HAPPY “HOLLIDAY” VOXFROCKERS! OUR COVERAGE OF THIS YEAR’S VIRGIN AUSTRALIA MELBOURNE FASHION FESTIVAL (VAMFF) BEGINS TODAY WITH TESS THE WONDER WOMAN AND HER GLOBAL BAND OF CURVY FOLLOWERS. WITH SASS AND PASSION THEY ARE RE-CALIBRATING FASHION’S DEFINITION OF “NORMAL”, AND THEY ARE NOT THE ONLY ONES. IN THE VAMFF CULTURAL PROGRAMME, DIVERSITY IS ALWAYS THE NEW BLACK, PINK, AUBERGINE AND GREY!
JOT US IN YOUR DIARY FOR THE NEXT FORTNIGHT AS WE ROLL OUT OUR VAMFF COVERAGE, BOTH ASPIRATIONAL AND INSPIRATIONAL. FOR EXAMPLE, LATER THIS WEEK WE WILL INTRODUCE MELBOURNE’S MOST FASHIONABLE WOMEN AND MEN “OF A CERTAIN AGE” WHO WILL MODEL IN NEXT SUNDAY’S “DON’T STOP ME NOW!” SHOW.
FROM VAMFF’S OPENING FROCKERAMA NEXT SATURDAY, VOXFROCK’S ROOKIE REPORTERS AND A SMALL BATTALION OF EMERGING PHOTOGRAPHERS FROM RMIT, WILL THEN DISH UP DAILY REPORTS, EXAMINING AND CELEBRATING FASHION FROM EVERY ANGLE! FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM, FACEBOOK, TWITTER AND TUMBLR THEN CHECK BACK HERE FOR A DOUBLE DAILY DOSE OF FROCKYDELICIOUSNESS!
(THIS STORY FIRST APPEARED IN THE AGE)
MAIN PHOTO, TOP: FREELANCE STYLIST FRANCO SCHIFILLITI AND MAKEUP ARTIST CAMMI LU, PREPARE MODEL LYNDA DRAKE FOR HER DEBUT IN VAMFF’S DON’T STOP ME NOW MATURE FASHION SHOW NEXT SUNDAY. FOR THE FULL STORY, CHECK VOXFROCK AND WWW.THELOUPE.ORG LATER THIS WEEK. PHOTO: MONTY COLES
Tess Holliday (pictured, top) is a Los Angeles-based fashion model; strikingly pretty in the usual way, glossy redgold hair, and a body – not so usual – that brings tears to women’s eyes, gets them leaping to their feet and cheering like schoolgirls at her catwalk shows. At 1.65 cm., and size 22, Holliday, 29, is unusually short and unapologetically fat in a business bristling with lissom, genetically blessed teenagers. “You’ll see women applauding and cheering, standing up and hugging each other,” says Erin Cox, co-organisor of the weekend’s Curvy Couture runway show and market at which Holliday was guest model. Cox says plus-size models remind the 50 per cent of Australian women, size 14 and over that “normal is OK” and Holliday’s even bigger brand of beauty is a particularly radical fashion breakthrough. “Tess is a sign of the times.”
Curvy Couture is part of the Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival’s cultural programme, 80-odd disparate events festival CEO Graeme Lewsey describes as key in a deliberate plan to address fashion’s (often woeful) record of representing community diversity. “It’s about democratising traditional fashion weeks,” he says, “Offering a world class level of creativity that’s respected and revered and – this is the big thing – enabling everyone who is a fashion consumer, to enjoy and explore fashion in all its forms.”
VAMFF’s cultural programme sprawls two weeks either side of its core week, (March 14 – 22) and, apart from a broad base of art and film events, engages most of the so-called minorities traditionally excluded from high fashion catwalks and glossy imagery. “We’ve got 39 nationalities represented on our runways,” says Lewsey, “We’ve also got lots of independent organisors, lots of examples of minority groups in the cultural programme who have their own, interesting spin on the fashion conversation.”
From curvy couture, kids, alternative fashion, indigenous collections and even seniors, most so-called minorities are covered. For Shirley Mason however, co-organisor of next week’s Don’t Stop Me Now show in which elderly amateurs (including one in a wheelchair) from Melbourne’s University of the Third Age will model, it’s a head-shaking mystery why fashion has ignored her age group so long. “A lot of our members (of U3A) are quite…financially sound,” she says delicately, “But, I don’t think designers always appreciate this huge market of retired people who want to spend money on themselves.”
In fact, a smattering of older models has featured in recent high fashion campaigns and catwalks, a direct result of the New York-based global media phenomenon, Advanced Style. More ethnic models have appeared recently too as casting agents, prompted by the swell of fashion-consuming middle classes in Asia, swirled more variety into the traditional model formula: “tall, slim, pretty, white Caucasian”. But, although catwalks are indeed lightly peppered with plus-sized, older, transgender, even the odd pregnant model (in Dolce & Gabbana’s recent show), their purpose, unlike VAMFF’s cultural programme, is more often to shock a little than redress any social imbalance.
Jean Paul Gaultier’s haute couture runway
Catwalks’ exclusive formula of “tall, slim, young” is still entrenched on the echelon of high fashion, says Matthew Anderson of Chadwick Models, at least for now. “The reasons why are more complex than you can imagine, but it’s basically, supply and demand,” he says. “The catwalk is a dream; it’s about fantasy, beauty, art. It’s aspirational, not supposed to be representative of our community. Think of it like this: people don’t go to the Olympics to see ordinary people jumping around, or the Grand Prix to see some average guy (going around the track in an old beat-up Suzuki.) They want to see athletes, people at the top of their game, the fastest cars in the world. Catwalks are the same: people want to see tall, beautiful Amazonion girls and guys. They don’t want ordinary.”
More information on Curvy Couture: www.curvycoutureinc.com.au
Don’t Stop Me Now, next Sunday, March 15: www.u3amelbcity.org.au
VAMFF cultural events and main programme of aspirational shows at Peninsula, Docklands, www.vamff.com.au
VAMFF special guest, international model Andreja Pejic (formerly Jean Paul Gaultier muse Andrej before her recent gender re-assignment surgery), will walk in designer Josh Goot’s Grand Showcase event at Peninsula, Docklands
