Accidental tax break saves wealthiest Americans $100B

Sheldon Adelson makes no secret of his disdain for the estate tax.

“How many times do you have to pay taxes on money?” the casino magnate asks, leaning on a blue cane on the cobblestones of Wall Street on a crisp October morning.

A gravel-voiced man whose accent recalls his blue-collar Boston roots, Adelson, 80, has just rung the bell at the New York Stock Exchange. Shares of his Las Vegas Sands Corp. are at a five-year high, making him one of the world’s richest men, worth more than $30 billion.

Federal law requires billionaires such as Adelson who want to leave fortunes to their children to pay estate or gift taxes of 40 percent on those assets. Adelson has blunted that bite by exploiting a loophole that Congress unintentionally created and that the Internal Revenue Service unsuccessfully challenged.

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By shuffling his company stock in and out of more than 30 trusts, he’s given at least $7.9 billion to his heirs while legally avoiding about $2.8 billion in U.S. gift taxes since 2010, according to calculations based on data in Adelson’s U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

Hundreds of executives have used the technique, SEC filings show. These tax shelters may have cost the federal government more than $100 billion since 2000, says Richard Covey, the lawyer who pioneered the maneuver. That’s equivalent to about one-third of all estate and gift taxes the U.S. has collected since then.

EASY BYPASS

The popularity of the shelter, known as the Walton grantor retained annuity trust, or GRAT, shows how easy it is for the wealthy to bypass estate and gift taxes. Even Covey says the practice, which involves rapidly churning assets into and out of trusts, makes a mockery of the tax code.

“You can certainly say we can’t let this keep going if we’re going to have a sound system,” he says with a shrug.

Covey’s technique is one of a handful of common devices that together make the estate tax system essentially voluntary, rendering it ineffective as a brake on soaring economic inequality, says Edward McCaffery, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Gould School of Law.

Since 2009, President Barack Obama and some Democratic lawmakers have made fruitless proposals to narrow the GRAT loophole. Any discussion of tax shelters has been drowned out by the debate over whether to have an estate tax at all, McCaffery says.

“From the Republican side of the aisle, you’re committed to killing the thing,” he says, adding that Democrats don’t want to tackle an issue affecting a handful of people. “And that handful are all in the class of campaign donors.”

Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., are among the business leaders who have set up GRATs, SEC filings show.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. helps so many clients use the trusts that the bank has a special unit dedicated to processing GRAT paperwork, says Joanne E. Johnson, a JPMorgan private-wealth banker. “I have a client who’s done 89 GRATs,” she says.

Goldman Sachs disclosed in a 2004 filing that 84 of the firm’s current and former partners used GRATs. Blankfein has transferred more than $50 million to family members with little or no gift tax due, according to calculations based on data in his SEC filings.

Charles Ergen, chairman of Dish Network Corp., and fashion designer Ralph Lauren passed more than $300 million each, calculations from SEC filings show.

Blankfein, Ergen, Lauren and Zuckerberg declined to comment.

DEVISING STRATEGIES

Congress enacted the estate tax in 1916 to apply to large fortunes at death. Eight years later, it added the related gift tax to cover transfers made before death. Both rates are currently 40 percent, and the first $5.25 million of an individual’s wealth is exempt; the amount is $10.50 million for couples.

For as long as such levies have been on the books, lawyers have been devising strategies to get around them.

Congress created the GRAT while trying to stop another tax-avoidance scheme that Covey developed. In 1984, Covey, a lawyer at Carter Ledyard & Milburn LLP in New York, publicized an estate-tax shelter he’d invented called a grantor retained income trust, or GRIT.

Covey figured out how to make a large gift appear to be small. He would have a father, for example, put investments into a trust for his children, with instructions that the trust should pay any income back to the father. The value of that potential income would be subtracted from the father’s gift-tax bill.

Then, the trust could invest in growth stocks that paid low dividends so that most of the returns still ended up going to his kids. Six years after Covey started promoting this technique, Congress termed it abusive and enacted a law to stop it.

The 1990 legislation replaced the GRIT with the GRAT, a government-blessed alternative that allowed people to keep stakes in gifts to their children while forbidding the abuse Covey had devised.

Covey studied the law and found an even bigger loophole.

“The change that was made to stop what they thought was the abuse, made the matter worse,” he says.

Fredric Grundeman, who helped draft the bill while he was an attorney at the U.S. Treasury Department and is now retired, says the framers didn’t recognize the new law’s potential for abuse.

FLAWED THINKING

“How do I say it?” Grundeman says. “When Congress enacts a law, it isn’t always well thought out.”

Covey, 84, a Missouri native and former Marine Corps basketball player who earned a law degree from Columbia Law School in 1955, uses the words “romantic” and “beautiful” to describe the most elegant tax maneuvers.

Covey recognized that a client could use the 1990 legislation to avoid gift taxes if he did something that would otherwise make no sense: put money in a trust with instructions to return the entire amount to himself within two years. Because he doesn’t have to pay tax on a gift to himself, the trust incurs no gift tax. Covey calls the trust “zeroed out.”

Because the client isn’t paying any tax up front, the transaction amounts to a can’t-lose bet with the IRS. If the trust’s investments make large enough gains, the excess goes to heirs tax-free. If not, the only costs are lawyers fees, typically $5,000 to $10,000, Covey says.

Three years after the new law took effect, Covey created a pair of $100 million zeroed-out GRATs for Audrey Walton, the former wife of the brother of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. founder Sam Walton. The IRS, which had banned such GRATs through regulation, demanded taxes and took her to court.

In 2000, the U.S. Tax Court found in Walton’s favor, determining the 1990 law didn’t prohibit a “zeroed-out” GRAT.

Covey had won a rare prize: an official seal of approval for a tax shelter.

Two years after Covey’s court victory, Adelson set up a GRAT called the “Sheldon G. Adelson 2002 Two Year LVSI Annuity Trust,” Adelson’s SEC filings show. By 2009, he was juggling chunks of his fortune in as many as 10 GRATs at a time, filings show.

Adelson once discussed his approach to inheritance taxes in a legal deposition.

“Listen, the law says you can avoid taxes but you can’t escape taxes,” Adelson testified as part of a 1997 lawsuit over an unrelated business dispute. “We just want to do what is right, but it is prudent and it’s wise to prepare your estate to save taxes.”

