Acknowledgement of Country
Honi Soit is produced, published and distributed on the stolen land of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. Sovereignty was never ceded. For over 235 years, First Nations peoples in so-called ‘Australia’ have continued to suffer under the destructive effects of invasion, genocide, and colonisation. As editors of this paper, we acknowledge that we are each living, writing, and working on stolen Gadigal, Wangal and Bidjigal land, and are beneficiaries of ongoing colonial dispossession.
We acknowledge that the University of Sydney is an inherently colonial institution which is not only physically built on stolen land, but also ideologically upholds a devaluing of Indigenous systems of knowledge and systematically excludes First Nations peoples. We recognise our complicity in such systems. We strive to remain conscious of, and actively resist and unlearn, colonial ideologies and biases, both our own and those perpetuated by the University and other institutions like it.
As a student newspaper, we pledge to stand in solidarity with both First Nations movements and all Indigenous struggles toward decolonisation worldwide, endeavouring to platform Indigenous voices. Honi is committed to countering the exclusion, censoring, and silencing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives in mainstream media.
Always was, and always will be Aboriginal land.
Editors
Huw Bradshaw
Valerie Chidiac
Aidan Elwig Pollock
Victoria Gillespie
Ariana Haghighi
Sandra Kallarakkal
Zeina Khochaiche
Simone Maddison
Angus McGregor
Amelia Raines
Contributors
Will Winter
Allegra Walsh
Ava Jenkin
Mehnaaz Hossain
Purny Ahmed
Hilary Sutano
Izzy Gee
Kuyili Karthik
Aisha Alim
Ravkaran Grewal
Imogen Sabey
Artists, Photographers
Aisha Alim
Crossword
Michael Smith
Cover Art
Ishbel Dunsmore Simone Maddison
Editorial
When my maternal great-grandmother was around my age, she dreamed of being a seamstress in Paris. Born into a small town in northern Italy at the turn of the 20th-century, she taught herself how to stitch and style any piece of fabric she could find. Yet by the end of World War II, she was a widow caring for ten hungry children. She never moved to France, but she never stopped sewing.
One hundred years later, my paternal grandmother taught me how to use a sewing machine on the outskirts of Newcastle. I remember the day we visited a fabric store together most vividly, when she had picked out a tapestry of textures ranging from corduroy to cotton. We resolved to make a tote bag out of a dark-wash denim, something I could carry my library books to and from school in. She spent the afternoon fixing the snags of ribbon I had used to line its borders as I embroidered a peach handkerchief with white lace.
I have not seen one of these women in two years, and I never had the chance to meet the other. But across time and place, we are bound by fashion as a craft, an aesthetic and a feeling.
This is what makes the Fashion Edition more than a closet full of trends or a runway of salacious gossip. Within these pages, you will read radical histories of revolutionaries and their outfits. You will see fresh perspectives on fast-fashion and sustainability. All the way throughout, you will find pieces challenging the boundaries of masculinity, femininity, modesty and queerness in the way we dress.
The importance of fashion as a physical site of resistance against both racialised and gendered forms of oppression is most explicitly celebrated in this week’s cover. The student on the front of this paper is wearing a keffiyeh, a square scarf representing the endurance of Palestinian culture, identity and liberation. Set against a broader history of SRC fashion explored in this week’s feature article, this photograph expresses solidarity and persistence in the ongoing struggle for a free Palestine.
I hope that you learn something from all the brilliant writers who have contributed to this edition, or that you at least do a double take in the mirror next time you put on a new outfit. And I hope you see the value of learning to cut from your own unique cloth.
— Simone
NTEU fights back!
SRC election starting gun Fisher police real gun 4
Eastern avenue is my runway
12 USyd fashion on the catwalk Covering up 14 Skirts NOT kilts Core-core 15 Sarees here to stay
16 Shalwar kameez lite 17 Commissar chic
18 Looking drag right in the eye Kpop is fucked
ISSN: 2207-5593. This edition was published on Wednesday 21 August 2024. Disclaimer: Honi Soit is published by the Students’ Representative Council, University of Sydney, Level 1 Wentworth Building, City Road, University of Sydney NSW 2006. The SRC’s operation costs, space and administrative support are financed by the University of Sydney. Honi Soit is printed under the auspices of the SRC’s Directors of Student Publications (DSP): Dustin Dao, Jasmine Donnelly, Lia Perkins, Tiger Perkins, Victor Zhang, Lucinda Zheng. All expressions are published on the basis that they are not to be regarded as the opinions of the SRC unless specifically stated. The Council accepts no responsibility for the accuracy of any of the opinions or information contained within this newspaper, nor does it endorse any of the advertisements and insertions.
