Melbourne Cup: The Style that Stops a Nation

20 Nov

The first running of the world-renowned Australian Melbourne Cup race was held all the way back in 1861. A time when the Gold Rush was occuring in Victoria (yes, gold-diggers still attend now…slightly different kind, though!), and wealth was in abundance, 4,000 people swarmed to Flemington race-track to watch the birth of the Melbourne Cup.
By 1880, 100,000 people out of Victoria’s population of 290,000 were trackside at the ‘Peoples’ Cup’. With the appeal of tales of controversy, endurance, tragedy, heroism and scandal, how could they not?!

In the Cup’s very early years, all the way back in the 1800′s, the Victoria Racing Club issued each of its members with two ladies’ tickets. Why? “Where ladies went, men would follow”.
77 years later, Mrs McDonald was the first female racer to win the world-famous race, and 49 years after that saw the first female rider, Maree Lyndon, compete as a jockey.

In 2010, the 150th anniversary of the Melbourne Cup was celebrated.
And this year, with a $6,175,000 total prize pot on the table, Melbourne Cup is nowadays well and truly the race that literally stops a nation.

Personally, though, I’ve never been all that interested in the actual race itself - it’s more the style that appeals to me (believe it or not!). Speaking of which…
Fashions on the Field has been a tremendously popular feature of the entire Melbourne Cup Week for decades, starting with a truly iconic moment for FOTF (and for style in general, in my opinion): Jean Shrimpton, 60′s stylista, ruffled feathers in a mini dress and sans gloves, stockings and hats, at her 1965 trackside appearance.