PHOTOGRAPHS: MONTY COLES
WORDS: JANICE BREEN BURNS, VOXFROCK EDITOR
(For Mr. Coles’ complete coverage of Derby Day, www.theloupe.org)
Twenty-eight glorious warm-breezey degrees dictated the dress-code at Flemington for today’s Derby Day. Tan arms in shapely sleeveless frocks, sling-backed kitten heels with slim dagger toes, headpieces secured at the hairline with a pretty tick of foliage or feathers. Cat-like sunglasses. That was the dominant look among churning crowds around Myer’s Fashions on the Field enclosure; classic Dioresque glamour, the tottering, eye-lash-batting, hip-swinging kind that causes us all to remember our lady-manners.
I joined Myer’s Fashions on the Field judging panel with designer Jason Brunsdon, enigmatic Flemington veteren Captain Peter Janson and the utterly charming, recently appointed managing director of Sass & Bide, Megan Foster to whittle down the finalists picked earlier from a field of hundreds.
All morning, girls and women, groomed as carefully as brides, queued patiently on the soft lawns outside Myer’s extraordinary FOTF two-storey “marquee”. No mud, no goose-pimping winds whipping up skirts and tugging at hats. This was a rare and perfect Derby Day, miraculously slotted in between two iffy weather forecasts. “I had three outfits organised,” confides one entrant, accustomed to the fickle, often unfashionable weather at Flemington. “This is the coolest, but the cheapest; I had Armani ready for if it was cold.” She seemed disappointed and, perhaps rightly: she was quickly eliminated in the unforgiving march-past of preliminary heats.
The FOFT marquee is angled toward the race-track with a crystal birds-eye view down the straight from its all-glass upper storey, with breezy open stage and seating below. The VIP area is off-limits to all but the invited but – and here’s a tip for those heading to the track next week – half of the marquee’s second storey is allocated for public viewing. It is, hands-down, the best vantage for viewing both frocks and horses outside Flemington’s crowded Birdcage, bristling with celebrities and VIPS, and the Yellow Glen marquee which requires a “key” and invitation by roving hosts.
FOTF is hosted at machine-gun speed, by Channel 7 personality Melissa Hetherington, and English menswear designer Jeff Banks. It’s Mr. Banks’ fifth stint on the FOTF stage and anyone wondering why this is so, need only bask for a few minutes in his relentless, knowledgeable patter as entrant after entrant parades on stage. “Melissa, I see that lace skirt is slightly see-through to the knees…those tear-drop sleeves…that boater style hat, works so well with the…peplum on very slim…and that pant suit….……”
And on through final after final until Ashleigh Albanese, 21 of Traralgon, (pictured, centre, below) an attractive young woman in her own boater hat design and sleeveless white leather frock, kinked at the waist and belled to a short-front, dropped-back hemline, stood alone, smiling broadly on stage, the Derby daily winner.
Derby Day is also traditionally blokes day at Fashions on the Field, and Mr. Banks pattered on through their myriad takes on the ideal racewear outfit. “I’m seeing colour, lots of colour…and no socks…it’s a fashion statement but once, you wouldn’t have been allowed in without socks…..” (Well, now you are.)
Myer boss, Bernie Brookes looked on through it all with a permanent half-smile, smug perhaps, that this remarkable showcase of glamour, this unique catwalk almost wholly created by ordinary women, is his again for another five sales-pumping years. I’d smile too.
Myer Fashions on the Field Cup Day heats begin on Tuesday from 10.15 am. and will include women’s racewear until 11.45 am., followed by the Design Award with professional entrants from 12.35 pm. Follow the competitions on Twitter and Instagram, #MyerFOTF and @FlemingtonVRC, @myer_mystore and visit Voxfrock Facebook page and blogzine for reports and daily wraps of all Cup Week’s gala days.
