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Be styled with Carson Kressley

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Looks from the Trenery A/W collection

The Westfield Be Styled Tour with Carson Kressley will work with real Australian shoppers – providing inspiration for women to dress up, experiment with fresh new looks and embrace the latest autumn winter styles.

Kicking off his tour in Sydney on Thursday April 22 at Westfield Parramatta and Miranda Carson Kressley will travel to QLD, WA, SA, VIC and the ACT until Sunday May 2, inviting the Australian public to delve into his dress up box of the latest autumn and winter fashions from Australia’s leading fashion destination.

How can I go from day to night (almost) effortlessly?

The best way to do this is with accessories. Changing out bag, belts or shoes on a simple black or navy dress can take it from the office to dinner or cocktails very easily. For example, a pencil skirt in black and a white ruffled blouse with simple jewellery and a low heel would be fine for the office. But take the same look and add a sequined cardigan, a statement necklace and perhaps a shoe in a deep rich jewel tone and you are ready for a night on the town. For guys it can be as simple as taking off the suit pants and replacing them with dark wash jeans.

Then top it off with the same dress shirt and jacket minus the tie and you are ready to go out and will still look cool.

See more style in the AWW Glamour Roll What are some wardrobe staples that are timeless?

It really depends on the person and their lifestyle. But for most women the list would include: classic jewellery, cardigans, great jeans, closed toe pumps, a great white blouse, the pencil skirt, the little black dress, the boyfriend blazer, a great watch, aviator style sunglasses for the ladies. For guys, a great pair of jeans, oxford shirts, wingtips, a jack Purcell style sneaker, driving mocs, the blue blazer, and a great suit round out the list.

What do you think is the worst fashion choice a woman can make?

I think when things are well tailored and work with a woman’s body type almost any clothes will look great, even if they are not up to the moment styles. Wearing something that is ill fitting, the wrong shape for one’s body or the wrong colour for your skin tone won’t look good no matter how expensive, chic or well designed the actual piece of clothing is.

How can women use fashion/dressing to stay looking modern?

I think it’s about updating the wardrobe seasonally. Taking stock of new, trendy items and deciding which trends will work for you. Embracing the ones that are flattering to you and make sense for your lifestyle and then mixing those trend pieces in with what you already have.

The shoe booty for fall is a perfect example. While it is fresh and new, it can easily be added to jeans and a blouse that you already have for a very fun, new look!

Stay on trend this Autumn/Winter at Westfield

How do you suggest a woman dress to feel more confident?

We all have those pieces in our closets that when we put them on we feel amazing and confident. It could be the way the fabric feels against the skin, it could be the silhouette of a powerful suit, or a colour that makes us feel vibrant. Take a cue from those items and incorporate them into more of your looks and always be on the hunt for those types of things when you hit the stores. By doing so, you will build a wardrobe, and develop a personal style, that will have you feeling great every time you get dressed.

What do you think will be the biggest trends of A/W?

  • Leather and suede,

  • The booty (the shoe, not the butt!)

  • Colour! Rich jewel tones especially.

  • Statement jewellery (bold necklaces in particular)

  • Cardigans of every shape and size

  • Feminine details mixed with tougher elements like studs

  • Denim in every wash imaginable

**Who is your style icon? Why?

** Oh this one changes for me all the time. I guess for me personally, Cary Grant. I happen to love old film and clothes of that era so he is the perfect embodiment of that. He just always looks impeccably pulled together and tailored. As far as a contemporary style icon I would have to say the Italian heir, Lako Elkmann. He wears the most beautiful things and can mix elements so effortlessly. He is truly dashing and ultimately cool.

Get Carson’s advice on your own style at Westfield this April/May.

**NSW: 22nd April, Westfield Parramatta 1pm, Westfield Miranda 6pm

NSW: 23rd April: Westfield Eastgardens 10.30

ACT: 23rd April: Westfield Woden 6pm

QLD: 24th April: Westfield Carindale 10.30am, Westfield Chermside 2.30pm

NSW: 27th April: Westfield Kotara 12.30pm

WA: 28th April: Westfield Whitford City 10am, Westfield Carousel 1.30pm

SA: 29th April: Westfield Marion 10.30am

VIC:29th April: Westfield Fountain Gate 6pm

NSW:1st May: Westfield Chatswood 10.30am, Westfield Burwood 3pm

NSW:2nd May: Westfield Penrith 10.30am, Westfield Hornsby 2.30pm

**

For more information head to www.westfield.com.au

Your say: What are your favourite styles at the moment? Share with us below.