POLITICAL DONATIONS

The son of a cabdriver from Lithuania, Adelson started his first business at the age of 12, selling newspapers with the help of a $200 loan. He got rich in the 1980s as the owner of a company that organized computer trade shows. Later, he bought the Sands Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

A globe-spanning casino and resort empire followed. He drew national attention in 2012 by donating more than $90 million to groups that supported Republican candidates, including Mitt Romney, the presidential nominee and an estate-tax opponent.

In November 2010, Adelson sat for an interview with a Bloomberg News reporter in Las Vegas Sands’ corporate boardroom, tucked inside the palatial Venetian resort. He spoke of the perks of being gambling’s richest man: his weekend home in Malibu, Calif.; the homes in Israel and the south of France; the six jets that ferry his family between them.

Adelson had recently rescued Las Vegas Sands from the brink of bankruptcy. His company’s stock, which lost more than 90 percent in 2008, had recovered almost half of its value. That was good news for his place on the list of the world’s richest people, a ranking that he follows closely.

“I don’t need to pat myself on the back to say, look at all the good things I did,” he said. “But the success and the comeback that I’ve enjoyed, and the company’s enjoyed, have been extremely gratifying.”

The share gains were also good for Adelson’s tax shelters.

That’s because after Sands stock plunged in 2008, Adelson plowed even more of his fortune into new GRATs, the SEC filings show.

When the stock rebounded, those GRATs swelled in value.

A few days after the interview, he would pour $725 million from one of his GRATs into trusts for the benefit of his family.

If he’d given the same amount to family members without using a GRAT, it would have resulted in a gift-tax bill of more than $250 million.

In all, Adelson and his wife, Miriam, have created at least 25 GRATs. At least 14 of the 25 trusts were zeroed out, according to the calculations based on SEC filings. Those trusts transferred at least $7.9 billion to family members, an amount that would otherwise have incurred gift taxes of $2.8 billion.

Adelson has six living children, including two teenage sons. By early 2012, more than a third of Adelson’s stake in the Sands — worth more than $10 billion today — had already passed through GRATs to trusts overseen by his wife for the benefit of his family.

The titles of some of those trusts start with the first letters of his children’s names. Later, more GRATs added an additional $3 billion to the heirs’ trusts.

Outside the stock exchange in October, Adelson declined to comment on GRATs. Later, he passed a message along through Ron Reese, his publicist.

“Mr. Adelson did tell me to tell you that he has no intention of ever dying,” Reese says. “So the estate-planning conversation is moot.”

LAWYERS TWEAK

Since Covey’s triumph in the Walton case, lawyers have tweaked his technique to generate even more tax savings. One idea, used by former Aetna Inc. CEO John W. Rowe, puts corporate stock options into a GRAT.

Another, championed by Goldman Sachs banker Stacy Eastland in presentations at estate-planning conferences, envisions a husband funding a GRAT with the proceeds of an options bet with his wife.

“It’s very common,” Rowe says, referring to the use of GRATs. “It’s become standard practice in estate planning.”

Charles Dolan, whose family controls the New York Knicks basketball team and who is chairman of Cablevision Systems Corp., has repeatedly swapped Cablevision shares out of his GRATs and replaced them with IOUs, his SEC filings show.

The technique multiplies the potential tax savings, according to a 2008 report by analysts at AllianceBernstein Holding LP. Through a spokeswoman, Dolan declined to comment.

The GRAT loophole is unlikely to be plugged anytime soon.

Obama has included a proposal to limit the GRAT technique in each of his annual budget plans but hasn’t pressed Congress to act on it, says Kenneth Kies, a Republican tax lobbyist.

Committees in the House and Senate are working on what they call comprehensive tax overhaul bills. Neither plans to address estate or gift taxes.

Covey suggests one reason for the lack of action: Wealthy donors to politicians, both Democratic and Republican, want to keep the loophole in place.

“I’ve done a lot for Democratic contributors,” he says with a smile.

No one knows for sure how much all of these GRATs cost the U.S. government. The IRS estimates the number of gift-tax returns filed in connection with new GRATs each year; there were 1,946 in 2009, according to the most recent publicly available data.

Taxpayers don’t have to report how much each GRAT ultimately passes to heirs.

It’s as if Covey built an invisible highway bypass that carries some of the biggest fortunes past the tax man’s tollbooth. He marvels at the billions that flow along this route.

“It boggles the mind,” he says.

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Accidental tax break saves wealthiest Americans $100B

Sheldon Adelson makes no secret of his disdain for the estate tax.

“How many times do you have to pay taxes on money?” the casino magnate asks, leaning on a blue cane on the cobblestones of Wall Street on a crisp October morning.

A gravel-voiced man whose accent recalls his blue-collar Boston roots, Adelson, 80, has just rung the bell at the New York Stock Exchange. Shares of his Las Vegas Sands Corp. are at a five-year high, making him one of the world’s richest men, worth more than $30 billion.

Federal law requires billionaires such as Adelson who want to leave fortunes to their children to pay estate or gift taxes of 40 percent on those assets. Adelson has blunted that bite by exploiting a loophole that Congress unintentionally created and that the Internal Revenue Service unsuccessfully challenged.

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By shuffling his company stock in and out of more than 30 trusts, he’s given at least $7.9 billion to his heirs while legally avoiding about $2.8 billion in U.S. gift taxes since 2010, according to calculations based on data in Adelson’s U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

Hundreds of executives have used the technique, SEC filings show. These tax shelters may have cost the federal government more than $100 billion since 2000, says Richard Covey, the lawyer who pioneered the maneuver. That’s equivalent to about one-third of all estate and gift taxes the U.S. has collected since then.

EASY BYPASS

The popularity of the shelter, known as the Walton grantor retained annuity trust, or GRAT, shows how easy it is for the wealthy to bypass estate and gift taxes. Even Covey says the practice, which involves rapidly churning assets into and out of trusts, makes a mockery of the tax code.

“You can certainly say we can’t let this keep going if we’re going to have a sound system,” he says with a shrug.

Covey’s technique is one of a handful of common devices that together make the estate tax system essentially voluntary, rendering it ineffective as a brake on soaring economic inequality, says Edward McCaffery, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Gould School of Law.

Since 2009, President Barack Obama and some Democratic lawmakers have made fruitless proposals to narrow the GRAT loophole. Any discussion of tax shelters has been drowned out by the debate over whether to have an estate tax at all, McCaffery says.

“From the Republican side of the aisle, you’re committed to killing the thing,” he says, adding that Democrats don’t want to tackle an issue affecting a handful of people. “And that handful are all in the class of campaign donors.”

Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., are among the business leaders who have set up GRATs, SEC filings show.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. helps so many clients use the trusts that the bank has a special unit dedicated to processing GRAT paperwork, says Joanne E. Johnson, a JPMorgan private-wealth banker. “I have a client who’s done 89 GRATs,” she says.

