Festival of the frock brings out Sydney’s social tribes - Sydney Morning Herald

It’s been a while since the social tribes of Sydney and beyond have been able to converge in one place, and after last year’s Australian Fashion Week was cancelled, this week’s festival of the frock at Redfern’s Carriageworks certainly saw them coming out in droves.

Julie Bishop attends Fashion Week to give a tribute to Carla Zampatti. Credit:Brook Mitchell

Faster than a speeding Boeing, former foreign affairs minister Julie Bishop darted across the Nullarbor to claim her front-row position at the runway shows.

In fact, Australia’s freshly minted International Attire Attache was pretty much at every show during the week, changing outfits as quickly as the omnipresent social media influencers and posing for the obligatory front row snaps.

J.Bish was taking particular note of the ambitious gowns sent down the runway by emerging designer Jordan Dalah, which gave the age-old “does my bum look big in this” adage an entirely new twist. Can’t wait to see her in that red number.

Lady in red at the Jordan Dalah show.Credit:Lee Oliveira

The return of Red

It was great to see the return of Eileen “Red” Bond to the front row, one of the great social icons of Australia since the 1980s. Splitting her time between Sydney and Perth, she still manages to keep the sort of social life most Millennials would find completely daunting.

Bond, Eileen Bond. Not Anna Wintour or Mrs Balenciaga.Credit:Patty Credit

So when a twentysomething approached her on Wednesday asking if she was “Anna Wintour”, the bobbed bon vivant wearing her trademark bug-eyed glasses had a good chuckle, then later regaled PS with how her dry cleaner thought her name was “Mrs Balenciaga” because of all the logos from the high-end fashion house she drops off there.

“It’s really great to be able to get out and about again, isn’t it?” she said. “I don’t care who they think I am, gave me a bloody good laugh!”

The pack of RHOVs

The Real Housewives of Vaucluse (or as PS calls them, “a Pack of RHOVs”) bravely ventured from Joh Bailey’s Double Bay salon with fresh “blowies” into the backstreets of Redfern in their huge luxury 4WDs, grid-locking the streets as they forged their way in convoy like a fleet of Sherman tanks en route to the frontline, or as it were in this case, Rebecca Vallance’s 10th anniversary runway show.

Models walk the runway during the Rebecca Vallance show.Credit:Brook Mitchell

You could hear the ladies coming a mile off, the deafening clackety-clack of all those Louboutin heels and shrill Vaucluse accents – “Haaaaiiii Darl” – cutting through the air like high-pressured pneumatic drills tearing through yet another Calacatta marble splashback.

Taking a break from re-re-redecorating their harbourside castles, many of the gals were keen to pick up a new cocktail gown for next Thursday night’s Sydney Children’s Hospital Gold Dinner fundraiser/selfie-fest.

No doubt a hot topic around many of the tables – after congratulating each other on their husbands’ tax-deductible philanthropy (it’s an unquestionably worthy cause) – will be the increasingly toxic WhatsApp parent groups which, frankly, are out of control. Raised by RHOVs indeed.

Charlie’s Angels: Male models Blake Sutherland, Harry Barclay and Lochie Colin.Credit:Patty Huntington

The gender benders

The great gender debate was null and void at Fashion Week. Several shows featured many “non-binary” models, while others cast male models in women’s garments. No one blinked an eye.

Three lads – models Blake Sutherland, Harry Barclay and Lochie Colin – who strutted down the runway in Alice McCall’s excellent and high-energy comeback show could have stepped out of an episode of Charlie’s Angels (the original TV series) replete with huge flicks, impossible platform heels and clearly undercover ... especially the frosty, take-no-prisoners blond (Harry) who bore a striking resemblance to Miss Vladivostok 1974.

“Sisters”, husband and wife designers Tim and Katie-Louise Nicol-Ford, enjoy pushing boundaries at Australian Fashion Week.Credit:Andrew Hornery

Husband and wife demi-couturiers Tim and Katie-Louise Nicol-Ford certainly know how to make an entrance, which they did throughout the week in an array of sartorial splendour.

The two are often mistaken for sisters, but say they enjoy pushing the boundaries and describe their label Nicol & Ford as a “love letter” between them.

“We certainly sit a little outside of the norm in Sydney, and find our aesthetics frequently overwhelm people, which means that our message is getting across. Fashion is the ultimate playpen for sharing your vision and pushing boundaries,” Katie-Louise explained.

