I hesitate to write this for fear of offending my Australian friends, but after five weeks in this country Eileen and I have decided we can safely conclude that a very large percentage of the female population here doesn't own a mirror. How else to explain some of the truly bizarre fashion choices we've seen, everywhere from Sydney to Brisbane to Melbourne? Fashion eclecticism has blown straight past the realm of individual expression into flat out bad taste.
We come from the land where babes with belly rolls shamelessly expose their jiggling midriffs along with their piercings, so who am I to cast a stone at another nation's fashion sense? But really, you have to see some of the outfits here to believe them: satin cocktail dresses paired with cowboy boots as office wear. Hot pants, colored tights, and Uggs for a day out shopping. Flip-flops with a miniskirt and a padded wool jacket. Patterned stockings that a Times Square hooker would kill to own.
The shot above is from Sydney, several of the others here are from Brisbane, but trust me, the theme has been consistent everywhere. In Sydney and Melbourne they've also topped it off seasonally with a fetishization of winter wear that appears to have absolutely nothing to do with the actual temperature outside. We've had several days in the 60s F in both cities that feel like normal summer weather in SF, and you do see a fair share of folks in t-shirts and even shorts. But at the same time the other half of the population has decided that because the solstice has passed, forecast be damned it's time to break out the scarves, the wool coats, and even the down jackets. Weird.
Then again, the fashion retail industry here seems to encourage this, judging from many of the display windows we've passed. If the stores do nothing but push bad taste, can you really blame the customers?