Goldman Sachs disclosed in a 2004 filing that 84 of the firm’s current and former partners used GRATs. Blankfein has transferred more than $50 million to family members with little or no gift tax due, according to calculations based on data in his SEC filings.

Charles Ergen, chairman of Dish Network Corp., and fashion designer Ralph Lauren passed more than $300 million each, calculations from SEC filings show.

Blankfein, Ergen, Lauren and Zuckerberg declined to comment.

DEVISING STRATEGIES

Congress enacted the estate tax in 1916 to apply to large fortunes at death. Eight years later, it added the related gift tax to cover transfers made before death. Both rates are currently 40 percent, and the first $5.25 million of an individual’s wealth is exempt; the amount is $10.50 million for couples.

For as long as such levies have been on the books, lawyers have been devising strategies to get around them.

Congress created the GRAT while trying to stop another tax-avoidance scheme that Covey developed. In 1984, Covey, a lawyer at Carter Ledyard & Milburn LLP in New York, publicized an estate-tax shelter he’d invented called a grantor retained income trust, or GRIT.

Covey figured out how to make a large gift appear to be small. He would have a father, for example, put investments into a trust for his children, with instructions that the trust should pay any income back to the father. The value of that potential income would be subtracted from the father’s gift-tax bill.

Then, the trust could invest in growth stocks that paid low dividends so that most of the returns still ended up going to his kids. Six years after Covey started promoting this technique, Congress termed it abusive and enacted a law to stop it.

The 1990 legislation replaced the GRIT with the GRAT, a government-blessed alternative that allowed people to keep stakes in gifts to their children while forbidding the abuse Covey had devised.

Covey studied the law and found an even bigger loophole.

“The change that was made to stop what they thought was the abuse, made the matter worse,” he says.

Fredric Grundeman, who helped draft the bill while he was an attorney at the U.S. Treasury Department and is now retired, says the framers didn’t recognize the new law’s potential for abuse.

FLAWED THINKING

“How do I say it?” Grundeman says. “When Congress enacts a law, it isn’t always well thought out.”

Covey, 84, a Missouri native and former Marine Corps basketball player who earned a law degree from Columbia Law School in 1955, uses the words “romantic” and “beautiful” to describe the most elegant tax maneuvers.

Covey recognized that a client could use the 1990 legislation to avoid gift taxes if he did something that would otherwise make no sense: put money in a trust with instructions to return the entire amount to himself within two years. Because he doesn’t have to pay tax on a gift to himself, the trust incurs no gift tax. Covey calls the trust “zeroed out.”

Because the client isn’t paying any tax up front, the transaction amounts to a can’t-lose bet with the IRS. If the trust’s investments make large enough gains, the excess goes to heirs tax-free. If not, the only costs are lawyers fees, typically $5,000 to $10,000, Covey says.

Three years after the new law took effect, Covey created a pair of $100 million zeroed-out GRATs for Audrey Walton, the former wife of the brother of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. founder Sam Walton. The IRS, which had banned such GRATs through regulation, demanded taxes and took her to court.

In 2000, the U.S. Tax Court found in Walton’s favor, determining the 1990 law didn’t prohibit a “zeroed-out” GRAT.

Covey had won a rare prize: an official seal of approval for a tax shelter.

Two years after Covey’s court victory, Adelson set up a GRAT called the “Sheldon G. Adelson 2002 Two Year LVSI Annuity Trust,” Adelson’s SEC filings show. By 2009, he was juggling chunks of his fortune in as many as 10 GRATs at a time, filings show.

Adelson once discussed his approach to inheritance taxes in a legal deposition.

“Listen, the law says you can avoid taxes but you can’t escape taxes,” Adelson testified as part of a 1997 lawsuit over an unrelated business dispute. “We just want to do what is right, but it is prudent and it’s wise to prepare your estate to save taxes.”

POLITICAL DONATIONS

The son of a cabdriver from Lithuania, Adelson started his first business at the age of 12, selling newspapers with the help of a $200 loan. He got rich in the 1980s as the owner of a company that organized computer trade shows. Later, he bought the Sands Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

A globe-spanning casino and resort empire followed. He drew national attention in 2012 by donating more than $90 million to groups that supported Republican candidates, including Mitt Romney, the presidential nominee and an estate-tax opponent.

In November 2010, Adelson sat for an interview with a Bloomberg News reporter in Las Vegas Sands’ corporate boardroom, tucked inside the palatial Venetian resort. He spoke of the perks of being gambling’s richest man: his weekend home in Malibu, Calif.; the homes in Israel and the south of France; the six jets that ferry his family between them.

Adelson had recently rescued Las Vegas Sands from the brink of bankruptcy. His company’s stock, which lost more than 90 percent in 2008, had recovered almost half of its value. That was good news for his place on the list of the world’s richest people, a ranking that he follows closely.

“I don’t need to pat myself on the back to say, look at all the good things I did,” he said. “But the success and the comeback that I’ve enjoyed, and the company’s enjoyed, have been extremely gratifying.”

The share gains were also good for Adelson’s tax shelters.

That’s because after Sands stock plunged in 2008, Adelson plowed even more of his fortune into new GRATs, the SEC filings show.

When the stock rebounded, those GRATs swelled in value.

A few days after the interview, he would pour $725 million from one of his GRATs into trusts for the benefit of his family.

If he’d given the same amount to family members without using a GRAT, it would have resulted in a gift-tax bill of more than $250 million.

In all, Adelson and his wife, Miriam, have created at least 25 GRATs. At least 14 of the 25 trusts were zeroed out, according to the calculations based on SEC filings. Those trusts transferred at least $7.9 billion to family members, an amount that would otherwise have incurred gift taxes of $2.8 billion.

Adelson has six living children, including two teenage sons. By early 2012, more than a third of Adelson’s stake in the Sands — worth more than $10 billion today — had already passed through GRATs to trusts overseen by his wife for the benefit of his family.

The titles of some of those trusts start with the first letters of his children’s names. Later, more GRATs added an additional $3 billion to the heirs’ trusts.

Outside the stock exchange in October, Adelson declined to comment on GRATs. Later, he passed a message along through Ron Reese, his publicist.

“Mr. Adelson did tell me to tell you that he has no intention of ever dying,” Reese says. “So the estate-planning conversation is moot.”

LAWYERS TWEAK

Since Covey’s triumph in the Walton case, lawyers have tweaked his technique to generate even more tax savings. One idea, used by former Aetna Inc. CEO John W. Rowe, puts corporate stock options into a GRAT.