Simone Maddison News
Cartoon Caption Contest
Submit your best caption for the above to editors@honisoit. com for a chance to WIN and be published in the next edition! Winners receive a personalised limerick from Angus McGregor.
Winning caption: I wish I had that guys hat...
Winner’s reward: In a tailor shop snug and quite flat, A man cried, “I want that big hat!”
The tailor said, “Dear, It’s bigger, I fear, Than the rest of your suit by a spat!”
Picket-line, Punch-line
What’s on?
Wednesday 21 August
Cut ties with Israel’s Genocide protest, 1pm @ F23 Building, USyd.
SUDS’ You’re Killing Me fundraiser, feat. POC Revue 24 band, 5-8pm @ Forest Lodge Hotel.
SOMEDAY SOON presents: 50 years of Manning Bar with DMA’s, Rum Jungle, Hannah Brewer & Darling Street, 6pm @ Manning Bar.
FilmSoc: Demonlover (2002) dir. Olivier Assayas, 5:30pm @ Old Geology Lecture Hall.
Thursday 22 August
USyd WOCO’s Cheese & Tatreez, 3-4.30pm @ Women’s Room, Manning House.
SCASS Exhibition: Night Moves Opening, 6.30-9.00pm @ Backspace, Level 3 Wentworth Building.
White Rabbit After Hours, 5-8pm @ White Rabbit Gallery, Chippendale.
Friday 23 August
SUDS @ Fringe Launch Party. Featuring bands Harriet and the Hags, New Calyptus, Rhom Konnie. 7pm @ Hermanns Bar.
Sunday 25 August
Armenian Film Festival Closing Night: Its Spring (2022) dir. Roman Musheghyan, 5.30pm @ Event Cinemas Top Ryde.
Wednesday 28 August
QUEST Wear it Purple Day, 12-2pm @ Engineering and Technology Precinct, Darlington.
Protest: Student Strike for Palestine, 1pm @ UTS Tower.
Just a good new film — Kid Snow (2024) dir. Paul Goldman, 6pm @ Palace Central. SCA Group Exhibition: Yours Sincerely, 5-9pm @ Goodspace Gallery, Chippendale.
Ongoing shows:
Reverse Archaeologies & Replica
Autoprogettazione @ Tin Sheds Gallery. Opting Out (Verge’s 15th Anniversary exhibition) @ Verge Gallery.
SUDS’ Bin Night. Runs 21 - 24 August. 7pm @ Cellar Theatre, Camperdown.
USU Law Revue 2024: The Good, The Bad, and the Trustee. Runs 22 - 24 August, 7pm @ Seymour Centre
Love Bytes
Listen to Love Bytes on Surg FM at 10am on Fridays www.iheart.com/live/surg-7354/
Q: “Advice for hopeful virgins”
Arwen: The sexiest thing you can be is yourself. The smell of desperation reeks.
Ella: Have sex.
Hannah: Quit being hopeful and start getting horny.
Chris: Happened for your Mum, it’ll happen for you too. Having sex runs in your family.
Q: “I have a serious cuckolding fetish. Is this something that I should be ashamed of?”
Arwen: Shame is unnecessary unless you do something you regret.
Ella: It is what it is, no need to beat yourself up over it.
Hannah: Yes and I think that therapy would be a good next step.
Chris: Never be ashamed! Just make sure you have the right chair!
Q: “Am I gay?”
Arwen: Idk but if you have to ask…
Ella: Yes! Mmmmh no actually, no probably not… unless? Maybe?
Hannah: No, it’s just a phase.
Chris: My housemate can help you figure that out.
Q: “How do I separate love from sex? Can these experiences be mutually exclusive or are they deeply intertwined? And, if the latter is true, is any attempt to ignore their intertwinedness a futile effort?”
Arwen: Maybe they are intertwined, but you don’t have to ignore it. Just remember you can love something without clinging to it.
Ella: The more important question could be why your feelings need to be perfectly defined. Sex can exist without love and love can exist without sex.
Hannah: I don’t think that love and sex are always intertwined, but I do think that when they are it can be really fun. Sex to me is an innately human activity that is almost animalistic and instinctive whereas love, or the modern idea of love that is fed to us from birth, is a fairly new phenomena that has a lot of made up rubbish connected to it.
