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FYI by Broadsheet Podcast: How To Spot a Fake in the High-End Sneaker World
In May, one of the most influential sneaker resellers in the world opened an authentication centre in Australia. When Broadsheet’s social media editor – and resident fashion writer – Steph Vigilante heard about it, she became curious. She started looking into the sneaker economy and discovered the second-hand trade is absolutely booming. And so is the…
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Blues, Browns and Finally About Town: The Highlights – and Must-Have Pieces – From the 2022 Gala Runway Presented by David Jones
It was golden hour, and the city was a balmy 29 degrees as Melbourne amassed at the Queen Victoria Market for 2022 PayPal Melbourne Fashion Festival’s Gala Runway presented by David Jones. With CBD skyscrapers the backdrop, industry people and fashion lovers alike gathered at the E Shed for a night of colour, creativity and…
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The First Nations Runway Brings Local Talent to the World Stage
Melbourne city is abuzz on Friday night. After-work suits take to the pub, visitors are exploring the CBD laneways on foot and scooter, and a cascade of Fashion Festival revellers flood into ACMI at Federation Square. Outside, a Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung smoking ceremony meets the crowds. Inside, there’s a hum of excitement. The First Nations…
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Dopamine Dressing, Statement Gloves, Loungy Silk Sets: Autumn Trends According to Melbourne Fashion Festival
It had been 24 months since Melbourne Fashion Festival was cut short mid-program thanks to the rising Covid numbers on our shores. Two years since the last time local fashion heavyweights gathered together – sans masks – to witness the new collections from treasured local designers. And despite 2021’s sometimes-online, sometimes-IRL program, this year felt like a…
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First Look: Inside the NGV’s Spectacular Gabrielle Chanel – Fashion Manifesto, a Retrospective of the Work and Legacy of the Visionary French Designer
Illuminated light frames lead guests down a long, runway-like corridor into the NGV’s monumental Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto exhibition. Panels are marked with significant dates from the couturière’s life – 1909, when Chanel first opened a milliner’s shop; 1921, when perfume Chanel N°5 was created; 1955, when she made a quilted lamb’s leather handbag and named it…
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Studio Visit: Colourful African Wax Fabric Designs With Melbourne Label Ulo
Up the rickety stairs of the Sacred Heart building on the sprawling grounds of Abbotsford Convent, Melbourne, you’ll find a tiny studio and retail showroom brimming with colour. “It hits you like a tonne of bricks,” says Ulo founder and designer Dinzi Amobi-Sanderson. “What I’ve tried to do with the showroom is build a space…
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In a Room Full of Ostentatious Furniture, Melbourne Icon Franco Cozzo Still Looms Largest
“Megalo, megalo, megalo!” It’s the slogan Italian-Australian Franco Cozzo used to spruik his Baroque-style furniture in low-budget ’80s TV ads. But “megalo”, meaning “large” in Greek, is just as true of the 85-year-old’s charismatic personality. The furniture mogul, who came from Sicily to “Foot-is-cray” in 1956, commands the (show)room with his tongue-in-cheek humour, unmistakable thick accent and…
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Studio Visit: Actually Existing
Anna and Olivia Nicholas’s Melbourne studio is quiet and minimal, but its surfaces are abundantly covered with crates of leather scraps and stacks of recycled fabrics. “In our eyes it’s got a lot of order, but to others it looks like total mayhem,” says Olivia. When Broadsheet visits the studio, inside a former hosiery factory in a…
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I Had to Sign a Waiver to Do a Bootcamp-Style Workout in the Barry’s “Red Room” – And Now I Know Why
I’ve been inside a gym once in my life – on a family trip to Mexico where making use of the hotel amenities seemed like a good way to pass time between Mojitos. My gym aversion comes from a place of intimidation. I’d rather pound the pavement than stand awkwardly, idly trying to work out…
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Show-Stopping: Has the Pandemic Changed the Australian Fashion Industry Forever?
Written for Broadsheet In the past decade, many aspects of the fashion industry have gone digital, including retail and publishing. But one thing that has endured IRL – and has remained crucial to how business is done – is the fashion week, which occurs in multiple cities around the world biannually. Labels have relied on…
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Bassike: Creating Quality, Authentic Collections, Honestly Made
Ahead of the Australian Made Runway, Stephanie Vigilante sat down with bassike’s Co-Founders, Deborah Sams, Co-Founder & Creative Director, and Mary Lou Ryan, Co-founder & Director of Sustainability and Supply Chain, to discuss the brands’ evolution over the years, and how bassike are creating high quality, timeless collections that are authentically Australian Made. You’re based…
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“My Heart Skipped a Beat”: Alemais Wins the National Designer Award at Melbourne Fashion Festival
When Sydney-based fashion designer Lesleigh Jermanus launched her ethereal, feminine brand Alemais in 2020, it was a big risk. The country was managing the early days of the pandemic and Jermanus was trusting her gut that the lockdown trend for loungewear would eventually pass and the embroidered dresses, linen print shirts and fanciful playsuits in her debut…
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Alemais Is a New Ethereal, Feminine Label Reminding Us Why Fashion Is Still Important During a Pandemic
“No one told me it was a good idea,” says designer Lesleigh Jermanus of launching a fashion label during a pandemic. “In fact, most people told me I was crazy. “I was made redundant; my friends were made redundant. Everyone went back to that primal state of, ‘What do we need? We need food and…
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I Can’t Stop Thinking About: Al Dente Enoteca’s Torta Sabbiosa
It’s 4pm on a weekday in the early 2000s. I’ve dumped my school bag in nonna’s “good room” and – like clockwork – a tall slice of sponge cake and a glass of chocolate Nesquik is waiting on the sink for me. It was an afterschool ritual – one that friends, who’d often visit for…
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A Melbourne-Based Made-To-Order Label Has Just Six Garments – Designed To Work Seamlessly With Your Existing Wardrobe
When Covid sent traditional retail into freefall and our need for extensive wardrobe options withered, something was ignited in Courtney McGregor, founder of made-to-order label Shé. “I realised that clothing had become overly complicated,” McGregor says, its breakneck turnover times “driving a constant need for validation”. Many of us relished the idea of wearing the…
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Stephanie Vigilante 