Best dressed: dead yet?
- Filed under: Alternative Lifestyle, Fashion, Fashion Week, Fendi, Kiss Bloggs, kissfendi
- Date: Dec 15,2007
It’s still a compelling concept but in sore need of a revamp, writes Janice Breen Burns.
OUR “BEST DRESSED” LIST was retired - possibly temporarily; it is not decided yet - in a rubble of gripes and bitchy gossip after the summer of 2004.
That was the clincher list, voted by a panel of 10 social gallivants, prominent citizens and former “Best Dressed” list-ees, that finally cracked the concept of organised judgement by frock. Or trouser.
In Melbourne, anyway. For many innocent years before it, we had exploited the idea that - just for a laugh (ha ha, yeah, right) - it was possible to pit suit against suit, frock against frock, taste against taste and, after some light-hearted banter and a show of hands, virtually deify the “Best Dressed” man and woman who bubbled to the top of a short list of 20.
Well, it did seem to work well enough until roughly 2001, barring the odd egotist and nepotistic panel judge who would nominate themselves (”I honestly don’t know anyone who dresses better than me”) or next of kin (”Mrs X is a gift to elegance and us all, and I’m not just saying that because she’s my mother”). True dinks.
I mustered panels myself, tallied their votes and called in the short-listed Chosen Ones to pass on the good news and fix times for group shots and portraits in our photographic studio.
Most were awfully nice, not aloof or snobby at all (did I expect that?): advertising types, PR people, fashionistocrats, artists, gallery owners, the odd chic chef.
We became kiss-kissy-darling pals, some of us, on account of the same names cropped up so often on list, after list, after list, after . . . /theage.com.au
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