Chris: A curtain, a laser beam, or even a separate room. There are many ways. But sex is love! and love is life! Why should we separate love and life? I like it.
Q: “How should I start talking to girls/ generally making friends?”
Arwen: Ask them questions! E.g. Do you believe in astrology? Do you ever wish you were an only child? Would you join a cult? What did you eat today?
Ella: Start a creative project with someone who has a common interest. Like a radio show! Or a magazine, or a band. Even just talking about it can bring you closer to someone.
Hannah: Girls respond well to nice, confident people who laugh at their jokes and who pay close attention to their little anecdotes and general ramblings. Also, especially at uni, it is so refreshing when people are just open and forthright and kind. Girls, and also non-girls, will be taken aback by easy and uninhibited conversation! Chris: You’re talking to the girls right now! Come on the show?
The sealed section
Artist: Huw Bradshaw
Cartoon: Biggy Piggy
Three candidates vie for SRC Presidency in 2024 election
Angus McGregor
Three candidates, Rand Khatib (Grassroots), Angus Fisher (NLS), and Thomas Thorpe (Liberal) will run in the SRC Presidential election this year in an unexpected three-way race.
Khatib is currently serving as one of the SRC’s Womens Officer’s and has played a central role in pro-Palestinian activism on campus this year. If elected, Khatib would be the fifth Grassroots President in a row to lead the SRC, as well as the first Palestinian SRC President in history.
Fisher also currently serves on the SRC as an Executive. This will be his second election this year, after running an unsuccessful campaign to join the USU Board.
Thorpe previously served as the SRC Interfaith Officer and has been part of the Liberal faction on campus, contributing to The Sydney Tory and supporting multiple conservative tickets such as Lift for SRC last year.
A 10-person Honi Soit ticket “Spill for Honi” has also been nominated. The ticket includes Ellie Robertson, Mehnaaz Hossain, Purny Ahmed,
Ondine Karpinellison, Lotte Weber, Imogen Sabey, Emilie Garcia-Dolnik, Annabel Li, Aidan Pollock, and Will Winter.
All 10 are regular Honi contributors, with most pitching and writing multiple articles last semester.
The Honi election is not without competition, with ticket “JJames.” nominated to run against Spill for Honi. The individual candidate, namely, James, did not provide their last name. Honi suspects this to be a joke ticket.
Sixty-two tickets for SRC Council and nine tickets for NUS delegates have also been provisionally nominated.
Of these tickets, familiar to students will be the usual suspects of Grassroots, Switch, and Left Action. Reflecting the large-scale proPalestinian student movements of the last year, many tickets appear to be based around Palestinian activism, such as ‘Student Intifada’ and ‘Free Palestine’.
There also appears to be a Colleges ticket on the ballot, running under the immensely creative title of ‘Colleges’.
Other factions include Penta, which traditionally represents international students, as well as Artistry, which will campaign for fine arts students.
On-campus polling for the election will occur from September 24 to September 26, with an in-person and online campaign starting in the weeks before.
Polling locations will include the Jane Foss Russell building, Fisher Library, Manning House, Susan Wakil Health building, Peter Nicol Russell building, and the Conservatorium of Music.
The official ballot will be drawn next week.
Militant faction of NTEU ‘fighting back’ against University’s
Ella McGrath
announced hiring crackdown
“Fightback,” a militant caucus within the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) launched a petition to oppose job cuts and hiring restrictions on Tuesday, August 13 in response to a letter Vice Chancellor Mark Scott sent to staff on the same day.
“Staff are already overworked, underpaid and struggling with a cost of living crisis,” the preamble to the petition read, “now the livelihoods of the people who ensure the University functions every day are being threatened”
Scott told staff that management would be considering “how we would deal with the impacts of the financial shortfalls” caused by the Federal Government’s proposed cap on international student enrolment.
“Without detail on the scope of the proposed caps on international students and how they will apply to individual institutions, the university has needed to take some precautionary measures in order to safeguard our institution and community,” Scott said.
Scott announced that management would be “monitoring continuing and fixed term recruitment and contract extensions” on a caseby-case basis, and “reconsidering the scope of our activities in 2025.”
Fightback said that “in practice, this means job cuts, hiring freezes and restructures.”
In a letter sent to the union membership yesterday, President of the USyd branch of the NTEU Nick Riemer stated that the Vice Chancellor
“has clearly signalled the possibility of job cuts.”
