Fashion

Give the Brownlow ladies a break: “AFL WAGs are mums not models”

As football fever sweeps through the nation let's not get so overwhelmed with excitement that we forget many of the AFL's WAGs are mums and not models.
Kirsty Goldstein

The Brownlow Medal is AFL’s night of nights but the evening has become less about football and more about fashion, especially when the women on the red carpet have missed the mark.

Imagine spoiling yourself with a new dress, indulging yourself at the hair dressers, hiring a baby sitter and attending a work event with your husband, for what could be one of only a few nights out on the town, only to wake up to every inch of your outfit being dissed and dismissed in the pages of the paper?

Coverage of red carpet events often make a point to show female outfits from every angle but the males, even on nights when they should be centre stage, aren’t subject to the same scrutiny.

This inch-by-inch inspection seems particularly unfair at an event like the Brownlow where many plus-ones aren’t attention seeking celebrities but simply wives and girlfriends turning out to support their partners.

While one can concede there have been some infamously gaudy gowns most of the women out on Brownlow night have done their best to look lovely and should be applauded for having the guts to frock up.

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