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Review: *Beneath Hill 60*

A scene from Beneath Hill 60

If there’s one genre Aussie filmmakers have feared to tread since 1981’sGallipoli, it has been the sweeping war epic. But director Jeremy Sims now takes us underground, beneath Hill 60, for his ambitious foray.

Brendan Cowell leads as Oliver Woodward, the new commanding officer of a group of civilian miners charged with digging their way below the enemy on the Western Front in World War I. He earns his stripes and the respect of his soldiers by crawling through the dark, but above ground, to attack an enemy position. Their success sees them promoted “up the line” to Belgium and beneath the famous Hill 60.

The tunnels they inhabit have been established by Canadians and left to the Australians to maintain and have ready to explode beneath the enemy. No-one is sure when, which adds to the tension, and the mine is in danger of collapse. The Australians make controversial changes, but engineering innovations do not make for compelling turning points in the film.

Most of the tension comes from seeing the German perspective, and the almost obligatory obstinate English officers, played with relish by Chris Haywood and John Stanton. (In years gone by, the producers would be sending for late actor Edward Woodward to perform these roles.)

Flashbacks are interspersed throughout the film, back to Oliver Woodward’s blossoming love for the effervescent Marjorie (Bella Heathcote) and his decision to go to war. Cowell plays Woodward as a picture of stoic loyalty and awkward emotion.

It’s a much more reserved mix for Cowell who seems to struggle with this un-Australian characterisation and an unbreaking face. But he is an understated character and improves as the film goes on.

Sims uses an ever so slightly unsteady camera to keep us on edge underground, with wide-sweeping shots overloaded with lots of Melbourne Symphony Orchestra overtures for the above-ground shots. It’s when Sims and his actors are in warm golden glowing close-ups in the mines that they all seem more comfortable and his direction more assured.

There is a fine ensemble of actors here. Playing Norman Morris, Gyton Grantley has gone from strength to strength sinceUnderbelly. Harrison Gilbertson impresses as the nervous youngster Frank Tiffin, as does Steve Le Marquand as the resident hardnut, Bill Fraser, Mark Coles Smith shines as the Aboriginal miner Billy Bacon and Jacqueline McKenzie strolls through her role as Emma Waddell.

But there is not a single bad performance — just some are more rounded than others. But the biggest surprise is Bella Heathcote who captures the camera the strongest.

Beneath Hill 60doesn’t tamper with the epic war story formula. A struggle against the odds, men rising above themselves, a foreground of mateship against a background of romance and non-stop explosions and the choices between life and death — all the elements are delivered as well as almost any Hollywood epic.

It may not have the same impact asGallipolidid, but it is a film that all those involved will be proud of.

Beneath Hill 60is in cinemas now.

Your say: Have you seenBeneath Hill 60? What did you think? Share with us below.

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Rodger Corser: The baby we thought we’d never have!

Rodger Corser: The baby we thought we'd never have!

Four years ago Renae Berry should have been the happiest she’d ever been. An in-demand musical theatre star and actress, she had the world at her feet and one of Australia’s most popular actors – Underbelly and Rush star Rodger Corser – on her arm.

Then she received the news nobody wants to hear. And the initial prognosis wasn’t good.

“I had had irregular bleeding, so I went to see a specialist, and they found cancerous cells,” says Renae, sitting in the Melbourne flat she shares with husband Rodger.

“They weren’t sure whether the cells had come from my uterus or cervix. They did a biopsy, and then I had head-to-toe scans because they thought it could also be in another part of my body. But they didn’t seem to know what was going on. “It was a really terrifying experience.”

Only a year into their relationship, Rodger and Renae’s world was thrown into free fall.

“Renae had a doctor tell her he wanted to give her a hysterectomy straight away. And then he basically said her life expectancy might only be four to five years after that,” Rodger says slowly, clearly still affected by the frightening prognosis.

“He told me that because of the severity of the cancer, the best way to eliminate it from my system was to have a hysterectomy,” Renae adds. “But there was no way I was just going to cop all of that.”

Seeking a second opinion, Renae changed doctors and embarked on the invasive rounds of tests and surgeries all over again.

But this time, the news was much better – unable to find any more of the cancer, her doctor told her she was out of the woods. It looked as though the cancer hadn’t spread.

Renae had her life back – but the 12 months it took to get to that point had taken its toll.

