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The latest from Style on Lifestyle Desires.

A woman testing an outfit beside records and a clothes rack, caught between style ritual and recommendation culture

Personal taste is getting harder to hear

Personal taste feels flatter in 2026 because algorithmic feeds now shape wardrobes, playlists and rooms before we know what we want.

Imogen Hartley9 min read

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Tailored wedding couple outside a civic building with stone columns
Style

What Dua Lipa’s bridal suit knows about weddings

Dua Lipa bridal suit moment shows why brides are moving toward separates, repeat wear and ceremony clothes that feel like themselves.

Imogen Hartley
Jordan Gogos portrait
Style

After the noise, Jordan Gogos sounds clearer

Jordan Gogos after Australian Fashion Week looks less like a retreat than a pivot, with Parádeisos at UNSW turning scraps, colour and refusal into a longer argument about Australian style.

Imogen Hartley
Woman practising yoga beneath Sydney's Martin Place archways
Style

Alo lands in Sydney, and the matching set follows

Alo Sydney store turns activewear into an off-duty uniform, showing why wellness dressing still slips from Pilates to coffee to work.

Imogen Hartley
Backstage fashion portrait that fits a story about an outsider runway feeling more alive.
Style

Why Australian fashion’s outsider runway feels more alive

Australian Fashion Week 2026 looks slick on paper, but the off-calendar runways around it are where local risk, access and excitement now live.

Imogen Hartley
Online shopping on a phone screen beside folded clothing, illustrating the speed of copycat fashion storefronts.
Style

Shopify ghost stores are swallowing Australian fashion

Shopify ghost stores are turning copied designs, fake local branding and scam storefronts into a trust crisis for Australian labels.

Imogen Hartley
A grand staircase and red carpet inside a formal venue, evoking gala spectacle and social choreography.
Style

What happens when the billionaires become the dress code

Met Gala backlash has become a fight over what fashion is selling when Bezos money, worker anger and taste all end up in the same room.

Imogen Hartley
Runway model stepping through blue show lights at a fashion week presentation
Style

When Perth changed the mood at fashion week

Australian Fashion Week 2026 felt sharper when Perth arrived, bringing designers, stylists and a city-sized confidence Sydney could not fake.

Imogen Hartley
Earth-toned knitwear on a boutique rack, the polished basics aesthetic that helped Everlane sell conscience as style.
Style

The sale that makes Everlane feel like a warning

Everlane sale to Shein confirms what shoppers feared: sustainable fashion’s moral language could not outrun debt, discounting and speed.

Imogen Hartley
Worn Blundstone boots, scuffed and mud-caked, the leather holding the shape of the foot that broke them in.
Style

Blundstone spent 150 years perfecting the work boot. Now it wants you to wear a sandal.

The Aerocork sandal is heavier than you expect. Blundstone spent 156 years perfecting the work boot — now the Tasmanian brand is making its first sandal, and the question isn't whether it's any good. It's what the sandal means.

Imogen Hartley
Designer clothes and bags hanging on a boutique rack, suggesting an archive wardrobe assembled for rental
Style

When fashion history turns up in a garment bag

Isle of Monday vintage rental offers borrowed access to archive fashion, but the real lure is how a worn garment can still feel improbably personal.

Imogen Hartley
Resort 2027 looks by Gary Bigeni, Nicol & Ford and Iordanes Spyridon Gogos in Vogue Australia's Fashion Week size report
Style

Who Australian Fashion Week still imagines into the room

Australian Fashion Week's size report found just 1.75% plus-size looks, exposing the gap between inclusion talk, casting and who fashion invites in.

Imogen Hartley
A striped summer shirt with relaxed khaki trousers against a brick wall.
Style

Seersucker is making linen feel slightly uptight

Seersucker summer style works because the fabric stays sharp in heat, shrugs off linen's creases and now suits looser, easier tailoring.

Imogen Hartley
Rows of pared-back knitwear on hangers, echoing the minimalist uniform Everlane sold so well.
Style

When the white tee lost its halo

Everlane's sale to Shein makes the sustainable fashion pitch look suddenly fragile: a $100 million deal, $90 million in debt, and a mood that has curdled.

Imogen Hartley
Open fashion books on a carpet beside polished shoes
Style

When the coffee table starts dressing the wardrobe

Ralph Lauren’s new Catwalk book lands at the centre of a bigger shift: fashion archives, resale and coffee-table books are shaping how we dress.

Imogen Hartley
Vintage clothing and shoes arranged at a fashion-market stall
Style

The best room at fashion week was full of old clothes

Australian Fashion Week vintage market showed that resale, archival labels and personality now pull as much heat as the runway in Sydney.

Imogen Hartley
A woman in a black leather jacket struts down a runway while women clap.
Style

What fashion success asks of the woman wearing it first

Rochelle Gregory's new film turns the glare of fashion success back on the designer herself, asking what happens when a label and a life become hard to separate.

Imogen Hartley
Nicol & Ford runway image
Style

When a runway feels like a room learning to exhale

Nicol & Ford AFW 2026 turned Elizabeth Bay House into a queer, intimate fashion show that felt less like trend forecasting and more like collective relief.

Imogen Hartley
Harry Styles fans in Amsterdam wearing sequins, hats and tailored pieces outside the opening-night show
Style

Harry Styles fans still dress like they mean it

Harry Styles concert outfits in Amsterdam looked less like merch and more like a dress code, with sequins, crochet and private references doing the work.

Imogen Hartley
A model walks the runway during the Ngali show at Australian Fashion Week
Style

Why Ngali's Fashion Week return felt bigger than a runway slot

Ngali's return to Australian Fashion Week did not need spectacle to land. Denni Francisco's Wander with Wonder made a calmer, sharper case for what Australian style can hold.

Imogen Hartley
Sydney Fashion Week street style in a coat
Style

What Sydney Fashion Week looks like in a coat

At Sydney Fashion Week, the best street style is layered, weather-wise and repeated, revealing how Australians actually dress when the cameras are on.

Imogen Hartley