Fashions on Your Front Lawn racewear fashions winners announced
The female winner of the Myer Fashions on the Front Lawn took out the coveted competition in a striking purple pants suit — but it was her unique accessory that stole the show.
Lifestyle
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The female winner of Melbourne Cup Carnival’s Myer Fashions on Your Front Lawn has taken out the coveted competition in a striking purple pants suit and handmade custom belt made in her family’s steel fabrication factory.
Christine Spielmann, from Darwin, has won her second national title after winning in a more traditional fitted dress in 2014.
Sherlon Garbo, also from Darwin, won the men’s category. It is the first year men have been able to enter the interstate competition and first time the competition was open to residents in the Northern Territory.
Spielmann was surprised and excited to find a shiny new Lexus outside her home, part of the $80,000 in prizes, when the winners were announced on the Channel 10 telecast.
“I would describe my style as a bit eccentric, just like in the way I live. I love getting dressed up and being out there and glamorous, but I also live on a five-acre block and I don’t wear any shoes,” she said.
“I cut steel some days and then other days I’m in the office, answering phone calls, doing data entry, there’s absolutely nothing glamorous about that job at all.”
She taught herself how to sew on her mum’s sewing machine and from there she began entering Fashions on the Field in 2009.
But after taking out the competition five years later she developed anxiety about being on stage due to tremors she developed as a side effect of epilepsy medication.
“Winning that grand prize, it’s so coveted on the Fashions on the Field circuit. All I could think about after that was how I was shaking on stage and how nervous I would looked,” she said.
Despite her continued love of fashion Spielmann didn’t enter the competition again until this year when it became a digital event.
“When the VRC and Myer announced that they were doing a Fashions on Your Front Lawn photographic competition, straight away I was like, I can do photos. I’m good at photos. No one can see me shaken and have a tremor,” she said.
Born in the Philippines, Garbo said he was thrilled to win in his first time entering the competition.
“You don’t have to spend a lot to good look. I think in fashion it is about how you wear it, and how it looks,” he said.
The Just for Fun categories of Fashions on Your Front Lawn will be announced at Seppelt Wines Stakes Day on Saturday.
Meanwhile, a group of Melbourne mums who have been celebrating Oaks Day together for 20 years were determined to continue the tradition.
Jane Rosham, Amanda Gilligan, Biddy Van Aanholt, Tracey McDonald, Sharon Macdonald, Liz Shaw and Helen Lukis gathered in a local park to share some bubbles in place of being trackside at Flemington.
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