“Job security is an absolute priority for the NTEU,” Riemer said, “and we will use very mechanism at our disposal to safeguard employment for all our members” Riemer also announced that he will be privately meeting with management on Monday to “discuss their intentions” and to “advocate for job security.”
The University of Sydney is the country’s largest enroller of international students, with 46 per cent of its students coming from overseas. According to USyd’s Annual Financial Report, international student fees accounted for 44 percent of its revenue last year.
Many stakeholders have stressed the negative implications of the upcoming cap on enrolment, given Australian Universities’ reliance on international students’ fees. Universities Australia chief executive Luke Sheehy said that the policy could lead to 14,000 job cuts across the tertiary education sector.
Usyd’s Annual Financial Report recorded a surplus of 351.8 million in 2023, following on from a $298.5 million surplus in 2022, and a 1.3 billion surplus in 2021.
Noting these three consecutive years of surpluses, Fightback stated that there was “no excuse” for University management to cut down on jobs and hiring practices, and that “the university should dip into” these funds to support its staff.
An Honi analysis reported that despite recording a surplus on
Plain clothed police officer flashes firearm in Fisher
Valerie Chidiac and Sandra Kallarakkal
On July 29, a plain clothed police officer flashed a holstered firearm at a student and staff member in Fisher Library.
The staff member had been directing a student to a study room they had booked, and requested the two occupants vacate the room. The man inside stood up and pulled back his jacket to reveal a holstered gun to the staff member and student.
The armed man had placed his ID on the table when University security came to question him. He allegedly stated that it would have been an inconvenience to retrieve his ID from his bag earlier.
The man had not explicitly identified himself as police to the staff member until security spoke with him. He told the staff member that he had been conducting an interview with sensitive recording equipment and had not wanted to interrupt the interview by verbally identifying himself.
The man also told the staff member that “it may not be common in your world, but in my world a gun isn’t that unusual” before apologising and leaving.
paper, USyd operated at a loss of 9.4 million last year due to additional expenditures on quarantined grants and investment funds among others. In 2022, the institution still made a profit of a net $200 million (from a gross 298.5 million).
In the petition, Fightback alleged that Mark Scott had “assured staff the University had set aside sufficient funds to support future building projects” at a recent Town Hall meeting.
“Instead of bloated executive salaries and splashing cash on buildings and marketing, this money should be used to provide staff with job security and help long term casualised and fixed-term staff transition to secure jobs,” Fightback said.
Fightback was formed during the 2020 COVID recession to oppose the Jobs Protection Framework, a deal between national NTEU leadership and universities across the country that proposed a 15 percent pay cut on the basis that job security would be prioritised.
A USyd spokesperson said that without consultation on the proposed caps and clarity on their scale, the institution needed to “take some precautionary measures in order to safeguard our institution and community”.
“No job cuts have been indicated and hiring is still progressing,” the spokesperson said, “however, recruitment and fixed term contract extensions will now additionally be assessed by the University Executive until we have greater clarity.”
The following day, the staff member lodged the incident in Riskware and sent an email to Protective Services asking the team to follow up a University complaint to the police.
On July 31, Protective Services responded, stating that “appropriate line managers” had offered support to the staff member and indicated that the “police officer’s handling of the situation may not have met expectations” but a “reasonable apology was given at the time.”
In a separate post, they told staff that while “the University does not endorse the Officer’s conduct…we also have no jurisdiction over Police in the conduct of their duties”. They went on to direct the staff member involved to lodge a complaint with NSW Police.
Upon pressure from the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) as well as staff voicing their concerns on the staff message board, University Management only then made a formal police complaint on August 6.
In a comment to Honi, a university spokesperson stated that the University is in agreement with staff that the incident “should have been handled more appropriately” and that they have written to the “relevant NSW Police Professional Standards Inspector and expressed our concerns.”
Jason Todd, a member of the USyd NTEU Branch committee, told Honi that the NTEU is “appalled” at the handling of the incident, noting it in the context of the Campus Access Policy.
“The University needs to focus on actual threats to staff and student wellbeing, and make it unambiguously
clear that armed police are not welcome on campus.”
The NTEU met with senior Management to discuss the incident on Tuesday 13 August. Management apologised to the staff member on their late response and handling of the incident, including the time it took to contact NSW Police.
Management committed to speaking to Protective Services and clarify expectations about firearms on campus.
