I love Melbourne and I get down there as often as I can to check out the Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival and what’s happening fashion-wise.
This year I fit in 2 panels with amazing women from the world of fashion media and the creative and design industries.
An Evening With:Women In Media
The first panel was An Evening With: Women In The Media hosted by Glynis Traill-Nash of The Australian, and featuring Jackie Frank, Ita Buttrose and other high profile women from Australia’s most prominent newspapers and magazines.
I really appreciated the sense of camaraderie not competition among the women even though they didn't work with in the same organizations.
I loved that they talked about how to get a pay rise, negotiate the workplace, call out harassment and grow into an ambitious job.
Ita Buttrose is amazing. A really smart woman who was way ahead of her time, (talked about being denied a home loan, as a divorcee in the 60s/70s while being the editor of a national newspaper) which emphasized that women have advanced so much in the past 40 years.
Kellie Hush seemed like an incredibly strong, focused women. She is currently the Editor at Harper’s Bazaar, but she also talked about taking a newspaper job that was a weird career move and how it taught her so many lessons and made her the editor she is today. She emphasized that there are no career mistakes if you learn from a job.
Vestiare collective presentation included this graph (news flash we buy more and use less)
Vestiare collective lets you sell and buy vintage verified fashion. It aims to close the gap and let you treat fashion as a better investment instead of a disposable commodity.
Business Seminar
The second event I attended was a Business Seminar that included talks from the women behind really amazing labels including Philip Lim 3.0 and Vestiare Collective.
Glynis Traill-Nash hosted the panel. She is a lovely warm person who did a great job making all the speakers feel comfortable.
Vestiare Collective was my favourite speaker from this event. I appreciated how reselling/vintage can be part of the sustainability cycle. God she was so chic too. Vestiare Collective is open to Australian buyers but will be open to Australian sellers some time in April or May.
Wen Zhou the CEO of Philip Lim 3.0 was such a warm and funny speaker. She talked about the immigrant experience to America. She really looked at business as a journey. Her company structure grew over time but she is very grounded and real. Overall it was so inspiring to hear the work behind these success stories.
Food, Fashion, Art
As always, Melbourne serves up amazing food, culture and awesome local design so I also snuck in time to eat breakfast at Archie's All Day,
grab a doughnut at Shortstop
explore the lanes,
Also a reminder of the value of wandering, putting your phone down and actually being in the world. This is a mailbox that I saw with a scene of tiny pigs at beach with a Santa figure arriving in a seashell. I don't know what it means but I love it! Found in Fitzroy.
XFelicity
