Madison news - madison avenue: we discuss the year that was

This month madison sat down with some of our favourite women to discuss the year that was 2011. The roundtable included MIX 106.5 breakfast host Claire Hooper, Dateline presenter Yalda Hakim and one-half of fashion label Camilla and Marc, Camilla Freeman-Topper.

Here are the women’s thoughts on:

Julia Gillard:

madison: One thing that I think is interesting was when the Queen was here she received positive reviews about her fashion, especially with older women in the media. Do you think if Julia was a lot more polished, we’d…
Yalda Hakim: Be judging her as harshly?
Camilla Freeman-Topper: I really don’t think it’s that important to be honest. I just don’t share the same ideas and values as she does.
Yalda: I think initially it plays a role. I mean with Obama, people didn’t really know his policies but thought he was a hunky man. It’s the whole JFK thing – the notion of having a young president in power who happens to be black as well. If he was a woman it might have helped a little bit more but he was made much sexier by who he was, so we wanted to see him on our TV screens. I think that’s why his honeymoon in the international community hasn’t faded but at home it has. People are pissed off at his health reforms, people are pissed off that the economy has gone to shit. And although they don’t understand why and perhaps it was the Bush era that did it, they blame him because he is now in charge, but for the rest of the world we think ‘Obama is coming to town’.

madison: What about that awkward kiss between Julia and Kevin Rudd that was labelled the “Kiss of Death” by the media. After celebrating the carbon tax getting through the lower house, she kissed all her front benches in a congratulatory manner and then when it got to Kevin Rudd it was like damned if you do, damned if you don’t. But do you think because she is a woman that the Australian public have given her a harder time this year?
Claire Hooper: I think there is no denying Australia is still, everywhere in the world, is still sexist.
Camilla: It’s funny because the industry that I work in, I see very little sexism play out. I can imagine in a workforce, where it was very much driven by men – like politics – it could be difficult and perhaps make women become even more aggressive to try and achieve their goals and objectives.
Yalda: I think women are so competitive with each other in a work environment, that if one woman becomes successful it’s kind of like, ‘Well how did she get there, what did she do?’ If a woman takes maternity leave, or has a child, it’s like ‘Well her careers down the drain’. We are so hard on each other, especially with the whole motherhood debate, it’s quite unfair that we aren’t supportive we don’t have this sisterhood where we protect each other.
Clair: There was a recent study that said that women prefer to have men bosses than female bosses.
Camilla: I remember reading that and actually there was a moment where I thought if I was in a mainstream workplace I think I might even agree with that, in a sad sort of way.
Yalda: I have come across more bitterness from women than men in my environment. But then the men are kind of swinging dicks as well, so it’s kind of like, where do you draw the line and fit in.

The royal wedding:

Camilla: I came to the conclusion afterwards that I liked the way it made the royal family just a little bit more relevant for this generation. We now feel like the royal family is a little bit more light-hearted, they're not so old and grumpy. I think the whole monarchy just needed lightening up and they’ve done a really good job of doing that.
Yalda: And like you said, connecting with our generation. Talk about reigniting the whole republican debate.
Camilla: We’ve kind of moved on from that now haven’t we?
Yalda: Absolutely. We’ve come into our own as a nation; we are a bit more comfortable in our skin. It’s not about connecting with the motherland anymore.

madison: What about the effect Kate and Pippa have had on fashion? It’s just insane!
Camilla: They’re not precious with the brands that they wear and that’s great! They wear high street, they wear luxury and everything in between. It’s helping to humanise the royals and lightening them up a lot.
Claire: The thing that stops people from buying luxury is that they go “Well I don’t have any other luxury items to put with it”. So when the message gets out there that you're allowed to mix and match, people can explore a little bit more.
Yalda: Absolutely, I think it’s been great. There's nothing wrong with women having someone to look up to in terms of fashion, whether that then translates to being super skinny, then that’s another story.
Claire: I don’t look to her for fashion inspiration because unfortunately our body types are totally different.
Yalda: That’s a whole other debate about a people in the public eye and what that does to a person. She looked quite healthy before and now she’s...
Claire: She was always slim. But she looked incredibly slim on her wedding day, I couldn’t believe the size of that waist.
Camilla: I feel that Kate Middleton was always been such a healthy fit person that I really don’t think that she’d be doing anything unhealthy. It’s probably a bit of stress. Look she’s got a huge role to fill. I think people need to be a little less harsh and critical. If they look back on her before she got married, she was always really fit and really not ‘slim, slim’ but healthy.

madison: Did everyone like the dress she wore? Did you care about it?
Camilla: I liked it, but I don’t feel like it fitted properly around the bust area and it being an Alexander McQueen dress and having the craftsmanship and the expertise working on it for so long, I just felt that that tiny little part really annoyed me. But again I think that if you actually look at the detail it is quite incredible. I ended up looking up on the internet the detail of it and there was some really beautiful history of the making of the dress, where it was made and the lace. It’s really putting the lace mills back on the map in terms of really old craftsmanship.
Yalda: It had a significant traditional look…

madison: Do you think that Kate Middleton wearing so much lace in her wedding dress accelerated the trend? I mean if you look at us today, both myself and Claire are wearing designs with lace.
Camilla: I think it was coming back for a while.
Yalda: I think it made women move on from “I have to wear a strapless dress to my wedding”. There are other styles out there that they could look at.

John Galliano’s anti-Semitic rant and sacking from Dior:
 
Claire: Plenty of other people have been drunk before and they haven’t gone and said what he said. And, yes, it comes from somewhere really deep. They say that scientifically those dark thoughts are programmed in as a child and there's nothing you can do except set up better filters. If your bad thoughts, especially your racist thoughts are incurable, if they are set in stone in the mind then how guilty is somebody who says something awful?
Yalda: Do you think that the reaction maybe was too harsh and he should have gone to rehab?
Camilla: But if you’re racist it’s a crime. They just had to lose him I’m afraid. But if he wants to reinvent somehow I'm sure he will.
Yalda: I think image is so important for your industry or if you are a person in the public eye, you protect your image.
Camilla: You have a responsibility...
Yalda: Exactly to the public and to your clients and the people you are serving. I cannot in my role and come out and make outrageous comments about a certain group or whatever my views may be because I have a responsibility to protect the public and my audience. I think he had a responsibility and he let so many people down.