They made clear that the University’s response to staff concerns was inadequate, and would convey the request for the Vice-Chancellor Mark Scott to make a public apology. Management recognised the University response as the failure of a large organisation that is occasionally too used to responding in a bureaucratic, rather than people-focussed manner.
‘TERFS off our turf’: Protest against transphobic speaker Lawford-Smith
Huw Bradshaw and Victoria Gillespie
On Wednesday 14 August, at 3pm, a protest was held against the University of Sydney Philosophy Department’s invitation to Holly Lawford-Smith, Associate Professor in Political Philosophy at the University of Melbourne, to speak at a Philosophy Seminar.
The protest was held in response to Lawford-Smith’s widely-publicised transphobic views as well as her association with gender-critical feminist and neo-Nazi movements. Speakers from staff, student and community groups criticised LawfordSmith and the University’s invitation.
While Lawford-Smith prepared to speak at the Philosophy Seminar Room, a crowd of students and staff gathered outside — in front of the University of Sydney Quadrangle — to lead a protest against the seminar. Introduced by the Chair, Freya Mulhall, USyd SRC President Harrison Brennan was first to speak.
After opening with a land acknowledgement, Brennan spoke about his own experience as a philosophy student, stating that the purpose of the discipline was to “change the world” and “make it better”, and that the invitation of a transphobic speaker such as LawfordSmith was in conflict with that purpose.
Speaking to this, Brennan noted the hypocrisy of a University that quashed the free speech of students and staff, while simultaneously
University restricts student access to New Law Building
The University has restricted student access to level 5 and level 6 of the New Law School Building and students may no longer use the bridge as a study space with some staff expressing concerns the area has been misused.
The door leading up to level 6 has been locked and students are also unable to use the lift in the building to access the level.
A University spokesperson confirmed to Honi Soit that “A small number of spaces in the Law Building have restricted access, including key administrative workspaces on levels 5 and 6 that are reserved for staff use only.”
The spokesperson did not answer specific questions about why the decision was made recently to close the space but said that students could still access the bridges on level 3 and 4 of the building as an informal study space.
Multiple students have approached Honi expressing disappointment over the decision. One second year Commerce student said that it was their favourite study spot and fully
platforming and promoting a bigot in the name of free speech. Brennan cited some of Lawford-Smith’s transphobic remarks, including calling trans people “a contagion”.
Sophie Cotton, representing Queer Unionists in Tertiary Education (part of the NTEU), spoke next. Speaking against the frequently deployed narrative of ‘Gender-Critical Feminists’ being silenced, Cotton said that if “being silenced” included two Oxford University Press book deals, that she too, would like to be “silenced”. As with Brennan, Cotton made reference to Lawford-Smith’s role in a Melbourne anti-trans rights rally that attracted significant Neo-Nazi presence, stating that “campus is not safe for bigots”.
Cotton went on to criticise the claim that Lawford-Smith’s platforming is a necessary component of a democratic academia, as made by Philosophy Department chair Kristie Miller in defence of the seminar. Making reference to an Oxford University Press Union petition to block the publication of Lawford-Smith’s work, Cotton stated that Lawford-Smith’s work “is not a scholarly work” and that gendercritical feminism is a “smokescreen for bigotry.”
Cotton finished by quoting Toni Morrison:
“The very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your
reason for being.”
Relating this quote to her own experience with transphobia, Cotton spoke to the significant progress still necessary to achieve rights and equality for transgender people, stating that it is “an outrage that we are out here, protesting such an insignificant person.”
The final speaker, Willow, represented the Feminist Liberation Collective, a student activist group. Similar to other speakers, Willow emphasised the University’s complicity, who they stated was letting “known transphobes speak while prohibiting student speech”.
Willow explained why they were protesting Lawford-Smith’s invitation, “Women’s liberation is not run on theorising… but solidarity. TERFs do not care about women”. Highlighting the collaboration of TERFs with “neoNazis and Zionists”, Willow declared that the claim of TERFs to protect women is contradictory, and that they collaborate “with every group who seeks to do them [women] harm”.
Finishing, Willow accentuated the role of students and community in feminist movements: “we have a responsibility to stop the far right from co-opting our movement”.
The protest concluded with chants of “racist, sexist, anti-queer, bigots are not welcome here”.
University releases annual SASH report
restricting the space was “too far.”
“They were both very nice areas… the staff already have all the rooms,” he said.
A third year Law student expressed a similar sentiment saying that “it felt like an arbitrary decision,” and arguing that “there is no harm from students being and using the space quietly.”
