department stores. The Miss Shop Blogger Project has brought together 15 Australian bloggers to pose for various themed shoots in vibrant locations to model their new Autumn/Winter 2012 collection. Akila Berjaoui, Elvis Di Fazio, Nirrimi Firebrace and Thom Kerr were also asked to come on board to capture the youthful essence that is the Miss Shop brand. My series was a sixties pop theme, with bright pops of colour, knee high socks and over 30 helium balloons making this possibly one of the funnest shoots I've ever been a part of. I've always wondered what I should wear to a game of Badminton or what I would look like with a short bob with matching bangs... Can't wait to see the rest of the girls (Zanita from ZanitaZanita, Mandy from Oracle Fox, Sara from Harper and Harley, Jess from Tuula to name a few) shoots as their released over March on the Pedestrian TV site here.

Photographer: Thom Kerr // Stylist: Chris Ledger // Hair: Sina Velke // Make-up: Rachel Brook

S T Y L E . N E T W O R K .

(Thrifted Knit, J Brand Jeans via my-wardrobe, Zara Coat, Vintage Necklace, Stylists Own Cuffs, Topshop Heels, Alexander Wang Bag)

It's been a while in the works and a huge kept secret but today Harper's BAZAAR Australia finally launched their innovative new concept - Style Network. What has been described by TheVine as "The largest Fashion Glossy-meets-Fashion Blogger project Australia has ever seen. This project sees seven of the country's most influential and credible fashion and personal style bloggers team up to create a portal of daily updated content.". I could not be happier to be in such good company and to be blogging alongside some of my dearest and talented blogging friends - Mandy from Oracle Fox, Zanita from Zanita Zanita, Sara from Harper and Harley, Alex from 4th And Bleeker and Geneva from A Pair and A Spare. Each week you'll see us blogging exclusively for Harper's BAZAAR so be sure to head over to Style Network to stay up to date with our weekly posts and musings. A special thank you to Harper's BAZAAR for this amazing opportunity and to Anna, who I can imagine is already pulling her hair out trying to manage six busy bloggers. This is an absolute honor and an exciting new project I hope you will all love, support and help grow with us. This is a sneak peek of my very first post City Gold which you can read the full post here.

P R E S S & P R I N T .

A few places Gary Pepper Vintage has been spotted recently - Marie Claire US, Cosmopolitan Australia, Who Magazine, Barneys New York, The Cut (New York Magazine), Refinery29, Whowhatwear, Elle.com, Vogue.com.au and Chictopia. It was surreal coming home to see a few features I had done months ago had gone to print like 'What the fashion pack are wearing this summer' for Cosmopolitan magazine and guest judging for Who Magazine. As well as seeing my interview with Barneys New York go live which was easily the most intimidating, daunting and hardest interview I've ever done. You can also see what I wore to NYFW on the two days I was there. It was bizarre seeing these features as I honestly spent 3 hours on site in between sight seeing and holidaying. Hopefully I can go back next year and do it right though. A special thank you goes out to Chictopia for the Influential Blogger of the Year Award nomination. This was the first of its kind and I was honored to be a part of it. I missed out on the title but was so happy to see it go to someone so deserving. Congratulations to Folake of Style Pantry for the wonderful win!

P R E S S & P R I N T .

Just some places Gary Pepper has been spotted recently - Harpers Bazaar Australia, Instyle Australia, Grazia Italy, Marie Claire The Netherlands, H&M, Dolly Australia and Sweet Magazine Japan. Just finished up a few more exciting interviews and style features that hopefully I can share with you all very soon, with one being for Shanghai Daily in China!? So random. It still amazes me to hear when people besides my friends and family read my blog. A special thank you goes out to Chloe at Instyle who was far too kind with her words. I'm so happy to see her writing for such a prestigious publication and following her dreams of becoming a fashion and beauty writer. Tis only the beginning for all of us and I can't wait to see what the rest of the year will bring!

A N . E V E N I N G . W I T H . C O S M O .