“We are both frequently misgendered, thought to be sisters or theatre actors. We are constantly asked what production we are taking part in – to which we always answer, ‘the theatre of life’.”

The show-stopper

It was a show-stopping moment when “deadly” Aboriginal drag queen Felicia Foxx glided down the runway of the First Nations Fashion + Design show on Wednesday in her spectacular Gumnut ball gown.

Gumnut queen: Indigenous drag queen Felicia Foxx walks the runway in the First Nations Fashion Show wearing the creation by artist Paul McCann.Credit:Getty

Featuring 21 metres of organza and hand-painted fabric covered in traditional designs, festooned with embroidered gum leaves and “dripping” in 60 golden gumnuts, the look was topped off with a golden gumnut tiara and earrings, all of it created by clever Indigenous artist Paul McCann.

Queen Elizabeth II in Sydney wearing her wattle gown in 1954.

The dress also hearkened to another queenly fashion moment that occurred in this town in 1954. During her first tour of Australia, Queen Elizabeth II wore a Norman Hartnell-designed mimosa gold tulle dress adorned with sparkling gold wattle motifs, teamed with a diamond tiara and necklace, to her first glittering evening engagement in Sydney, a glamorous banquet inside the David Jones ballroom.

McCann told PS the silhouette of his confection was definitely reminiscent of Hartnell’s iconic design, but his creation was an homage to his grandmother, a proud Indigenous woman of a similar vintage to QEII also named Elizabeth. “And for me, my grandmother was and will always be my true queen,” he told PS.

The ‘hijabistas’

While the usual social media influencers stormed the courtesy champagne bar, the rise of Instagram has also allowed for the proliferation of entirely new fashionistas long neglected in this country, such as the raft of self-proclaimed “hijabistas” who attended this year’s shows representing Australia’s Muslim community.

Kishama Meridian and Stephanie Lea Panthenos among the “hijabistas” at Australian Fashion Week.Credit:Andrew Hornery

“Modest fashion is more than just about the clothes, it’s about a whole way of thinking and living. And you know, Aussie Muslim girls like fashion just as much as anyone else, we just wear it a bit differently,” explained Kishama Meridian, who has 277,000 followers on Instagram and looked effortlessly chic in her silk printed headscarf teamed with a Louis Vuitton handbag and caramel toned pant-suit, which probably used less fabric than some of the Romance Was Born Miss Havisham-esque bridal gowns.

The street dwellers

Off the runway it is all about “street fashion”.

Some budding fashionistas will dress and turn up to a Fashion Week venue – with no intention of actually seeing a show – just to mill around outside in the hope someone will “discover” them and take their photo.

Quenched: Imogen Anthony at Fashion Week.Credit:Don Arnold/Wireimage

Others are more seasoned at the art form, such as Jodi Gordon who gave quite a performance in her (laddered) knee-high stockings and overcoat. Meanwhile Imogen Anthony, best known as Kyle Sandilands’ ex-girlfriend, guaranteed herself coverage from those arbiters of good taste at The Daily Mail when she arrived in a bizarre fish-scale covered “catch of the day” bodysuit and mask.

However there is also a term among the street fashion photographers for those who linger just that little too long near the lenses: “thirsty”. They’re the ones pretending to be making animated phone calls or constantly checking their emails, apparently oblivious to the wall of photographers in their direct line of fire.

Former New York Times photographer Lee Oliveira, who is now based in Sydney, preferred to focus on the less obvious “looks”, though he added: “I would have liked to see more individual and personalised style rather than someone wearing the latest piece from a brand just to get their photo taken.”

The verdict

Just to keep the doors open after the past 18 months has been no small feat for anyone in retail, let alone an Australian-based fashion label.

Fashion spectacle: The Romance Was Born show at this year’s Australian Fashion Week.Credit:Stefan Gossatti/Getty

That Fashion Week could happen with real models in venues housing hundreds of real, living audience members was not only a privilege, it was a bloody miracle.

Women’s Wear Daily Australasian correspondent Patty Huntington agreed this year, the 25th Australian Fashion Week, was certainly a historic one.

“It might have seemed a little crazy getting bussed off-site on multiple occasions only to gather around a screen showing a designer’s new fashion film, but the organisers bent over backwards to include designers in whatever format they chose to participate with – and with the 18 months everyone has had, it’s pretty impressive that around 90 per cent of the shows have actually been live,” she told PS.

“We saw some exciting new talent bubbling through, particularly on the Indigenous front ... they really made their mark this year, and not before time.”

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2021-06-04 19:00:00Z
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