An anonymous staff member said the decision was taken after students had consistently stolen food out of the kitchen, and filmed in the area without the consent of staff present.
“These weren’t isolated incidents, this was becoming a trend. Staff deserve safe communal spaces, and an increasing number of students weren’t respecting the space,” the staff member said.
Honi has previously reported on the campus being more restrictive. Staff members have reported that staff common rooms and other shared spaces like libraries are now increasingly only open to designated card holders.
The spokesperson said that the “New Law School building is a shared space...”
The University of Sydney has released their second and Annual Report on Sexual Misconduct for 2023. The launch of their ‘Roadmap to Prevention of Sexual Misconduct’ released in 2023 details the University’s response and commitment to improved safety on campus.
The report considers both University and non-University related cases, visualising data sourced from reports received, as well as drawing information from their ‘Improving Inclusion and Accessibility Intersectionality survey’.
In 2023, 246 reports of sexual misconduct were received, revealing an approximate 100% increase from the 121 reports received in 2022.
Following the increase of reports a University statement on the matter said, “An increase in reports may not necessarily represent an increase in incidents, but may reflect increased awareness of our reporting and support options. Last year, we also welcomed all students back to campus following the COVID-19 pandemic and increased numbers of students is also likely to be a factor.”
15% of this year’s reports were
considered neither university nor non-University due to “insufficient evidence,” whilst 23% of cases were considered university related.
A statement provided by the Sexaul Assault and Sexual Harassment (SASH) Officer read that “the results of the survey were incredibly disappointing. A 103% increase from 2022 is devastating, especially when you consider that we’re only scraping the surface with these statistics given how [many cases] are unreported.”
The report did reveal that 8% of reports of sexual misconduct in 2023 involved “university-owned or affiliated student accommodation.” The same disclosure was not made in the 2022 report.
In response the SASH Officer told Honi that “the lack of data surrounding residential colleges and student accommodation is very disappointing since we know that’s where the bulk of sexual misconduct occurs.”
Of the 197 reports from current or former students, 45% of cases were from international students, 44% were from domestic, and 11% were of unknown status.
Read the full story online.
Angus McGregor
Zeina Khochaiche
Sophie Cotton (NTEU)
Chancellor’s Committee’s 2024 Book Fair to change hands to Lifeline
At 10.30am in a room in the F23 building, the Chancellor’s Committee heard from Kate May, Director of Alumni and Supporter Experience, about the Alumni team’s decision to pass the Book Fair baton (in part) to Lifeline.
The atmosphere swelled with the confusion of some Committee members, and the unbridled rage of others. During the meeting, members passed around an open letter to ViceChancellor Mark Scott, petitioning him to meet with the Chancellor’s
Committee after his failure to do so last year. Members of the meeting signed their name under “Book Fair volunteers”.
Kate May fielded many angry questions and explained that the Alumni department from USyd management reached out to Lifeline to work in partnership with them, opting to no longer financially support it themselves.
USyd’s alumni department is also closing down the Chancellor’s Committee’s office and storage facility, Burren Street, citing “economic concerns”. With no storage facility, the Chancellor’s Committee has shut down their EBay site, on which they sold 23 books this year.
“I can see a lot of shaking heads but I see this as an opportunity”, May explained.
“You can throw tomatoes at me if you want.”
May addressed the audience’s fear that this would close the Chancellor’s Committee or affect its ability to fund student initiatives.
The Book Fair is one of the Chancellor’s Committee key sources of funding. According to its 2023 annual report, these funds were used for disability bursaries, an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students bursary, and grants to student teams such as the Rocketry Team (a total of $52,700 went toward University bursaries and grants). May explained the financial policy regarding profits: “50% of the proceeds are going back to the Book Fair and 50% of the proceeds to Lifeline”. “Additionally, Lifeline is helping with the transportation costs.” The Chancellor’s Committee will pay the cost of security and cleaning.
proceeds of the Book Fair will return to the Committee. This is not about shutting down the Chancellor’s Committee”, May confirmed. She also cited that a figure of $500,000 is currently in the Chancellor’s Committee’s bank account.
Audience members also raised their concerns about what would happen to their current Burren Street office.
“I don’t know what campus infrastructure has planned for Burren Street. Burren street is in a dilapidated state, and there is a cost for the repair of the space”, May stated.
“Our Book Fair and Lifeline’s book fair are quite different beasts. What was the attraction!”