So just a super quick post. I've been so flat out I haven't even had a chance to post the final shots from the old Hollywood glamor shoot I did with Cosmo a few months ago! I was wearing a stunning pink gown by Rachel Gilbert and was paired with Laura Enever for the shoot, a junior world champion surfer who was as laid back as they come. The Cosmo Fun, Fearless Female Awards are tonight and I'm about to race off to have my hair done at Brad Ngata's Hair Salon, one of Australia's most prestigious hair stylists who has worked on everyone from Instyle to Australia's Next Top Model. Words cannot express how excited I am! I couldn't even imagine if Sara or I took out the "Best Blogger" award so please keep your fingers and toes crossed for both of us! I think I'm more excited to see Sara though as we haven't been reunited since RAFW. It's going to be a fun night!

S T Y L E Y O U R S E L F .

So this little surprise popped up in my letterbox the other day. Last year I was asked to take part in "Style Yourself", a book about style and full of fashion advice from some of the top bloggers around the world like Susie from Style Bubble, Tavi from Style Rookie, Kelly from The Glamourai and Jane from Sea Of Shoes, who actually was wrote the foreword and was involved with this book from the very beginning. As you can see the very best way to experience this book is to quickly flick through the pages to grasp how many hundreds of colourful and inspiring images there are packed into this beautiful book, and then once the excitement settles maybe make a pot of tea and snuggle up on the couch ready for hours of insightful reading. Only $16.50 and available here.

Style yourself are offering my readers a chance to win a copy of this book. To enter simply:

Entries have now closed.

It was an honor to be a part of and I was so happy to spot Zanita and Margaret from Shine By Three in there too! Looks like I know how I'll be spending my Friday night tonight :)

C O S M O . F I N A L S .

So very exciting news, Sara and I made it through the first round and into the finals for the Cosmopolitan FFF Awards for 2011! We had an old Hollywood glamor shoot the other week, which will be out in the next issue of Cosmo. We were given 1920's mermaid waves through our hair and I was dressed in a stunning light pink Rachel Gilbert gown with a silver diamante encrusted top, the kind of dress you love but wouldn't have anywhere to wear it to. I'm so excited to see the final shots! It's been a very humbling experience so far and made ten times better that Sara is alongside me too. I read a wonderful quote by Hanneli the other day - "Bloggers aren't competitors in the way magazines are. We stick together." and I couldn't agree with her more. Love that Sara and I are in this together.

I'd love if you could spare a few seconds to vote for me here (www.funfearlessfemale.com.au). Remember you must vote in every category in order for your votes to be valid, but you don’t have to enter the competition at the end. You can also vote once a day and it's open to my international readers too! The overall winner with the most votes wins $10,000 from Libra. I couldn't even imagine the new heights I could take Gary Pepper with that kind of money! It would be going straight back into my business.

Thank you to everyone who has voted for me so far and got me to the final stages. I really appreciate you taking the time. Now all we have to do is find something to wear to the awards night! Suggestions?

S N A P P E D .

I suppose they say when it rains, it pours and the past week has seen GPV featured on places I never could of imagined thanks to RAFW and a pair of extremely bright pants. Here are some of the places and press GPV has been spotted the past week:

1. Vogue.com - Snapped by the ever so sweet Phil Oh from Street Peeper, who was lovely enough to let me know my photo had been featured twice on Vogue.com as well as used on their home page. Surreal is one word that comes to mind. A big thank you to Phil for running both my photos.

2. Vogue.uk - Snapped by the unbelievably leggy Candace Lake outside RAFW who looked drop dead gorgeous in a fluro yellow ruffled blouse. Kind of wish I asked to take her photo instead and secretly jealous of her hat collection I saw during RAFW. Thank you Candace for taking GPV to the UK!

3. Harpersbazaar.com - Phil was one busy bee and was taking photos for Vogue and Harpers Bazaar Australia during RAFW and I couldn't be happier to see these photos used on both sites, even though he caught me smiling in one too!

4. FaceHunter - Loved running into Yvan around RAFW. He has a very unique personality and always made for interesting conversations, as well as being extremely friendly and too easy to like. Thank you Yvan for the lovely Facehunter features.

5. Style.com - I featured this before but thought I'd throw it in with my recent press post. Shot by Tommy Tom from Jak & Jil, who was an absolute honor to meet during RAFW.

