Category: Broadsheet
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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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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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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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“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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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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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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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…
Stephanie Vigilante 