“I have been to a Lifeline book fair and did not like it!”
“The Chancellor’s Committee was established to serve the University, which is quite different from Lifeline!”
“Our Book Fair and Lifeline’s book fair are quite different beasts. What was the attraction!”
With the next Book Fair scheduled for September, Jeremy stated that “Lifeline has offered to supply their own volunteers if our numbers fall short.” It was also revealed that this is the first time that the Book Fair will be cashless, with Lifeline handling the pay stations and EFTPOS machines.
After continuous questions surrounding Lifeline’s involvement, Alumni department member Georgie said, “They’re not going to try and steal money, have a little faith.”
One audience member heckled about the Lifeline partnership, toppling the dominoes of decorum: “We weren’t consulted”. Georgie rebuffed this by saying “we did consult with you”, leading to more heckles of “you did not” as well as an audible “Bullshit!”.
“I can see a lot of shaking heads but I see this as an opportunity”, May explained.
“You can throw tomatoes at me if you want.”
This prompted a question from the audience, “Why is Lifeline taking 50% of earnings this year when they haven’t done anything leading up to now?” The Chancellor’s Committee book fair volunteers have, until now, completed all the preparation for the book fair singularly.
Jacob from Sydney Motor Sport, an undergraduate team that the Chancellors Committee supports, stated: “We depend on their funding, and the funding does excellent things for the university’s reputation on the international stage”. His speech was met with rapturous applause.
“We aren’t shutting down the Chancellor’s Committee, and some
Georgie then left the room, distressed, and the room was plunged into a hurricane’s eye of guilt, stress and confusion.
After a period of silence, May confirmed: “We are yet to negotiate the terms for next year. We are not out to get you.” Tensions eased, it was the Khrushchev Thaw.
When Honi Soit sought to ask a question, we were initially told that non-members could not do so. However we were later given the floor by a member of the Chancellor’s Committee to pose a question about the marketing of the Book Fair, and how these changes will be announced to students. May explained that the Alumni department is “currently working with marketing”.
Just as Brezhnev put an end to the Thaw, an audience members then piped up about Lifeline and began a barrage of questions and concerns once more.
Such complaints were heard from the crowd. Audience members also questioned the logistics of how they could continue to volunteer from an office not based on campus.
May explained why Lifeline was chosen as a partner for the Book Fair: “Lifeline wants to work with us more broadly on other initiatives”
To devotees of the Chancellor’s Committee, semantics matter. One member requested that the partnership be worded as “partnership of Chancellor’s Committee with Lifeline” rather than “Lifeline x Chancellor’s Committee.”
In a statement to Honi, a University of Sydney spokesperson said, “We’re pleased to confirm our partnership with Lifeline, that will help ensure the Book Fair held annually at the University of Sydney can thrive into the future.”
“A much-loved event on the University calendar now in its 37th year”, the spokesperson reiterated the Chancellor’s Committee of volunteers’ role in its organisation as well as their “rich history with the University” which they are “pleased” to continue into the future.
The new partnership was described as proceeds “shared to support Lifeline’s delivery of essential services for suicide prevention and community mental health” in addition to “the Chancellor Committee’s key focus on bursaries and grants for students to help them overcome specific challenges or circumstances.”
“Lifeline will also provide muchneeded storage for the Fair’s books and take on operations of the Book Fair from 2025 with assistance from volunteers including Chancellor Committee members warmly welcomed.”
The spokesperson also confirmed that the upcoming book fair will continue to be hosted on campus from September 14 to 18 at the Great Hall.
What the book fair will look like in years to come, however, remains to be seen. What is known is that the Chancellor’s Committee will not cave easily.
Valerie Chidiac and Ariana Haghighi hit the books.
Cute, Cute, Cute: The performance of self in contemporary fashion
There is a me that no longer exists
but she exists in an archive of old material
shirts i’ll never wear, worn down shoes and parts of me that i’ve started to hate.
I have come to realise that my identity can simply change with how I dress. An item that I rarely wear can sculpt a completely new person to strangers: maybe I’m more quaint than usual or perhaps I’m more boisterous. It is difficult to say that I am me especially when fashion becomes more performance than daily ritual. Every day a carefully crafted reimagination of self that is accompanied by a categorisation from social media vocabulary to facilitate a performance.
