Lorelei Vashti is a Melbourne-based writer and editor who has written for and been profiled in many magazines.
A contributor to the popular 'Women of Letters' series, Lorelei used to write a television column for Fairfax press. Her blog, 'Dress, Memory', is also the name of her book to be released this month. A charming coming-of-age memoir where every dress has a story to tell.
Lorelei Vashti's top 5 dresses of all time:
1. The black and white ball gown that Audrey Hepburn wears in 'Sabrina' when she arrives back from Paris. This is my classic, ideal ballgown. I made my mum make me exactly this dress, but in yellow, for my grade eleven school presentation ball, because I was a bossy, foot-stomping teenager who ordered my parents around.
2. The two red sparkly dresses worn by Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell in 'Gentlemen Prefer Blondes'. I made my friend Noella make me a red sequined dress exactly like this for a book launch once because I love it so much (do you see a theme here of me forcing people to make me dresses?! Never tell me you know how to sew.)
3. Michelle Williams' yellow Oscars dress: this colour just makes me so happy! It's the dress everyone wears in paradise.
4. Dita von Teese's purple wedding dress: Vivienne Westwood's creation for Dita's marriage to Marilyn Manson was such a work of art. I dream of putting it on and then lying down in it and falling asleep, with the skirt of it billowing around me as a mattress.
5. The green 'Atonement' dress: what can I say—this dress is perfection. Everyone knows it as “the green 'Atonement' dress” because you just don’t need to say anything else about it.
Lorelei Vashti talks at the Brisbane Writers Festival, Friday September 5.