Another, championed by Goldman Sachs banker Stacy Eastland in presentations at estate-planning conferences, envisions a husband funding a GRAT with the proceeds of an options bet with his wife.

“It’s very common,” Rowe says, referring to the use of GRATs. “It’s become standard practice in estate planning.”

Charles Dolan, whose family controls the New York Knicks basketball team and who is chairman of Cablevision Systems Corp., has repeatedly swapped Cablevision shares out of his GRATs and replaced them with IOUs, his SEC filings show.

The technique multiplies the potential tax savings, according to a 2008 report by analysts at AllianceBernstein Holding LP. Through a spokeswoman, Dolan declined to comment.

The GRAT loophole is unlikely to be plugged anytime soon.

Obama has included a proposal to limit the GRAT technique in each of his annual budget plans but hasn’t pressed Congress to act on it, says Kenneth Kies, a Republican tax lobbyist.

Committees in the House and Senate are working on what they call comprehensive tax overhaul bills. Neither plans to address estate or gift taxes.

Covey suggests one reason for the lack of action: Wealthy donors to politicians, both Democratic and Republican, want to keep the loophole in place.

“I’ve done a lot for Democratic contributors,” he says with a smile.

No one knows for sure how much all of these GRATs cost the U.S. government. The IRS estimates the number of gift-tax returns filed in connection with new GRATs each year; there were 1,946 in 2009, according to the most recent publicly available data.

Taxpayers don’t have to report how much each GRAT ultimately passes to heirs.

It’s as if Covey built an invisible highway bypass that carries some of the biggest fortunes past the tax man’s tollbooth. He marvels at the billions that flow along this route.

“It boggles the mind,” he says.

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Lean In stories: Tyra Banks on pursuing your passion

I didn’t set out to be in front of the camera. My goal in high school was to get into film school, where I would hopefully start my career as a producer and writer—behind the camera. Modeling was the last thing on my mind; I felt awkward and uncomfortable in my own skin most of the time.

My freshman year, a classmate approached me and told me I looked like I could be a model. I’m not sure how she could see past my awkwardness, but she got the wheels turning, and for the first time, modeling was a potential option in my mind. Two years later, I was finally convinced to give it a try.

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I signed with an agent who eventually began booking me local gigs. My agent doubted that my “look” could result in a career in photographs and told me I should stick to runway because I wasn’t photogenic enough. My modeling “career” consisted of doing catalog work and local ads for Macy’s in the Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times. Meanwhile, I applied to several universities and film schools around the Los Angeles area and was accepted to them all, from UCLA to USC. I chose to attend Loyola Marymount; I was beyond excited!

A few weeks later, a French modeling agent came to town scouting for talent for the upcoming Paris fashion week. She reviewed the modeling agency’s comp wall (which was covered with photos of models represented by the agency) and pulled one card down.

That card was mine.

I was two weeks away from starting college. If I went to Paris, I would have to defer my admission and possibly lose my chance to become a part of a coveted film program. If I stayed in L.A., I might miss out on the chance of a lifetime.

In the end, my mother, who is one of my closest friends and mentors said, “It’s your decision and your life. You’ve graduated from high school and are old enough to make this decision for yourself.” Even though I was only 17 at the time, I felt much older as I weighed the pros and cons of such a life-changing decision.

At the suggestion of my mother, I went to Loyola Marymount to discuss my options with the admissions office. When they heard about the opportunity I had been given, it was agreed that I could come back in one year to start the program; if I took the time to learn French, they would even give me college credit.

I went back to my mom to share the good news. She was supportive of my decision and had more advice to share. She told me: “You studied for the SATs and ACT, you wrote a kick ass college essay and got into every school you applied to. Now, use that same determination to gain knowledge of the modeling industry. Go figure out what you need to know to give yourself the competitive advantage and make this amazing opportunity a success.”

So I went to the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising library in downtown Los Angeles. I asked the librarian for every French fashion magazine she could dig up. Once she realized my goal, over the course of two weeks, she sat me down and showed me the right way to look at the photos to determine the aesthetic of each designer. She also dug up tapes from every major designer that had presented their lines in Paris the previous year. She taught me to focus not just on the style of the clothing, but also the ways each designer differentiated through the use of hair and makeup. As I watched, I noticed the same models appearing over and over again; each had a signature walk (though they didn’t call it that back then). Some walked aggressively. Others were on their tippy toes, like princesses. Determined to figure out my own way of doing things, I designed my walk alongside the world’s most helpful librarian, right there in the middle of the FIDM library.

Two weeks later, I found myself pounding the pavement in Paris meeting designer after designer; clothes stuffed in my school backpack and makeup in my pocket. Before each go-see (these are auditions that models go on), I would change things up: For Chanel, it was flat-ironed hair and smoky eyes. For Yves Saint Laurent, it was hair slicked back in a bun and bright red lipstick. I walked into each go-see and bam! I had the gig. I booked 25 shows that season as a no-name; the first and last time that has ever happened. My career as a supermodel was suddenly on its way…

I’ve learned many valuable lessons on my journey that have carried me through the rough times but here is the most important: There will always be people who doubt you. Laser-focus your energy on the task at hand and do your research. No matter the field, you can always know more. Remember, your biggest competitive advantage is always preparation. I strongly believe in the intersection of hard work and opportunity; I’ve seen it happen in my own life time and again.

Life is funny. You think you have one plan and something comes up that changes everything in an instant. But true passion never dies – if you have a passion for something don’t be afraid to pursue it. My journey has included a successful and long career as a supermodel, creating one of the longest running and most successful global reality television shows in history, and my most proud title: a CEO and a business woman in control, with a strong voice for women and beauty. I didn’t end up going the route I had intended, but I did wind up exactly where I wanted to be.

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A sketchbook life

At a talk by iconic British textile designer Zandra Rhodes, Shuhada Elis is all ears

HER hair, in a shocking fuchsia hue, is not the only thing that makes heads turn. Everything about Zandra Rhodes demands a second look.

With her large, chunky stone necklaces, enormous rings and eyes emphasised by thick eyeliner and eyeshadow, Rhodes, 73, projects confidence and boldness.

Although not everyone knows of the British textile designer, those who are familiar with her much-celebrated works flocked to the National Textile Museum in Kuala Lumpur recently to hear her speak. She was in town for her first exhibition in Southeast Asia titled A Lifelong Love Affair With Textiles.

AROUND THE WORLD

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Rhodes is a fashion traveller. She not only travels in style but also travels to design.

