BUTTERFLY ON A PIN
Photography: Courtesy of Hardie Grant
Words: MJB
I recently spotted the Australian fashion designer Alannah Hill, all dolled up in her Mercedes Benz outside of the organic grocery store on Smith Street in Collingwood. I rushed across the road to 7-11 to observe her from a distance. She looked just as beautiful as in her photos, I was starstruck.
One of my high school friends worked at the Alannah Hill store in Chadstone shopping centre. I was in awe of the delicate garments. The shop assistants always looked so pretty, with their patterned stockings and bright red lips. The aesthetic of the store reminded me of the op shops I’d spent my teens inside, elevated with curated glamour. Everything about the brand was aspirational, but I could never afford to buy into it.
It wasn’t until my 20s that I learned more about Alannah Hill. My friends and I had discovered an 80’s movie about the Melbourne band scene called ‘Dogs In Space’. We would linger outside of the Berry Street house where the film was set, yearning for a scene that once existed.
My friend Mircalla and I took a special interest in Alannah who looked like a gothic doll, just like us. She was a supporting cast member with minimal lines, one of the trio of friends who shadowed the heroine, Anna. I once met Saskia Post who played Anna when I was working at Dan Murphy’s on Chapel Street. She was very sweet and very sad. She passed away not long after that.
I have not yet met Alannah Hill. Mircalla did when she interned at Factory X, just before Alannah departed her namesake brand. Mircalla said that Alannah had liked some of her marketing ideas. I always knew Alannah was a suburban ratbag like we were.
I’ve started reading Alannah Hill’s memoir ‘Butterfly On A Pin’ which has confirmed that she is indeed an underdog and a visionary.
Her tales of despair from rural Tasmania are familiar and isolating, I admire her courage to speak about her trauma. Her move to Windsor in Melbourne is a coming-of-age story that is spookily similar to my own, my first share house also being in Windsor almost 20 years later. I wish I had her book to guide me then, but perhaps I’ll write my own one day.
I’m just about to dive into her experiences at the (now defunct) Crystal Ballroom in St Kilda, a venue I’ve attended only once for a Rowland S. Howard tribute show after his death. The venue was full of ghosts, the opulence and excess of the 80s only visible in the nostalgic crowd.
Alannah Hill is more than a brand, she is a person. An honest, resilient, innovative, and funny person. All of the traits that a suburban ratbag like me aspires to have.
Thank you, Alannah Hill. You helped me to feel seen.
Read ‘Butterfly On A Pin: A Memoir Of Love, Despair and Reinvention’ by Alannah Hill HERE.
