Australia was represented and exposed in many surprising ways in this September 1984 first Down Under edition of the American fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar , recently obtained by Little Darwin in a wild shopping spree .
There was a special six page fashion shoot by Bob Watson of Prime Minister Bob Hawke , billed as Australia's leading sporting identity, our national treasure and a top bloke , showing him dressed as a wild-eyed Aussie Rules Footie fan (Swans) , playing with a yacht in his bathtub , posing in a dressing gown , dressed in a rainbow coloured outfit sporting gumleaves while hamming it up with a Victa lawnmower , and awkwardly wielding a cricket bat , seemingly about to be hit in the head by a bouncing ball .
On closer examination , it turned out not to be the dashing , fashionable PM but the comedian Max Gillies impersonating Aussie Bob , which he did so wonderfully in The Gillies Report .
A disturbing revelation was that the 2000 smart Puccini print frocks worn by Qantas hosties for 10 years were literally going to be torn to shreds , reduced to rags , because the style was considered out of date .
Believe it or not , it was suggested the frocks could be turned into a "floral cosy for the Sydney Opera House" . Perhaps some of the material was recycled and turned into Budgie Smugglers , now worn by a tattered and torn former PM ?
A feature article headed Hat Heroes , tracing the wearing of tit for tats down through the ages , somehow linked Queensland premier Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen , American cowboy hero Hop-A-Long (sic) Cassidy , singer Slim Dusty and Molly Meldrum , the latter wearing what appears to be a reject Akubra . Other eccentric hatters such as Susan Sangster, former Mrs Peacock , and sneering Germaine Greer , who hated headgear , featured as did the Toorak hairdresser and socialite Lillian Frank.
The Australian film industry , with the above MIchael Fitzjames full page graphic ( Frank Thring on the camel's hump?), was reviewed in a provocative article by Denis Whitburn and there was coverage by Memory Holloway of another Australian assault by eight artists on a "sacred New York institution "... the Guggenheim Museum .
That attack included photographs of "sombre " Melbourne crowds by Bill Henson .The others were Peter Booth , Dale Frank , John Nixon , Mandy Martin , Jan Murray, Susan Norrie and Vivienne Shark Le Witt .
Holloway wrote that the works represented an urban view of Australia . There were no landscapes , not a koala or kangaroo, no weeping eucalypt in sight .In each case the paintings were fierce , sometimes intentionally tough.
"We are presented with an intensely introspective view of the country . New Yorkers may be surprised to see that these artists shun the view of Australia as the land of tropical swimming pools ,'working holidays', beer and prawns as in TV promotions by Paul Hogan .
" Instead they show us splendour in the smallest and simplest of objects , how to discover beauty in darkness and to enjoy what is near at hand rather than yearning for what is far away ."
