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How to Dress: Melbourne Food & Wine Festival
What it looks like to be the official uniform and apparel partner of one of Australia’s best food festivals.
Imagine this. Two days. Two events. A lunch, a brunch and over 3,000 guests sitting down for service in Kings Domain garden. What makes it memorable? To start, a great menu. With Andrew McConnell looking after the World’s Longest Lunch and the dream team of contemporary Indian cuisine Harry Mangat, Helly Raichura and Mischa Tropp looking after the World’s Longest Brunch, we were in good hands.
But presentation is everything. Styling the uniforms for these two unique events in the park - lunch, a sophisticated fine dining affair - and brunch, a colourful, mimosa fuelled Saturday morning, there were very different stories to be told.
Read on to find out how we told them through our styling of the front of house, bar and host teams for each day.
A sea of pink descended with plates from the kitchen, while bar staff mixed up cocktails in a pop of orange. The apron? Our classic Boston, complete with a nod to the overarching style icon of the day, the marigold flower. Embroidered in house, this customisation tied the day's themes of sunshine and Indian heritage together with a pretty little thread.
The vibrant and relaxed aesthetic of the brunch was equally matched in the hosts of the day. With their role to greet and seat the guests, first impressions were everything. So we set the tone with pink boiler suits, crisp white shirts and a white embroidered cap to top it off.
A lunch by Andrew McConnell for 1,500 guests on a Friday afternoon has got to be stylish. For MFWF’s opening event, we couldn’t look past a classic crisp white uniform offering, but like McConnell’s salad lyonnaise and confit chicken main, it came with a twist.
Wearing our white Theodore apron, front of house were styled with our tobacco tie and a classic waiter napkin at the hip. Complete with custom MFWF embroidery in matching tobacco thread, the waiter napkin added an unexpected detail to the day’s presentation. This ultra-chic look was complemented at the bar, who wore our Tom in sandstone, customised with our new cream straps.
As for the hosts? We couldn’t look past the Chore jacket. Our take on a timeless workwear piece, it was the perfect statement for this modern three-course lunch in the park.
With aprons off and tables packed away at Kings Domain, it was time to turn our attention to Federation Square, the hub of Melbourne Food and Wine Festival’s closing weekend.
Gozney cooked up pizzas in custom short sleeve black boiler suits. While our crew served up our MFWF Conscious Collection tote bags especially designed for holding baked goods from the Bakers Dozen. Melbourne’s CBD was painted orange as people from all over packed away their treats from Melbourne’s top bakers.
From merch, to curated looks and custom uniforms, our partnership with Melbourne Food & Wine Festival celebrated Melbourne’s unique identity - a place where food and fashion collide, making memories of a lifetime.
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