We can exclusively reveal that the special runway guest at this year’s Fashfest will be Canberra boy turned LA model and actor Liam Hall.
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He has volunteered to be on the catwalk all four nights of Fashfest, from April 30 to May 3.
Hall started his career in Canberra and in 2011 moved to Sydney where he signed with Priscilla’s Model Management and worked with companies and designers such as David Jones, Bonds, Van Heusen, Ben Sherman and Mercedes-Benz Fashion Festival and Fashion Week.
He later signed with an acting agent and scored a role on the American -Australian TV series Camp alongside fellow Aussie Rachel Griffiths.
Hall is due back in Canberra from Los Angeles later this month for Fashfest rehearsals.
Shrinking Barr suited to new diet
It’s a case of the Incredible Shrinking Deputy Chief Minister.
Andrew Barr has lost 11 kilos since last August when he embarked on a not quite sugar-free but more refined-sugar-free diet.
The impetus was turning 40 last year and advice from his GP to not put on any more weight and try to take some off.
He told us he’s not slavishly following any fad diet but just applying some common sense to his eating and buying less processed foods and shopping more from the markets.
“The thing I look for now is the sugar content in food whereas before I was more focused on the fat content, which I think is where I was going wrong,” he said.
He does admit to missing chocolate and ice cream but allows himself some dark chocolate. And the new lifestyle means he has applied a no-eating rule at all the work functions he must attend, whether it’s morning tea cakes or evening canapes.
Barr says it hasn’t taken long for his tastebuds to adapt, now finding fruit such as blueberries and strawberries more than enough to satisfy his sweet tooth.
He’s feeling great – and he might be in the market for a few new suits.
“In my wardrobe, there’s probably skinny me, medium me and too-many-functions me,” Barr said, with a laugh.
“I’m certainly right down the skinny end now and I might end up giving away a few of my old suits.’
Style and stealth
So have you seen those so-called Guardians of Style popping up at events all over town?
The bob-haired, expression-less models have been posing in formation everywhere from Diner En Blanc to the Black Opal Stakes to Enlighten to the Comedy Festival.
They remind us a bit of fashion’s answer to the too-cool-for-school models in the classic Robert Palmer video for Addicted to Love.
The self-styled guardians have an account on Twitter and their main role seems to be spruiking fashion trends for autumn and winter.
We’ve heard it’s a stealth advertising campaign for a shopping centre but the Canberra Centre and Westfield claim to know nothing. (Maybe the Molonglo Mall? Just kidding.) The Canberra Centre told us: ‘‘They seem to be creating quite a buzz. We’d love to know if you hear anything’’. Hmmm.
Others have suggested it might be a strike against Fashfest from disgruntled stylists. Our money is still on the Canberra Centre.
Whatever the case, it all seems very hush, hush with some in the know even signing confidentiality agreements to keep the cat in the bag.
Everyone’s Mother: Canberra farewells health pioneer
Canberra has lost one of its healthcare pioneers in former Canberra Hospital senior director of nursing Pat “Mother” Brown.
Ms Brown was farewelled at a requiem mass at St Benedict’s Catholic Church on Thursday, having been a long-term resident of the Kankinya nursing home at Lyneham.
She arrived in Canberra in 1957 and decided to stay because it was such a beautiful place. Her 30-plus years at the hospital saw her play a seminal role in the establishment of one of the first three Intensive Care Units to ever be set up in Australia.
In 1961 a single-bed cubicle constituted the new unit, and Ms Brown and her staff took charge of the care. “Over the years we had about 30-odd beds with different specialities: intensive care for critically ill or injured, coronary care, we had a two-bed burns unit, a renal dialysis unit... “ she said in a 2006 Canberra Times interview about the history of the hospital.
The unit also introduced a year-long postgraduate intensive-care nursing course and by 1976 the ICU was a 24-hour unit that became a referral centre for much of southern NSW as well as the ACT. During her time at the hospital – before retirement in 1979 – Ms Brown saw many innovations, particularly in terms of nurse training. But she was also witness to some major physical changes, not least the development of the lake, which she initially opposed.
“When the lake was built we were all against it, but when it came it was beautiful”. – Emma Macdonald
Blazey ready to dig in at Tharwa
Clive Blazey, founder of Australia’s largest gardening club, The Diggers Club, will be speaking at this year’s big plant fair at the Lanyon Homestead at Tharwa for Open Gardens Australia.
He founded the club in Melbourne in 1978, as a mail-order seed business originally to save the old varieties of vegetables such as Scarlet Runner Beans which the mainstream companies were dropping from their lists.
But it grew into something more than that with an emphasis on organic gardening and sustainability and more recently campaigning against genetically-modified seeds and addressing “the whole fiasco of climate change”.
“We were very influenced by The Good Life program,” Blazey said, of the 1970s British comedy about self-sufficiency in the suburbs starring the overall-ed Felicity Kendal and woolly-jumper-ed Richard Briers.
The Diggers Club, now run by a trust, has also restored historic houses in Victoria and has its base at the Heronswood gardens on the Mornington Peninsula. It also runs the Garden of Saint Erth north-west of Melbourne. Profits from the club goes into preserving the gardens.
Blazey reckons based on his mail order list and spending according to population, Canberra gardeners are his best customers. He’s even considering opening a retail store in the national capital.
“So you’re the gardening capital, believe it or not, according to us,” he said. “It goes Canberra, country NSW, country Victoria and then Melbourne.”
He says one of the club’s biggest sellers is Tommy Toe Tomatoes and reckons if you have just one beautiful plant in your garden make it a Californian tree poppy.
Blazey says there hasn’t been enough testing of GM-seeds and reckons too much power is being concentrated in the hands of the multinationals which dominate the seed business and have no interest in preserving heirloom varieties.
“We don’t just ring up Monsanto and buy their latest carrots or lettuce. We seek the best varieties from around the world,” he said.
The plant fair will be held at the Lanyon Homestead on Tharwa Drive, Tharwa on March 22 and 23 from 10am to 4pm. Blazey will be speaking on March 23 only at 11am and 2pm. There will also be other speakers and exhibitors, a garden-themed children’s activities, displays and tours. Admission is $10 for adults.
What's new
- A teddy bears’ picnic will be held from 10am to 1pm on Saturday at the John Knight Memorial Park, off Aikman Drive, in Belconnen, with gold coin donations to Kids and SIDS ACT. Bring a blanket, picnic and your favourite teddy bear.
- The Canberra Stamp Show continues on Saturday and Sunday at the Hellenic Club in Woden, from 10am to 6pm on Saturday and 10am to 3pm on Sunday. Entry is $5 and includes a catalogue. Dealers are coming from around Australia and overseas, with a focus on the centenary of the outbreak of World War One.
- A St Patrick’s Day ecumenical service will be held at noon on Saturday at the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture at 15 Blackall Street in Barton. The address will be by the Vatican’s ambassador to Australia, Archbishop Paul Gallagher. There will also be poetry and music by a celtic choir. Light refreshments afterwards.