“It was a tough time for both of us,” says Rodger, looking over at his beautiful wife, who is, perhaps somewhat miraculously, just over 15 weeks pregnant with their first child.

“That time definitely brought us closer together. It would be a test for any couple, really – you would either feel closer from the experience or it would tear you apart.

But we faced it together – and we got through it.”

For the story see this week’s Woman’s Day, on sale April 19, 2010.

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Inside Lisa “cougar” Curry’s toy boy world!

Inside Lisa "cougar" Curry's toy boy world!

Lisa Curry is living life to the full since her brush with death and marriage split. She’s left one toyboy for another who’s even younger! Jonica Bray reports.

Lisa Curry is firmly in the driving seat in her latest love affair with a hunk two decades her junior. And friends say she loves being back in control after the heartbreak of her marriage split with Grant Kenny.

Her new man is 28-year-old musician Joel Walkenhorst.

Two weeks ago the couple proclaimed their love to the world as they played on a jet ski in the waters off Mooloolaba on the Sunshine Coast. They are rarely apart as Lisa, 47, forges ahead with a new life less than 18 months after her separation.

While Grant, 46, has immersed himself in his $80 million property and aviation empire, the Curry Kenny Group, cougar Lisa, has been seen out, dating a series of younger men, including Joel and his friend, Melbourne salesman Adrian Hunter.

Lisa began a relationship with Adrian, who is 13 years her junior, just 12 weeks after leaving Grant. But since Valentine’s Day, she has had eyes only for Joel, who seems equally smitten with Lisa.

Friends say they are head over heels in love and spend every available minute in each other’s company. Joel stays over at Lisa’s three-bedroom, beachside apartment most nights.

“They are together all the time,” says one neighbour. “They look so happy and can’t keep their hands off each other. Joel even drives Lisa’s car around town and things are clearly getting serious between them.”

Originally from Hamilton in Victoria, Joel made the move to Queensland for a new start after a bad break-up.

Singer-songwriter Joel also works as an actor and model, and has a regular deejay spot at trendy Deco Bar & Restaurant in Mooloolaba.

Lisa and Joel met and became friends last year, even attending the Gold Coast premiere of Australian film Charlie & Boots as “platonic” friends last August.

But their relationship stepped up a level on the most romantic night of the year, Valentine’s Day, according to one of the bar staff at Deco.

“I noticed something change between them that night,” the woman reveals. “Lisa was at Deco with friends, and Joel joined her after performing.

They kept looking at each other and there was definitely something going on. You could just tell.

For the story see this week’s Woman’s Day, on sale April 19, 2010.

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Ada: The tears behind our marriage split

Ada: The tears behind our marriage split

Despite hitting a rocky patch, Ada Nicodemou is doing all she can to rescue her faltering marriage, reports Anthony Stavrinos.

Looking forlorn and distressed, Home And Away star Ada Nicodemou cut a sad and lonely figure as she set off for her day’s work commitments last Monday.

The normally upbeat and energetic actress fans know and love as eternally optimistic Leah Patterson-Baker on the hit soap looked like a woman who’d had the wind knocked out of her. And for good reason.

Just the day before, reports had made their way to a Sydney newspaper that her three-year marriage to Sydney restaurateur Chrys Xipolitas was all but over.

And as news of their split broke, it seemed the couple had decided to cut their losses and go their separate ways. Ada was even spotted without her beautiful engagement ring.

Rumours of marital problems have been circulating since last year, with one family friend saying they’d been separated for weeks.

“Her family thought Chrys was the luckiest man in the world to get Ada,” the friend reports. “No-one was surprised when cracks began showing.”

But just when friends thought an official announcement was imminent, Woman’s Day can exclusively reveal that Ada, 32, slipped her wedding ring back on and decided to give their marriage another shot after a counselling session with 36-year-old Chrys.

There is no doubt the couple, who married in February 2007, haven’t had the easiest of unions. They’ve struggled with hectic work schedules, heartbreaking fertility issues, a devastating fire at Chrys’s restaurant and his tragic battle with depression.

It’s this last problem that has reportedly brought the pair back together, with Ada standing by Chrys as he deals with the debilitating illness.

Friends have speculated that the couple’s problems began after Zippo’s, the seafood restaurant Chrys co-owns in Sydney’s Blakehurst, was gutted by fire soon after they married. The blaze put great financial pressure on them.

For the story see this week’s Woman’s Day, on sale April 19, 2010.