6. WhoWhatWear - Never thought I'd see myself on the WhoWhatWear site and I was over the moon about being featured in their Style Stalker section this month. Looks like everyone really likes my AA coral pants and the colour blocking trend this season. Thank you to Nicole (no no, not me, another Nicole) for featuring my photo this month.

7. Grazia, Australia - This photo was taken out the front of a show and I wouldn't have even known about it if it was for my readers. Someone tweeted me about it so thank you for giving me the heads up ladies. Yet another photo featured under "Pop Colour" as one of the hot trends spotted at RAFW.

8. Vogue, Australia - This was a completely random feature and another situation where I wouldn't have known about it if someone didn't tweet me about it. A photo of the Sass & Bide girls and I at the FBI fashion Parade was featured as an advertorial for my old fashion college I used to attend in 2009. How random!

So like I said, a very surreal week and one I won't be forgetting any time soon. Hopefully this will also give you an idea of what I wore during RAFW too. I was snapped by the lovely model turned photographer, Zanita each day at RAFW so I'll be posting an overdue weekly outfit wrap up tomorrow. Can't wait!

Well I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! Plenty of goodies hitting the store this week too so stay tuned!

P R E S S & P R I N T .

It's been a few months since I did my last press post. After waking up to a freezing and miserable day outside I thought I'd sit down, make a tea, and share with you the recent places and press Gary Pepper Vintage has been spotted.

1. Shop Til You Drop Magazine - A while ago I was asked to contribute some of my favorite vintage dresses and a few key tips on how to buy vintage clothing online for an article in STYD. They ended up shooting my favorite 50's red floral tulle dress (pictured below), which is a dress from my personal collection. I've never actually worn it before - maybe because it's so fragile or maybe because it's so expensive? Either way I'm thrilled to see it gracing the pages of Shop so a warm thank you to Jade and Dee for featuring my store.

2. Sofis Mode Magazine - I don't even know where to begin with this post. Annika, the journalist who writes these features is so openly warm and friendly that it was hard not to fall in love with her. After the first email we were already planning on meeting for coffee if the other was ever to be in the others country. Sweden and Australia, two very far apart places. And of course, a warm and loving thank you to the beautiful Annika, whom I can only hope I get to meet one day.

3. Just Be Magazine - Just Be is a newly launched Australian magazine. I actually did this interview nearly one year ago so it shows you how long and time consuming it can be to launch something like this. Thank you to Stephanie for writing this feature and a big congratlations to the Just Be Team on their recent launch. It looks wonderful!

4. Refinery 29 - The craziest thing about being online is people can pull photos straight from your blog and write an article the very same day. I had no idea about this feature on Refinery 29 until my dear friend Adrian called me (I don't think he knows I had just woken up) to let me know I'd been called one of their "Best New Fashion Bloggers". Pretty crazy and an absolute honor so thank you Refinery 29, that's a lot to live up to.

5. IFB - Any and every blogger knows about IFB, so you could imagine how happy I was to be featured on their site. Extremely kind words written by an extremely kind girl. Thank you to Vahni from Grit and Glamour for making this interview a pleasure to do, which you can read here.

6. The Inside Source - Based in NY, The Inside Source is Ebay's micro-site and full of interesting interviews, tips and articles. A big thank you to Felicity for taking the time to write such a lovely feature. My store started out on Ebay so it's nice to reminder to take the time out and remember where it all began.

7. Catalog Magazine - I had never heard of Catalog before but apparently it's a fashion magazine from Singapore. A reader was lovely enough to let me know about this feature and sent me the scanned images - how sweet! I wouldn't have known otherwise so thank you Veronique!

A few other places GPV has been spotted is Dujuour Magazine, Miranda Kerr's KORA blog, Mecho.com, Seventeen.com, Mylookbook Magazine, Frockshop.com, Fashion Clique and the Jeffrey Campbell blog. Thank you to each and every person (Brooke, Chloe, Kaitlin, Krista, Marnie, Jess) who has featured my store and helped spread the word of Gary Pepper Vintage. It means the absolute world to me.

Happy Easter weekend everyone!