For those who like to know, I am wearing a light knit chocolate Brown dress I picked up in an Athens opshop in 2019; a 90s United Colours of Benetton Black fishnet weave top that I think I found in an opshop Outback circa 2015, but really it’s the bag that is of some relevance.
By the way, international and/or Americanised readers, “opshop” is the shortened form of “Opportunity Shop”, what we call thrift and charity shops.
Lady Millie Tallis of Melbourne, Australia coined the term in the 1920s. Millie Tallis was quite a Woman, a former showgirl turned philanthropist, she started the practice of “opportunity shopping” to raise funds for a hospital’s x-ray department.
STYLANDERtv’s S2 episodes feature other such vintage information and information about vintage, please do join me. The episodes are no longer LIVE but they’re crackling.
An audio article dropping 16/04 is about the ‘return’ of Australian Fashion Week.
AFW, like all fashion platforms, is meant to launch emerging, and showcase established design talent, but it eventually became what it was unfairly dubbed when it opened in 1996, “Aus Fashion Weak”.
I did write ‘return’ with a tone because there has been an Australian fashion platform that lasted a week but the platform, the event, the shows, all started to look bedraggled. NOT because it became a consumer-focus event. Fashion events should be for the customers.
Not everyone who wants to attend fashion shows is part of The Elite Gang BUT it was a bad move on the previous managing group’s part to make the event so accessible that it became just that, an event for social media rather than a launchpad of talent.
… frankly I don’t see the appeal of fashion shows if you’re not IN fashion nor INTO fashion. I expand on all of this in the AUDIO ARTICLE [dropping 16/04]
Anyway, AFW is back.
Not just back, but also back in the hands of the founding fathers.
It’s always fathers innit, yet hello? “blokes look”? What about the Carriers?
Speaking of which…
The bag shown is a forest green, canvas tote bag from The Daily Edited, a super popular monogramming label that is now online only, and
not quite what it was.
Those bags were free and personalised for fashion week delegates aka all of us there. I shudder to think of the cost but showcasing one’s art and wares requires investment in promotion of all kinds, especially in today’s commerce markets saturated by loudness. Everything we do is a stock exchange.
Promotional Goodwill is an expensive gamble.
I love this bag for many reasons, not just nostalgic and ‘wanker’ value.
People made this bag. People invested their dreams in this label. A young woman monogrammed my initials on the bag and she had been doing that all day. I’m not a “bleeding heart’, panpsychism is not esoteric. Everything is alive.
I love being at fashion weeks. Yes it’s cool to be seated, especially in the front row but that’s for public relations show. I and now we, prefer to be front and centre in the pit, capturing the zeitgeist, fashion industry being the most visual decipher of the times.
