A recap, rant and review, all in one.
Mr. Richard Nylon
Fashionistocrats don’t have a lot to do on Day One of Melbourne’s annual festival, but air-kiss (mwah-kissy! darling!) and rabbit on to each other about how fabulous they JUST KNOW the week will be. The first day is relatively sparse, frock-show-wise, but a couple of invitation-only kick-off events at least get the glamomentum and its natural companion, frock-gossip, cranking. WHO was invited and WHO wasn’t, to the traditional welcome lunch on Central Pier, hosted by L’Oreal and later, to Governor Alex Chernov’s reception, kept half the frocky fraternity gasping and the other half registering I-don’t-give-a-toss-type responses all day. A lot of familiar faces were missing. A lot of noses out of joint.
“WHO was invited and WHO wasn’t…kept half the frocky fraternity gasping..”
It’s no secret VIP lists are mercilessly shrunk year after year to accommodate leaner, chicer, more results-focussed festivals. Business is business. It’s also worth noting that, while money might be saved on champagne and canapés for that flute-waving bunch of freeloaders, the economy is pitifully false if those freeloaders also happen to include many of the doyens and doyennes, characters, veterans and exotically-attired eccentrics who are the guts and backbone of Melbourne’s city-wide fashion persona. (I’d even venture some exotics and fashionelders should be invited whether they have money sunk, or shows scheduled, in the festival or not.)
“VIP lists are mercilessly shrunk year after year to accommodate leaner, chicer, more results-focussed festivals.”
The lavish catering, “fashion moments” and sponsor gift bags of past BC (“Before Chernov”) parties at Government House were only part of their legendary legacy. The real colour and sparkle was generated for all those years, by people now deemed not worth the cost of a flute and a canapé. Guest lists for such momentous, media-rich and potentially international events, should be composed with intuitive delicacy and cultural/historic knowledge as much as number-crunching logic.
There are robust rumours the party-pooping Governor Chernov has had enough of fashionistocrats and their bitching and this was his final offer to host the festival’s vice-regal opener.
“Guest lists… should be composed with intuitive delicacy and cultural/historic knowledge as much as number-crunching logic.”
Good. Kismet, I say. My suggestion: a fair replica of the BC atmosphere could be magicked in the comparable grandiosity of Melbourne’s Como House, or Ripponlea. A battalion or three of models and those aforementioned flute-waving free-loaders, would conjure the rest.
As it was, the 2013 L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival was officially opened in the state dining room of Government House, an impossibly lovely space hung with several full size portraits of regal women, but now reduced (perhaps more gatecrashers squeezed in that were forecast?) to a cramped and, what appeared to be a sticky-hot sea of dark tailored suits. Outside, the grass was clipped and emerald and the sky clear blue. Water splashed and sparkled from the government house fountain set into its famous lawn terrace. So many lovely memories of parties past. But, we were in here. And, inevitably; “Why aren’t we out there?” queried one hot, bothered and footsore poppet who twigged, though it was her first time here, the pity of an opportunity lost.
“Water splashed and sparkled from the government house fountain…so many lovely memories of parties past.”
Four speeches later (two of which included those cringeworthy references to fashion peculiar to some middle-aged men, in this case, Governor Chernov and premier Dennis Napthine, that the frock business is surely practiced by a race of jolly girls, wives and sundry aliens in a parellel universe to their own) we did adjourn to the Fountain of Parties Past, to mourn, and then to move on. There’s a chockers week of frock shows, seminars, workshops, parties and a mind-bogging array of cultural events and exhibitions to distract us now.
“The frock business is surely practiced by a race of jolly girls, wives and sundry aliens in a parellel universe to their own…”
Pictured here, Richard Nylon arrived on the arm of his creative colleague, designer Gwendolynne Burkin, her “And guest”. Mr. Nylon was, incidentally, one of many fashionistocrats who did not receive a personal invitation to the Governor’s party. He nevertheless out-sparkled the vice-regal throne, as he is wont to do on most public occasions. He is, undeniably, a sequin in Melbourne fashion’s vast eccentric tapestry. And, he is not the only one.
Footnote: Mr. Nylon’s shaded spectacles frame holograms of the Virgin Mary, a nod to the papal shenanigans that preceded Melbourne’s frock shenanigans.
Janice Breen Burns, jbb@voxfrock.com.au
