Keri Craig’s sturdy book recounts her career in fashion design along with her lavish lifestyle

FASHION designer Keri Craig’s sturdy new tome Keri Craig: The Label, The Lady, The Lifestyle weighs in at 8.5kg and costs an eye-watering $275.

Fashion designer Keri Craig. Picture: AAP/Ric Frearson

YOUR diarist popped into the Keri Craig Emporium in Brisbane Arcade yesterday to try and pick up a copy of the fashion designer’s sturdy new tome Keri Craig: The Label, The Lady, The Lifestyle. He was ashen-faced to discover the book, which weighs in at 8.5kg, costs $275! The book recounts Craig’s long career in fashion design along with the lavish lifestyle of her and husband Trevor, who runs a successful cattle business. There is a big section on the couple’s private airplane, which allows them to avoid the tedium of commercial air travel.

“At first a luxury, it soon became a necessity as Keri and Trevor found themselves spending more time in the sky,” Keri recounts. “Criss-crossing continents and flying into countless airports, they longed to find freedom from the tedium of convention. The jet set called with invitations to faraway places. Requests from dignitaries beckoned them abroad, flying in and out of destinations: London, New York, Hong Kong, Tahiti and the Maldives. The itinerary was a string of dots around the globe. A more customised way to travel, one with luxury, convenience and discretion, was called for. The constant dance around the globe that was their lifestyle at last became a foxtrot. ‘Come fly with me,’ sang Sinatra… Keri and Trevor listened, and they did...” Wow!

We hear the book is flying off the shelves, as much as a book that weighs more than a bowling ball can fly. We hear Craig gave a copy of the book to each of her staff for Christmas.

TOOLS OF THE TRADE

IT’S official. Master Builders Queensland and Housing and Public Works Minister Mick De Brenni have kissed and made up. You might recall that the peak building body was at loggerheads with De Brenni last year over new legislation to introduce project bank accounts (PBAs) that will require builders to pay money into trust accounts to pay subbies. Master Builders even went to the extent of lampooning De Brenni on big billboards during the election campaign. Apparently it’s now all water under the bridge with De Brenni and builders yesterday chowing down on smoked salmon and grass fed eye fillet at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre as part of an industry leaders lunch. At the end of the lunch date, Master Builders Queensland executive director Grant Galvin presented the minister with a tool belt, adding there was a “place at the front where you can put your PBAs.” The minister quickly shot back: “But that’s not where you said I should put my PBAs.”

MEET THE FOKKERS

CONGRATULATIONS to Alliance Airlines which rolled out of its latest aircraft, a Fokker 100, yesterday followed by a celebration for 150 guests that included a launch of the carrier’s own brand of craft beer. From January this year, Brisbane-based Alliance Airlines became the world’s largest operator of Fokker aircraft, with 32 planes. Founded in Brisbane in 2002, it has been a successful charter service but now has regular passenger flights between Brisbane and Port Macquarie, Bundaberg and Gladstone.

OLYMPIC WIN

SEVEN West Media director Teresa Dyson was in an upbeat mood yesterday as guest speaker of Michael Johnson’s East Coast forum at upmarket lunch venue Urbane. Dyson, a director of Opera Queensland and a member of the Foreign Investment Review Board was buoyed by the broadcaster’s share price and ratings.

Seven West stock jumped 18.6 per cent on Tuesday after a sizeable half year profit jump and the Winter Olympics have helped Seven collect its first official ratings period win for the year.