Main picture, top Sam D’Agostino
Caulfield Cup Carnival fashion ambassador Erica Heynatz, with glamourous wrangler for the day, Rebecca Maddern, and model Kasia Z.
Melbourne Racing Club’s Members’ annual Trackside Luncheon is a kneezup rated unmissable by many of this city’s most fashionable women. Members muster clusters of 10 guests per table, everybody frocks to the nines, and gossip cranks up to jet engine decibels. Flutes wave, crockery clanks and a hapless host shooshes valiantly from the flowery stage.
To. No. Avail.
Voxfrock wonders, sometimes, why they even bother with the shooshing. Hundreds of peacocky women in their fanciest frocks and loftiest spring spirits, will simply not be shooshed. Channel 7‘s glamourous newsreader Rebecca Maddern was the official lady-wrangler this year and her delicate, staccato triplicates: shh, shh, shh, did dent the cacophony a couple of times but, only briefly. (Champion effort nonetheless, Miss Maddern.) The Caulfield Cup Carnival‘s fashion ambassador, Erica Heynatz, and veteren stylist Franco Schifilliti, prompted short pauses in the roar with their racewear tips and tricks, but also, only briefly.
Two of the marvellously flambouyant gentlemen mentioned, Stylist Franco Schifilliti, left, with legendary milliner, Peter Jago.
To Voxfrock, the cacophony-that-will-not-be-silenced, the roar-that-has-confounded-event-managers-since-Eve-threw-her-first-A-list-party-for-Adam, is the joyous sound of womanly friendships and warm introductions cracking on and should be left alone. It’s the backtrack of meeting and greeting and – think about it – what Melbourne’s Spring Racing Carnival is really all about. (Aside from the horses, natch.)
We love that sound. We LOVE that sound. The; “You look gorgeous!” and, “Where did you get that bag?!” and, “Let’s go shopping for the Cup tomorrow!” are music to Voxfrockian ears. At dozens of such kneezups, in dozens of years, we have observed friendships so warm and close they’re borderline sisterly and just as tolerant and witty. At Caulfield’s Trackside luncheon for example, the whimsical vintage pave diamond brooch worn so elegantly by one guest, Katrina Shackell, was pinned to her navy silk frock by its owner, Mandy Catanach. “She thought my dress was too plain,” Mrs. Shackell cheerfully confided, “So she took off one of her brooches and pinned it on me!” Mrs. Catanach owns Catanach Jewellers and is a major sponsor of Caulfield’s Carnival. The brooch she pinned so nonchalantly to her friend’s frock is a priceless family heirloom worn by Queen Alexandra in the 1920s.
Voxfrock met dozens of such women and a few of the marvellously flambouyant men many admire. We recorded shrieks of greeting, earnest chats on the merits of this frock, that hat, and hoots of laughter. Lots of laughter. The only sustained quiet we clocked, was during Miss Maddern’s onstage chat with Michelle Payne, a young, quiet spoken jockey who momentarily mesmerised the glamourous hoards with her simple story. Miss Payne had just ridden in Race 2, quickly showered and frocked up for her spot on stage, fresh and sweet as a spring daisy. She described her life as the youngest of 10 children (most also involved in racing), and her pleasure recently when she and her disabled brother, a strapper, had encountered each other in the same stables before the same race. Pretty good, she reckoned. And, that triggered a hush. Before the joyous roar returned, on steroids.
Which brings us neatly back to Voxfrock’s conclusion: that it’s time these unstoppable cacophonies were acomodated in the typical entertainment programmes of womanly spring kneezups. It’s time the shooshing stopped.
Cacophony is the glamourous sound of spring.
FOOTNOTES
The climax of Caulfield’s increasingly chic Cup Carnivals this Saturday, October 19. Heats of the $100,000 Chadstone Fashion Stakes for the BMW Caulfield Cup Day will be held from 11.30 am. www.melbourneracingclub.net.au Voxfrock editor, Janice Breen Burns will be a judge and social media reporter on the day. Check Voxfrock on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for real time updates on the frocky action at Caulfield Racecourse.