She finds inspiration all over the world. She explores shapes, patterns and colours in different parts of the globe and is very sentimental about her designs. “I have saved almost every original garment I have designed because they tell the story of my life.”

Her passion for textiles led Rhodes to open her own Fashion and Textile Museum in London in 2003 to showcase her past works and unseen collections as well as exhibitions by other British and international designers.

When Rhodes travels, she brings home ideas in the form of sketches to complete her designs. “I play around with sketches all the time. I’m a very messy designer.

“I don’t design on computer. I carry my sketchbook wherever I go,” says Rhodes who drew the city’s skyline from her hotel window.

“I’d like to take a trip around Malaysia. There are so many colours here which can translate into fabulous designs,” she says.

Reminiscing her early creations, Rhodes says she went to the (National) Museum Of The American Indian in the United States in 1969 and fell in love with the intricacy of the beautiful feathers.

She returned to London and developed the feathers into a print design which looked as though they were sewn on with cross-stitches. She also created silk chiffon “feathers” by cutting around the individual printed feathers and hand rolling the edges.

Such is her affection for culture and heritage that when she went to China and India, Rhodes returned with silk prints and sari-inspired dresses.

“I created the pagoda sleeves top for the 1979 Chinese collection while India has inspired me with the one-sided sari-draped dress, bursting with colours.”

LOVER OF COLOURS

“My girls say I’m a colourist,” says Rhodes. She loves bright and brash colour patterns and enjoys exploring different shades in her designs.

Rhodes exploded into the fashion scene with her colourful women’s wear and accessories as well as her brightly-coloured hair. “I always fill all the surfaces with colour,” she says of her designs.

Even for winter, when outfits are confined to cool and dark colours, Rhodes says she never compromises.

“I have a lovely shocking pink jacket for winter,” she adds.

She takes pride in her button flower coat in bright yellow and multicoloured kaftans and dresses.

But there are also collections in which she plays with less colour, such as her African collection which is inspired by zebras.

BIG NAMES

Rhodes was one of a few designers who put London at the forefront of the international fashion scene in the 1970s.

She used to design for the late Princess Diana who was a good friend, and continues to be a choice of other members of royalty and celebrities.

“I received a memo saying that there was going to be a royal wedding but I didn’t know then that it was for Princess Diana. I made a grand gold gown. It was not chosen but it’s one of my favourites in the Renaissance/Gold collection,” says Rhodes who also designed silk chiffon dresses for Diana in the mid-1980s

She has also designed several costumes for Freddie Mercury, particularly the pleated “winged” designs in heavy white satin for Queen’s show at Earl’s Court in the 1970s.

Perhaps soon we will see Rhodes dressing up her well-heeled clients in batik or songket-influenced designs.

“I need to look around this country. Maybe I’d have some ideas on head-scarves as well,” she says.

A Lifelong Love Affair With Textiles.

Where: Saindera Gallery, National Textile Museum, Kuala Lumpur.

When: Until Jan 12.

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“Fashion Tips For Women,” A New Report On Vkool.Com, Teaches Women How To Dress Well - V-kool

The new “Fashion Tips For Women” report on the website is divided into two main parts. This article is actually suitable for those people who want to improve their outlook professionally and easily. In the first part of this article, the author reveals eight common fashion pitfalls that woman usually make. A lot of women wear their bra on the wrong hook. “The wrong-size bra makes you look older, shorter, and heavier. When it is on the tightest hook that is when you know you should buy a new bra," says Linda "the Bra Lady" Becker, owner of Linda's Bra Salons. Wearing clothes that do not fit right is the next popular fashion mistake ladies make. “Clothing is not designed to give people a shape that they do not have, and that is where they get in trouble. Wearing too tight clothes can also result in serious health problems, such as back pain, fainting, heartburn, abdominal pain, and headaches.” says Dr. John Michael Li, a neurologist at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

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In the second part, the article takes readers step-by-step through a process of discovering how to create their own personal style. Firstly, women will learn how to choose a style that compliments their best features. This writing supplies people with fundamental information of several typical fashion styles, including Bohemian, Chic, Classic, Glamorous, Romantic, Natural, Gamine, and Sporty. After that, the writer provides people with fashion tips to help them look younger. Secondly, the writing teaches people how to choose the right shoes and how to avoid over-accessorizing. Lastly, the article recommends women that they should wear makeup that complements their skin tone and their skin type in order to get them noticed. After this “Fashion Tips For Women” report was launched, a large number of women all over the world can improve their fashion knowledge, dress well, and gain confidence easily with some simple steps.

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About the website is built by Tony Nguyen. The website supplies readers with methods and e-guides about various topics, containing business, fitness, entertainment, and lifestyle. Readers could send their comments to Tony Nguyen on any digital e-books through email.

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Even mour glamour..

Known for transforming every fibre of fabric into something quintessentially feminine, Roland Mouret's designs have made him a red carpet king.

Kate Middleton, Victoria Beckham and Cameron Diaz are all big fans of the French fashion star who famously cuts for real women’s bodies.

His Galaxy dress was named 'the dress of the decade' but Mouret is ready to give his own iconic number a run for it’s money with his new collection.

The handsome French man visited Brown Thomas Dublin this week to showcase his stunning new spring/summer 2014 collection.

Already favoured by celebrities with a taste for exquisitely-cut red carpet gowns, the London-based designer went stellar in spring 2006 with the launch of legendary frock, the Galaxy.

The knee-length, wasp-waisted dress managed to perform miracles — creating curves for waifs with none, and flattering those with ampler assets.

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A sartorial sensation worn by everyone from Claudine Keane to Rachel Weisz and Dita Von Teese.

The figure-hugging frock became a worldwide sell-out, despite the hefty €1,200 price tag.

He even inspired Beckham to follow her fashion designer dreams and mentored her debut collection.

Super fan Kate Middelton recycled one of her favourite Roland Mouret dresses last week dazzling in a white floor-length Roland Mouret gown.

The fab frock, which she wore to the gown for the Royal Film Performance of Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom, features slightly ruched shoulders, an off-center back zipper and a pretty high slit for a royal.

The mum-of-one wore the same dress last year to a glitzy private dinner with Prince William in May last year.

Russian actress Olga Kurylenko chose an elegant emerald green Mouret creation for the Irish premiere of Oblivion earlier this year.

Love the look but not the price tag? Flaunt your figure and check out our edit of Mouret-inspired frocks that are sure to get you noticed this festive season.

