AN INTIMATE EVENING WITH CAMILLA FRANKS
*This video is of the evening I attended, hope you enjoy…
Camilla Franks has recently held some fabulously colourful evenings to showcase her most recent ‘Babylon’ collection. The intimate evening I was fortunate enough to attend was held in Brisbane and hosted by Living Silk who is the largest stockists of her designs. The girls at Living Silk and KD Public Relations put on a fabulous evening at Clovely Estate in Red Hill full of food, wine, a dance or two and Camilla’s huge personality. I don’t know how it all fit into the same room!
It is one thing to meet the designer and quite another to be swooped into her arms (draped in copious lengths of rainbow silk), kissed, and treated like your the Queen of Sheba. This is how Camilla greeted every single person in the room after showing off her latest Babylon collection and presenting a hands on demonstration, showing the many ways you can wear her garments.
Honestly, if you buy just one of her kaftan dresses this Spring/Summer you will get four or five dresses in one. ‘Hike the hem into your knickers to make it shorter’, she says. ‘Once I was demonstrating this with a model and well, she had no knickers on.’
I would normally say that the ‘Queen of Kaftans’ is well on her way to becoming a household name but it seems she already is. The beauty of her designs is that they suit everyone. From the older (but magnificently beautiful) woman sitting in the front row draped in one of Camilla’s less recent designs, to the young 20-something who sat next to me in the most adorable jumpsuit adorned with one of Camilla’s trade mark, bright, bohemian prints
With magnificent green-blue, shimmering eye shadow, a long tousle of brunette locks swept to one side with a huge purple flower, Camilla is a feast for the eyes. A true ambassador of her brand, Camilla has managed to perfect that untamed, bohemian, exotic, yet polished look. Hard to pull off people! Hard to pull off!
As if she couldn’t get any more perfect, she is also completely humble. Once I finished spilling words of praise for her and her brand – like a 16 year old girl stuttering in front of Justin Beiber – I asked her about the book she recently published. It’s a tribute to women around the world and titled ‘Women of the World’. Fancy that? As she began to explain that the proceeds from the book has raised $85,000 so far and that the money goes towards funding the Laos Economic Empowerment of Women in the Textile Project establishment, I couldn’t help but feel a huge warmth from this woman. The funding helps women in less fortunate countries gain economic independence and teaches them all about fabric and how to use it. Seriously wanted to hug this women then and there and jump on board her express train. I settled for buying her book, which I tracked down at David Jones.
From having models this particular evening of all shapes and sizes, to her larger than life presence, it is obvious that she loves and adores the female shape. When one audience member asked, ‘Are they one size fits all?’, Camilla whipped around and said, ‘Yes. Except for a few pieces that are labeled 1 or 2. We don’t label our garments small, medium, large. My designs don’t discriminate.’ All the women in the room applauded and I think there was some definite wolf whistles coming from the bubbly group of ladies behind me.
It is obvious Camilla loves women and women love Camilla. Hell, I love Camilla! She has found her niche in bohemian, cruise luxe and after attending an intimate evening with Camilla all I want to do is buy every piece in the collection, start wearing too many bangles and rings, and move to the Bahamas, where I will never confine my feet to shoes again. This is the affect she has on her audience and her refreshing take on size zero is something to admire.