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Rove and Tasma: Our Hollywood home!

Rove and Tasma: Our Hollywood home!

The Aussie couple put down roots in a $1.2 million mansion in LA as they start their new life – and a family.

Perched on a rugged hillside in an isolated canyon outside LA, Rove McManus and Tasma Walton’s luxurious new home is the perfect base for the Aussie couple as they prepare to take on Hollywood – and start a much-longed-for family.

Although Rove has already made some inroads with a string of appearances on US TV, the couple have been most consumed with nest building of late, as they settle into their new home.

With no neighbours in sight, and surrounded by trees on every side, the house is the perfect setting for the nature loving couple, who regularly visit a nearby garden centre to pick up landscaping supplies – including a hummingbird feeder. Renowned for their love of animals, Tasma and Rove are self-confessed obsessive bird-watchers.

“It’s important because the world is so frenetic,” Tasma says. “I love bushwalking, and Rove’s a twitcher, so I’ve started enjoying bird-spotting, too.”

Tasma has even admitted Rove had a rather novel trick up his sleeve when he was romancing her. It seems she was won over by a bird dance he performed for her.

“That is why I fell in love with this man,” she has said.

With plenty of room for children in their new house, the couple won’t need to upgrade their lodgings any time soon.

“More and more, the idea of having a child appeals,” says Tasma, who married Rove in a secret Broome ceremony last June. “And it hasn’t always been that way.”

It’s unclear whether career or family developments were up for discussion when the pair made an excursion to a local psychic bookshop where readings take place.

After an extended visit, they emerged smiling. While Rove has remained tight-lipped about his next career move, he has chatted with top-rating talk-show host Chelsea Handler about the possibility of landing a more permanent US gig.

For the story see this week’s Woman’s Day, on sale April 19, 2010.

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Kerry Katona lashes out: Brian hardly knows his daughters

Kerry Katona lashes out: Brian hardly knows his daughters

Kerry Katona talks for the first time about her ex-husband Brian McFadden, his lack of involvement with their two children and his relationship with Delta Goodrem. Louise Gannon reports.

Brian McFadden is riding high on a new wave of success with his judging role on Australia’s Got Talent, but according to his ex-wife, former British pop star Kerry Katona, he has so little involvement with their two children, that their seven-year-old daughter Lilly-Sue “doesn’t know who he is”, and he only phones five times a year.

Insisting she has left her battle with drugs behind for good after her recent split from second husband Mark Croft, and revealing she now has her bipolar disorder under control thanks to a healthy new lifestyle, Kerry says things are starting to improve again between her and Brian.

She says she is hopeful he will become more involved with their kids.

But throughout her last marriage, Kerry had to face a barrage of criticism from 30-year-old Brian, who lives 16,000km away from his daughters, Molly, 8, and Lilly-Sue, in Sydney.

“On a couple of occasions his mum tried to go for legal custody, but never Brian,” Kerry told Britain’s News of the World, insisting she never badmouths Brian to the kids, and denying reports she took cocaine while pregnant. “However bad I was, I always knew my children were safe,” she told the paper. “I always kept the drugs away from my kids.

“I do the homework with them, bath them, put the right bear in their arms to sleep with, pick them up from school, do the parents’ evenings.

“Brian just isn’t interested like that. “He phones the girls about five times a year. I don’t want to slag him off because he is their dad but whenever I’m in trouble he lays into me.

“Lilly doesn’t even really know who he is. Molly still thinks he left me because I changed my hair colour. I’ve never told them what really happened, that he left me for another woman.

“Brian has never wanted custody of the girls. If there’s a problem I can hardly ever get hold of him. I have to go through his parents, who I have to say are amazing. They dote on the girls. But Brian has a new life in Australia now.

“I’m not bitter. I’m just sad for him. He has to live with himself about it. He’s missing out on two amazing little girls.”

For the story see this week’s Woman’s Day, on sale April 19, 2010.

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SJP scary skinny!

SJP scary skinny!

Marriage woes and a hectic work schedule are taking their toll on the fragile actress. Clare Rigden reports.

As Sarah Jessica Parker did her regular school run last week with seven-year-old son James, it wasn’t the star’s A-list status that had people staring.

Her skinny jeans and a fitted singlet revealed an excruciatingly thin body, prompting concerns that the stress of juggling her movie and fashion careers with motherhood and her increasingly fraught relationship with husband Matthew Broderick may be taking its toll.