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How Jewish immigrants stirred up fashion Down Under

SYDNEY — In Lithuania, Jacob Bloch’s customers ordered shoes from him directly. When he moved his family to New South Wales in the early 1930s, he noticed the proliferation of shoe shops but recognized a gap in the market for ballet shoes. “This ordinary shoemaker from a tiny shtetl in Lithuania created a world-renowned ballet and dance shoe company,” says his daughter, Betty.

Bloch leveraged his Russian language skills to secure shoe contracts with some of the main dancers of the Ballet Russes when the company came to Australia in the 1930s, and he moved from the shop in the Sydney suburb of Paddington, where he worked by candlelight to save electricity, to a larger space in Taylor Square. When Betty and her husband Gershon Wilkenfeld took over the company, they opened a store in London’s Piccadilly Arcade and several more stores in Australia.

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Rags-to-riches stories in the schmatte trade aren’t new. But the 100 narratives, including that of Bloch, presented in the Sydney Jewish Museum’s exhibit “Dressing Sydney: The Jewish Fashion Story” (through December 31, 2013) offer some new wrinkles in addition to the typical refrains. Some of those unique aspects to Sydney’s Jewish fashion story relate to Sydney’s climate and landscape.

When Susan Karas, a designer for John J. Hilton (whose marketing line was “It’s a honey, it’s a Hilton”), arrived in Australia, she thought she had gone back in time, Sydney Jewish Museum curator Roslyn Sugarman writes in the catalog.

“The ladies dressed in a funny way. They were dressed in mostly white hats, panama hats, and white gloves,” Karas said. “It was a completely different lifestyle, and my eyes popped. I said, ‘I can’t believe that I came into a country like this,’ but I very easily got used to that atmosphere and fitted in. First thing, I went and bought a white hat and white gloves!”

Husband-and-wife team Joseph and Aneta Weinrech had other thoughts on the monochromatic palette they encountered when they moved to Sydney. As they went to the city for coffee one day, they noticed the Farmers department store stocked many different kinds of white blouses. The two purchased drip-dry fabric on York Street, and upon returning home, Joseph took the bedroom door off its hinges and placed it on the bed to create a workspace. Aneta drew the patterns and Joseph used a small knife they had purchased to cut the fabric; a Czech Jewish woman sewed the clothes.

When the Weinrechs brought their colorful creations to Farmers, they were asked for their company’s name, which they hadn’t thought about. The buyer suggested Rainbow Blouses, which they registered for 20 pennies.

“Sydney’s story is not one of high fashion per se,” writes Peter McNeil, associate dean for research and professor of design history at the University of Technology Sydney and professor of fashion studies at Stockholm University, in his catalog essay.

But the “beginnings of an Australian fashion ‘type’” developed prior to World War I, according to McNeil. “Australians acquired specific tastes that did not mirror those of the British; elements of nationalism were evident in design, such as the use of novel and exotic materials, including platypus fur for the clothes of the well-to-do,” he writes.

Where the women’s clothing industry in Australia had concentrated on Melbourne prior to World War II, an influx of European Jews into Sydney before the war — about 9,000 Jewish immigrants arriving between 1933 and 1940 — shifted manufacturing to sports and summer wear. (Another 17,000 Jewish immigrants came Down Under between 1945 and 1954.)

Australian artist Thea Proctor (1879-1966) “who advocated for better use of color palettes, noted that the ‘colors of the sea’ worked in Sydney but not in London,” McNeil writes.

“There is considerable evidence that émigrés introduced new and brighter colors into everyday clothing,” he adds. “They also helped to create the demand for lighter clothes, such as finely knitted garments that were part of contemporary European fashion aesthetics, modern lines in coats, and the youthful lace that adorned the short mod dresses of the 1960s.”

One of the most interesting threads through the exhibit is the religious component. “Although universally proud of their Jewish heritage and firmly faithful to the culture of Yiddishkeit, many in the industry did not actively practice their religion and worked on Shabbat (the Sabbath),” Sugarman notes in the catalog. “However, they held the value of the family, education and hard work as the unbreakable Jewish ethic. Most closed on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.”

Even though they didn’t show up to synagogue three times a day, the designers and fashion entrepreneurs of “Dressing Sydney” drew upon their Jewish identities in other ways, Sugarman adds. Some lent money to their employees to help them buy homes, while others donated percentages of their earnings to charities — some of them Jewish.

“Dressing Sydney,” which is packed with quotes from the oral histories the museum collected and a variety of pieces of clothing and jewelry, features several other narratives, from the politics surrounding Australian clothing outsourcing and tariffs, to humorous stories of Jewish wit.

When a Melbourne company tried to charge Walter Philippsohn (Phillipsons of Botany) for not only freight, but also the box that contained the knitwear, Philippsohn called them up and said he had the check ready, but that he would charge for the envelope, Philippsohn’s nephew Peter recalls.

And when a customer who wasn’t well off came in the shop, Walter would tell Peter in Yiddish “Er is ein bovel fresser,” or “that’s somebody who would eat garbage.” Peter knew then to show the old stock that the company wanted to move to the customer, rather than the best quality clothing. “It could be because the person was a credit risk,” Peter says. “They’d say, ‘If we’re going to lose on this guy let’s lose on something that we’re going to have to mark down anyway.”

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Betwixt and Between

A FEW YEARS AGO, you managed to survive without the precollection collection, and life was good. One less thing, right?

No doubt you picked up a few things between seasons, as one does, but you were not aware that you were buying into a special category that would soon be invasive, the kudzu of couture.

Runway shows from major designers like Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons generally satisfy because they are interpretive or they make us consider something about the future. We shouldn’t have the same expectation of precollections, even if they’re the biggest sellers (by virtue of being in stores longer). What matters most is that the clothes give shape to a brand’s identity. The marketplace is just too crowded to put up with weeds.

The prefall collections sprawl over six weeks, ending in early January. Among the clear winners are Narciso Rodriguez and Angela Missoni. Mr. Rodriguez positions his structured T-tops, notched blazers and cigarette pants right where they should be: as extensions of his minimalist aesthetic. The block checks and etched patterns are invitations to add a bold graphic detail without looking foolish. He finishes up with a dusting of pink and lilac, in a sweet mini-coat or a bomber seemingly based on a sweatshirt.

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Ms. Missoni’s predominantly black and white knits are also graphic but in a more subtle way. Some of the pattern swirls suggest clusters of birds in flight, while textures of lacy tops look feathery. The shapes themselves are urban and versatile.

