Chadstone Fashion Stakes

Last Saturday I attended the Chadstone fashion stakes at the Caulfield cup preview. It was a wonderfully sunny day at Caulfield race course, filled with lots of spring fashion and good company. 
The fashion stakes were in three categories, ladies aged 40 plus, stylish gentlemen and then finishing the afternoon with ladies aged between 18-40.

The lovely ladies from the 40+ category. The above photograph of the top three finalists with the host Jesinta Campbell (wearing Kirrily Johnston)

We then got a special opportunity to hear from Franco Schifilliti, stylist for Chadstone on his views of trends for the spring carnival season, demonstrating with real women rather than models.

The women are wearing Manning Cartell, Lisa Ho and Carla Zampatti.

Franco proved that it's possible for women to wear separates to the races, with the Manning Cartell look and surprisingly the Lisa Ho look, actually being a skirt and top worn to look like a dress. I also love the colour of the Carla Zampatti dress, it's kept simple which makes it all about the great colour and flattering cut.
Franco also included this colourful menswear number from Calibre, showing that men no longer have to stick to simple black suits. 

Then it was on to more menswear, showing the stylish gentlemen category for the fashion stakes. Here are the top three finalists for the men's.

The most exciting part of the day came with the young ladies aged between 18-40. With the most contestants out of all the categories, there's so many amazing looks and it's harder to predict the finalists. 

The three finalists for the young ladies category.

 

With Alice from Catwalk of Words. I'll share my outfit in my next post!

Photographs by Maddie Claire Beau. Last photograph from Fresh Photography.