These Are The Most #Major Fashion Moments From The Year To Date

It might not feel like it, but we’ve well and truly passed the halfway point on this year’s Fashion Calendar, which you may be surprised to learn also adheres pretty strictly to the Gregorian Calendar, give or take a few days lost to crippling hangovers. 

Off the back of two major red carpet events this week, we thought it high time to take a retrospective look at the year to date by examining some of the capital-M Moments that have shaped the collective conscience and caused the hyperbolic, #literal deaths of countless casual observers in their wake due to their being unable to be dealt with.

#WORLDSMOSTTALKEDABOUTCOUPLE 

There’s no room for pussyfooting where Kim and Kanye are concerned. You either love them or you hate them and proceed to tell everyone about how much you hate them. Their status as the World’s Most Talked About Couple was formalised in March this year when together they appeared on the cover and in an editorial taking pride of place in American Vogue, alongside a frankly ridiculous hashtag of the same name. 

Theirs is a partnership in which fashion takes pride of place, somewhere between selfies and the Sisyphean pursuit of the next ridiculous soundbite: think the lavish Valentino sponsored rehearsal dinner; the Givenchy couture extravorganza wedding dress; the wilful placement of their infant child in high fashion editorials before she can even master basic motor skills. 

For Kimye, Fashion is the willing third party in their marriage and on their phones. It’s also partly the reason they’ll both be in Australia next month, so you have that to either look forward or vociferously complain about.

Miranda Kerr – Australia’s most talked about commercial for the benefits of KORA Rejuvenating Foot Balm™ – reached what we thought was peak Miranda Kerr earlier this year when she appeared in the April issue of British GQ and had her handlers approve of lines like “I’ve had an orgasm in the air before. Alone.” If that wasn’t farcical enough, the interview was accompanied by an editorial best described as ‘moist’, which was then (rightly) parodied to brilliant effect by the hirsute Bondi Hipsters – a duo only slightly less insufferable in their obsession with goji berries than Gunnedah’s most bankable, passive aggressive export. 

Namaste, everyone 

Our collective relationship with Tati Pilieva’s Strangers Kissing was not unlike the lifespan of a heady, engrossing romance doomed from the start. Love at first sight, coupled with an inability to look away and an endless fascination with all its endearing quirks. 

Then we all realised it was little more than a – still admittedly brilliant – commercial for LA-based label Wren. We felt cheated, lied to; how could we have been so blind, shielding ourselves from what was, in retrospect, quite clearly, a beautifully shot mood piece? 

Now we’ve had some time apart, Strangers Kissing remains one of our fondest fashion moments of the year to date – an impossibly good looking encounter that will stay with us forever until the next great video comes along. 

Mediocrity, thy name is Normcore. Who would’ve thought a NY Mag trend piece on a decidedly anti-fashion micro-trend that fetishises a sartorially anonymous herd mentality would spawn a thousand other trend-based think pieces and the advent of slides as formal wear alike? You, probably. 

Here’s a vaguely-related image of Normcore in action, a style typified by models off duty.

It was, despite its levity, an historic moment in which fashion played a supporting role – Jennifer Lawrence’s fire-engine red Dior, Bradley Cooper’s best dressed Tom Ford tux, Ange’s Elie Saab. Ergo, by extension, it too can be tenuously counted as one of the year’s biggest fashion moments.

Despite (or because of) its high fashion credentials (a Vivienne Westwood A/W1982-1983 ‘Nostalgia of Mud’ and ‘Buffalo’ collection original purchased from her first store and designed in collaboration with Westwood’s partner, enfant terrible and grandfather of punk, Malcolm McLaren), the hat Pharrell Williams debuted on the Grammys Red Carpet became a millinery moment, the subject of widespread ridicule that has now become an intrinsic part of his personal brand, and a synecdochic of our collective preoccupation with things that don’t matter. SUP SON. 

It also raised $44,100.00 for charity. What have you done lately?

Four words: Zero Gravity Kate Upton.

The CFDA’s anointed Style Icon of 2014, Rihanna, took the campaign that got her banned from Instagram and brought it to life in the realest possible way on the Red Carpet at those same awards in a fishtail fishnet gown hand embroidered with 230,000 Swarovski crystals designed by Adam Selman, accessorised with an artfully placed pink Pologeorgis fur stole, a crystal do-rag and her characteristic, gleeful abandon. 

Never change, Bad Gal RiRi.

Photo: D. Dupasipil via Getty

Silence never sounded as deafening as it did when, days after The 2014 Costume Institute Met Gala, footage of the now infamous ‘Elevator’ incident surfaced on TMZ and sent America’s First Family into unprecedented damage control mode. The fallout of that incident continued to be felt in painstaking social media analysis in the days after, in a highly-guarded official statement, three months later in an official remix and again as recently as Monday this week, not to mention the increasing amounts of speculation its provoked as to Beyoncé and Jay Z’s marital status. 

Outside the realm of important geopolitical developments, what other moment could lay claim to having had such an effect? Kate Upton in space, maybe, but only just.

Photo: Christopher Polk via Getty

Here’s where you come in. Over the coming week, beginning on Saturday August 30th, you’ve got the chance to throw yourself headfirst into untold moments that might present themselves to you as an attendee of Melbourne Spring Fashion Week; specifically, the week’s Industry program.

Taking place over two sessions on Monday September 1st at the city’s Town Hall, MSFW: Industry will assemble for the first time some of the industry’s greatest minds from backgrounds as diverse retail and commercial enterprise on both a global and local scale for a panel on International Markets, followed soon after by a panel on Entrepreneurial Vision featuring chic heavyweights like Yasmin Sewell, Street Smith and catering legend Nahji (or Miss) Chu.

You can purchase tickets for individual sessions or the full day and find out more information on everything MSFW here.