Donna Karan’s collection of clean-looking jackets and flattering wrap skirts (with good lengths) came as a relief after her touristy spring show of ethnic prints. She just got down to timeless Karan separates like white shirts and long, slim-cut blazers — and, no, they’re not boring and basic.

Gauchos and wide-leg trousers appear in a number of collections, including Proenza Schouler and Phillip Lim, but they are not as diverting as skirts, which come fringed (at10 Crosby Derek Lam), flowing (Theory), layered (Oscar de la Renta) and deeply slit (Altuzarra).

Mr. Altuzarra’s use of plaids is consistent with his ability to mine commonplace things in fresh ways. He repeats layered knits, making them a signature, and he fills out his line with plain but sharply cut dresses that convey his silhouette. Next summer, when the precollections hit the stores and you’re bored with everything, you may notice his colors: the burnt orange, leaf brown and sky blue mixed in with navy. That’s a good way to stand out.

Among the other high notes in the precollections, so far, are Alexander Wang’s blousy anoraks and exaggerated over-the-knee boots, the sleeveless wool coats at Oscar de la Renta (and some lovely, wispy cocktail dresses) and the cozy sack shapes at Calvin Klein. Its women’s designer, Francisco Costa, did something quite unexpected with all the fuzzy Céline textures and furry slippers. The clothes are more soulful than refined, with a few looks, like a fuzzy, pale pink mini-coat, winning the fashion sweepstakes.

And fall is still months away.

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Get help picking a Christmas gift from jeweler Alexis Bittar

It can be hard picking just the right gift -- whether it's for a loved one or for yourself.

Fans of the jewelry designed by Alexis Bittar can get help from the master himself when Bittar hosts a holiday shopping event from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday at his Venice boutique.

Events

Playclothes Vintage Fashions is hosting a fashion show and sale of costumes and clothing worn by singer Edie Adams on Thursday. In addition to the fashion, there is to be a screening from the new DVD box set, "Here's Edie: The Edie Adams Television Collection," which was released in November. The event is scheduled from 7 to 9 p.m. and is to include a small jazz combo performance and refreshments from Luna Vine Wine Bar. Playclothes is at 3100 Magnolia Blvd., Burbank.

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Stylist Lori Goldstein is scheduled to sign her book "Style Is Instinct" from 5 to 7 p.m. Thursday at Ron Robinson|Fred Segal, 8118 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles.

The Helms Design District Vintage Boutique, sponsored by Clever Vintage Clothing, returns for its holiday event from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at Lightspace Studio, 8755 Washington Blvd., Culver City. A number of vintage dealers are expected to participate. Regular admission is $5 but free and discounted ticket specials are available on on a first come, first served basis.

Openings

Eyelash extension shop Winx Beautique is offering Champagne, sweets and mini-makeovers at its launch party from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, and during the event five single moms will be surprised with makeovers. The shop is at 309 S. Orlando Ave., Los Angeles. Regular hours are 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday and Wednesday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Appointments are suggested and may be made online.

Meet designer Trina Turk as she hosts a Champagne shopping party to celebrate the opening of her new Manhattan Beach store. The event is scheduled from 2 to 4 p.m.

David's Bridal has opened a store in La Cienega Square, 6151 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles. Hours are 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and noon to 6 p.m. Sunday.

Sample and warehouse sales

Chic Little Devil's holiday sample sale is planned this weekend on the 11th floor of the Bendix Building, 1206 Maple Ave., Los Angeles. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Sunday. Brands including Alexander McQueen, Cynthia Vincent, Chloe and Elizabeth & James will be priced up to 90% off.

Stop Staring's annual sample sale featuring vintage-inspired contemporary women's wear is scheduled this weekend at the brand's showroom boutique at 14023 Paramount Blvd., Paramount. Plus sizes are included, and prices will be up to 50% off. Hours are 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Cash and major credit card accepted.

Bellenbrand's holiday sample sale is slated from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday and Saturday in the Apparel Mart Building, 7th floor hallway, 112 W. 9th St., Los Angeles. Cash and credit cards only.

San Francisco-based hatmaker Goorin Bros. plans to host a Los Angeles sample sale this weekend. Hours are noon to 7 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. The sale will be at the Park showroom, 845 S. Los Angeles St. Prices include $10 for baseball caps and cadets, $15 for fedoras and $20 for cloches.

The Stila warehouse sale, offering discounts of up to 80% on cosmetics, is to open to the public from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Doll Factory, 1910 W. Temple St., Los Angeles. No backpacks, strollers or large handbags allowed. Cash and credit cards only. Purchases limited to a maximum of $600 per customer.

Apolis is offering men's past-season samples including shirts, tees, denim, swimwear, accessories and luggage for up to 80% off. The sale is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at 821 E. 3rd St., Los Angeles.

Glamour Kills clothing has scheduled a sample sale from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at its warehouse, 1601 Alton Parkway, Suite D, in Irvine. Each day will include live acoustic band performances beginning at 2 p.m. Saturday's lineup includes the Sheds and Forever Came Calling, while Sunday's groups are the Material, Night Riots and the Ready Set. Merchandise will be up to 75% off. Cash and major credit cards accepted.

Trunk shows and launches

Los Angeles jewelry designer Lizzie Mandler plans to celebrate the launch of her latest collection, available exclusively at Guild, with a shopping party featuring Champagne and sweets. The event is scheduled from 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday at 1335 1/2 Abbot Kinney Blvd., Venice.

Bucks & Does plans a Harlyn trunk show from 6 to 9 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 17. The shop is at 3906 Sunset Blvd. in Silver Lake.

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Jewelry designer Robert Lee Morris inspires a new generation

Before today's contemporary jewelry stars Alexis Bittar, Eddie Borgo and Aurélie Bidermann, there was Robert Lee Morris, who reinvented the category of fashion jewelry in the 1970s and '80s by creating wearable art in organic forms.

Growing up as a military brat, Morris soaked up culture everywhere his family moved, from Japan to Charleston, S.C. He spent his early adulthood living on a commune, making hammered silver and brass cuffs, breastplates and body armor, and eventually settled in Bellows Falls, Vt., where his work was discovered by an art dealer with plans to open Sculpture to Wear, a store for art jewelry in the Plaza Hotel in New York City. After that closed, in 1977 Morris opened his own jewelry gallery in New York called Artwear, which attracted a steady stream of celebrities, including Madonna, Cher, Bianca Jagger, Janet Jackson, Oprah Winfrey and more. The store was such a success that his modern urban warrior pieces became the power jewelry of the 1980s.