“She’s so skinny and skeletal,” an onlooker told Star magazine. “She looks unhealthy.”

With the second Sex And The City film debuting next month, workaholic Sarah has never been busier, or more stretched for time to spend with Matthew and her kids.

As well as being executive producer on the film, she has also recently taken on the role of president and chief creative officer for designer label Halston.

A hands-on mother to James, Sarah, 45, also has 10-month-old twins, Marion and Tabitha, to care for. Only recently she was reduced to tears during an interview when she revealed she often had to resort to seeing her baby daughters on Skype.

For the story see this week’s Woman’s Day, on sale April 19, 2010.

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Cruel attacks on Oprah: The lovers, the lies and scandals

Cruel attacks on Oprah: The lovers, the lies and scandals

A shocking new tell-all book lays bare the TV host’s private world, and she’s not going to be happy, reports Matthew Denby.

Oprah Winfrey has been rocked by a bombshell new biography, which delves into her controversial private life and airs allegations she invented many of her stories about her tough upbringing.

The star, who won over fans with her story of overcoming a childhood so poor the only pets she had were cockroaches, is stunned by claims in Kitty Kelley’s book, Oprah: A Biography, that she made the whole thing up.

“Where Oprah got that nonsense about growing up in filth and ’roaches I have no idea,” her cousin Katharine Carr Esters told the author.

“I’ve confronted her and asked, ‘Why do you tell such lies?’“Oprah told me, ‘That’s what people want to hear. The truth is boring.’”

More disturbingly, Katharine says no-one in Oprah’s family believes her story that she was sexually molested as a child – a situation Kitty admits is probably down to the family’s denial.

“I don’t believe a bit of it,” Katharine told the author. “No-one in the family believes her stories, but now that she’s so rich and powerful everyone is afraid to contradict her.”

The book also includes upsetting allegations that Oprah was a teenage prostitute. She has long been open about how her years of abuse led to promiscuity, but her half-sister, Patricia Lloyd, says things got a lot worse than that.

“After becoming sexually promiscuous, Oprah devised another way to make money,” says Patricia. “Whenever a guy arrived at our door, Oprah would give popsicles to me and our younger brother, Jeffrey, and say, ‘You two go out on the porch and play now.’”

Later in life she became more discreet. The author alleges that in 1989 Oprah paid an ex-boyfriend, Tim Watts, $50,000 to keep quiet about her gay brother who died of AIDS, and allegedly about her own love life, too.

“He said she did not want him to talk about her brother being gay,” said Judy Lee Colteryahn, who also dated Tim. “Tim also said he heard about some lesbian affairs.”

The book describes how Oprah was fixated on veteran US TV host Diane Sawyer, with the pair sharing “giggly late-night phone calls” and Oprah lavishing gifts on her, including “gigantic sprays of orchids and a one-carat diamond toe ring”.

For the story see this week’s Woman’s Day, on sale April 19, 2010.

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Aussie woman on the front line in Afghanistan

Aussie woman on the front line in Afghanistan

There’s more to the war in Afghanistan than terrorism. Glen Williams meets the brave Aussie women resurrecting ravaged communities.

Up until now, it’s always been surreal. A dark item on the nightly news.

Afghanistan – a place associated with buzz words such as “war on terror” and “Taliban”; home of the suicide bomber.

“A bastard of a place” is how my true-blue dad describes it, after seeing snippets of it on the news and hearing about it on the wireless. “You wouldn’t want to bloody go there, mate.”

And I always agreed with him. Yet here I am, in the hull of a Hercules alongside soldiers, aid workers, an acclaimed photographer and a war artist from the Australian War Memorial.

After a few days’ training at a vast air base in the Middle East, learning to handle guns and recognise landmines, we are about to be plonked down in a war zone – the front line – in Tarin Kowt, a town circled by jagged mountains in southern Afghanistan’s Oruzgan province.

Woman’s Day has been invited by the Australian Government’s overseas aid agency, AusAID, to see first-hand how the Australian military is bringing new light to this all-too-dark, long-running conflict in Afghanistan.

We will experience life behind the wire in Kamp Holland, the Dutch base where Australian and Dutch soldiers work side by side with civilian workers. And we will meet some of the amazing women who are sharing in this mammoth task of restoring peace to this danger-fraught part of the world – all with one goal: to return Afghanistan to the Afghans.

Read the full story in this week’s Woman’s Day, on sale April 19, 2010.

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