What to wear to a fashion show?

I attended my first fashion show yesterday at the GPO in the city (Melbourne, that is, for my international readers). I was quite excited as it was my first visit to a runway show. I agonised over what to wear of course, as I usually wear 'full-on' vintage and didn't really want to stand out too much amongst the skinny panted young fashionistas. In the end I just thought 'to hell with it' I am going to be myself and chose a black and white 1950's vintage dress .  . .

It turned out to be a good choice as it was about 30 degrees on the day and the show was held under the portico at the GPO at lunchtime. This, together with all the bright lights, made for a fairly warm experience!

The fashion show was great fun. It was quite theatrical (they had two dancers at the start prancing around with plates of fruit - sounds weird but looked great!) and the clothes were, by and large, lovely. The show featured GPO store designers such as Lisa Ho, Leona Edminston, Wayne Cooper and Akira. My favourites were a long dusty pink dress from Leona Edminston and a hot pink and red outfit by Akira (odd colour combination, but it worked). Some trends I noticed: skirts are either very, very short, or extremely long; also: quite a lot of feathery vests. One thing I didn't like was the use of snakeskin like material on some of the dresses and jackets (see for instance in Wayne Cooper's collection) - sorry, not attractive at all in my book!

Unfortunately I was a naughty blogger and forgot to recharge my flagging camera battery, but you can see some photos taken by blogger 'Melbourne girl' at this link.

I would recommend going along to this fashion show next year. For a start, unlike some of the other LMFF fashion shows which in my opinion are too expensive ($48 to see a fashion show - I don't think so), this one is free! Just sign up to 'GPO lovers' on the GPO website and next LMFF they will send out an email about tickets and you just reply (which is what I did). Easy! (and you get to sip champagne out of a straw and eat chocolates from Cacao too - lovely!)

1950's dress Frocks and Slacks, St Kilda

Bolero Laura Ashley (2 yrs ago)

Bag St Vinnies, Oakleigh

vintage earrings etsy

flower brooch Portmans