He collaborated on runway collections with fashion designers who included Calvin Klein, Geoffrey Beene, Michael Kors and, most notably, Donna Karan beginning in 1985. Her sensual black jersey bodysuits, sarongs and dresses were the perfect canvas for Morris' sculpted belt buckles, cuff bracelets and hoop earrings, just as Halston's jersey gowns had been for Elsa Peretti's jewelry in the 1970s.

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In the 1990s and early 2000s, Morris made a foray into fine jewelry and started selling the RLM Collection on QVC. In 2007, he won the Council of Fashion Designers of America Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award, and a year later he collaborated with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen on jewelry for their label Elizabeth and James. His company was acquired by Haskell Jewels in 2011, and now he has three lines selling his jewelry at prices from $20 to $1,250: RLM at QVC; Soho at Macy's, Bloomingdale's and Lord & Taylor; and Collection at high-end department and specialty stores, including Neiman Marcus and Jenni Kayne.

His aesthetic continues to resonate. Kate Moss wore a pair of his earrings in the August issue of Allure, and one of his warrior cuffs graced Madonna's wrist on the November cover of Harper's Bazaar.

I sat down with Morris, 66, when he visited L.A. recently to talk about his 45 years in the business, his inspiration and what's next.

In the beginning, I know you were inspired by nature, antiquities, myth and warriors.

My original idea was to create a body of work for an imaginary futuristic society that was post-apocalyptic and that the pieces would be a combination of savagery with high-tech gadgetry. Today, I'm probably in the exact same place, but I'm also thinking about what kind of jewelry people would wear who aren't from this planet. What would you wear on deck in a spaceship? What would you wear with your Mylar spacesuit? And seeing how all beauty is based on sacred geometry, I'm fascinated with taking jumbled, tribal pieces and finding the sacred geometry that's there. In a way, this leather cuff is a perfect example. The metal plate is based on a ram's horn. I took wax and pressed it on a ram's horn. The ram's horn itself is perfect sacred geometry. By taking a section of it and adding leather, it is exactly the "Mad Max" mentality I was after.

What's your work process like?

My studio is the opposite of clean. And when I walk in, I'm inspired by myself — trays upon trays of pieces, each one representing two or three ideas I was starting with or stumbling with. Then I have acres of archives, such as a wood bracelet from 1974 that was inspired by the artist Louise Nevelson, which is totally handmade and can't be put in production. That kind of piece still knocks the socks off the younger generation. As the world has changed, and the Internet has become so important, and social media so instant, many designers like the idea of pieces that can be easily reproduced, because they are likely to be hot for just one moment. But many of my archival pieces cannot be reproduced, which is fine with me. I don't care if it sells so long as it delights people and gets photographed and published somewhere.

How did you come to work with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen?

They were presenters at the CFDA Awards when I won, and were guided to my work to wear that night. They went crazy for my knuckle rings and cuffs, which led to our collaboration. It was great, because it opened up a new generation of young designers and stylists to my work. And the next thing I knew, everyone was wearing knuckle rings! But now they have their own jewelry designer working for them.

Do you still collaborate with Donna Karan?

Yes, we've become deep friends and she's tapped me to help with her Haitian activities involving teaching and training artisans so they can create products to sell all over the world. I've been asked to lead a course for metal workers, teaching them how to do the wax process, carving, soldering, instead of just sitting on the ground using a chisel and a hammer to pierce holes and design things. They do a beautiful job, but that's just crazy. We're trying to get them electric tools. That's part of my future direction, giving back and spreading inspiration more globally.

What else is next?

My goal is to continue to create a variety of commercial lines but at the same time always be making the museum-level pieces from which all else filters down.

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How to Save Budget on Purchasing Formal Dresses Online

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Finding Less Expensive Short Formal Dresses:

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Four polytech designers chosen to exhibit at iD Dunedin

Handcraft techniques and innovative use of fabric by four Otago Polytechnic fashion graduands has impressed iD Dunedin Fashion Show selectors.

Lauren Arthur (23), Hannah Heslop (20), Georgia Ferguson (21), and Justine Tindley (41) will show their graduate collections at the 15th anniversary iD show in April, alongside some of New Zealand's most successful commercial designers.

Each has developed five outfits for their final year at the School of Design, which were eyed by iD selectors during the polytechnic's recent Collections 13 fashion show.

Selector, iD committee member and Dunedin fashion designer Charmaine Reveley, who first showed at iD as an Otago graduate in 2002, said the four collections stood out in their creativity and quality.

The garments would surprise and inspire iD audiences when modelled at the Dunedin Railway Station, she said.

''The graduates [sic] have taken some amazing old techniques and redefined them, bringing them back to life and making them contemporary. It's all about texture, shape and silhouette,'' she said.

Hand-knitting, embroidery and beading were among techniques used by the students to embellish fabric.

Miss Arthur, of Dunedin, said her collection, ''This is not skim milk'', was inspired by South African farmers and how they reinterpreted Western clothing, combining it with found materials and objects from their environment.

She knotted together materials, including her mother's hand-knitting, and focused her palette on grey, white, forest green and lilac for her menswear and womenswear.

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''I've tried to do something different. iD is definitely something you aspire to, although I wasn't expecting to be selected, but it's such a great opportunity,'' Miss Arthur said.

Her collection won two awards for innovative and directional design at the Collections 13 show.

Miss Heslop said her collection, ''Freaky princess ocean goddess'', combined pop culture, tribal culture and handcraft.

A main influence was the sea and reflections from the sky, which she portrayed with ''shine, sparkle and glamour''.

Silk, knitwear, beads and sequins featured in her womenswear.

Miss Tindley's collection, ''Metamorphosis'', also used knitwear, as well as secondhand clothing, which she reworked to create new garments which highlighted existing details.

The end result was ''warm'' androgynous outfits, showing the beauty of creases, distressed fabric and tailoring in ''second life'' clothes.

Miss Tindley was top of the class for her work.

Miss Ferguson spent the first semester in Milan, Italy on a study exchange and based her collection ''Lights on autumn/winter 2014'' on a Dadaism quote about art not existing without spectator involvement, as well as 30 still life photographs.

She used a loom to weave parts of the collection, and hand-knitted all bindings as well as two large jumpers for her womenswear.

The four Otago Polytechnic students will graduate alongside their 12 other classmates on Friday.

All but Miss Tindley were also part of a delegation to China for Shanghai Fashion Week in October.

Otago Polytechnic academic leader of fashion Margo Barton said this year's graduands were incredibly talented and she looked forward to seeing their work at iD.

''What stood out for me this year was these incredible handcraft techniques used in ways that could be produced commercially,'' she said.