The concept of the ritualised self is at the core of Lolita fashion culture. An importance is placed on an individualised identity where the wearer is akin to a performer. This is particularly pertinent in Theresa Winge’s analysis of Lolita through ritualisation—and the preliminal, liminal, and postliminal states of dress. First, the preliminal state foregrounds the pre-establishment of character through the purchase of the clothes, makeup and accessories, separating the lolita from the dominant Japanese culture. The liminal state is where one learns the poses and mannerisms that come with being Lolita, furthering lolita dress as a type of performance art that is more than just wearing clothes and made apparent through choice of ornamentation. During the postliminal state, an individual reincorporates themselves with the rest of Japanese society, presenting themselves to the subculture and dominant culture. They also acknowledge themselves as a lolita – an individual who is part of the collective—“she ceases to be herself she is a Lolita.”
Winge’s analysis of dress has become valuable when studying contemporary fashion due to the ‘cute’ culture that popularises itself primarily through social media. Coquette, kawaii, and angel-core are just some words that have weaved their way into the vocabulary of teenagers and young adults.
The pre-liminal phase of performativity typically finds its beginnings in ornamentation and accessorisation with jewellery, a bag, or a small item that you attach to your outfit to elevate it. But there has been a trend in using collectable items to further elevate an entire look. In the past few years, the little angel boy who wears different headgear has risen in popularity, with individuals boasting their large collection — commonly known as Sonny Angels. Japanese designer Toru Soeya invented them to act as a companion for young working women dealing with stress, and they have accompanied many people in
their day-to-day life, myself included. Acting as a little spark of happiness or laughter as you bring them out to show friends, it has opened up discussion about cute culture and its prevalence in indulgent consumption — this is cute, I need it. Fruit, animals, sweets and vegetables are some of the main categories available for the ‘trinket’: but what becomes of its original purpose when it exists in abundance?
Unfortunately, cute culture has created an environment that thrives off of collection and in turn feeds into patterns of overconsumption. Even a symbol such as ‘the bow’ has made its rounds in contemporary fashion as designers like Sandy Liang have placed it at the forefront of their brand. This indulgence in a singular style that we previously deemed as unique has not dismayed individuals from participation in that fashion culture but rather stresses the politics of fashion identity in its role of informing widespread trends. In turn, these trends and fads bring about a collector’s mentality, telling individuals that they must purchase these items to rectify their identity — from the old self to the new self. Thus, we are at a
crossroads: a constant reconstruction and redefinition of one’s desired image while putting an aesthetic for display.
Women’s connection to their childhood self through a lens of reclamation does not absolve issues brought about by male surveillance, nor does it cease re-interpretation through voyeuristic intention. Instead it communicates the importance of agency in female dress, but it does not protect from oversexualisation and objectification. It is difficult to point out similar attitudes towards men’s fashion. When just as revealing clothes are worn by men, they aren’t tied to their sexual promiscuity. Their choices are not broken into countless categories, as there is a constant generalisation of men’s fashion as boring or plain. Though we see examples to define men who exist outside of the fashion norm described as male manipulator [core], male examples of dress still find themselves exempt from an overt emphasis on objectification or oversexualisation simply due to the fact that they are men.
The clothes that we wear form a voice of their own, but the conversation that they have with others is beyond
our control. The conceptualisation of a fashion identity may act as a burden, as the adherence to subcultural and parent communities demonstrate a lack of willingness to surrender the ideals of uniformity and community. What is interesting about cuteness is that it has entwined itself with youth culture, acting as a form of rebellion against the norm.Yet, its perpetuation of innocence still conforms to patriarchal ideals of purity and childlike naivete:‘desirable’ traits for women — how do we escape?
When we put on our clothes; decide to add a few little keyrings to our bag; bring a trinket along with us, who are we performing for? And why are we performing? It isn’t necessary to understand the simplicity of dress through a lens of performance but if individuals continue to find value in separating themselves from the dominant culture to embrace an imagined or real authenticity then there is significance in the narrative that is contemporary fashion as we allow our clothes to speak.
Aisha Alim performs.
Art: Aisha Alim
Fashion By Numbers: What Chinese social e-commerce can tell us about the future of fast fashion
Over the last decade, fast fashion has transitioned to the digital realm. While name brand outlets like H&M and Zara continue to thrive, new online players have revolutionised the market in ways that may prove telling for the future of how we engage with ecommerce in Australia.
High internet penetration, growing digital literacy, and a growing demand for consumer goods have propelled the rapid evolution of a sophisticated e-commerce ecosystem, now the largest in the world. Behind the great firewall, domestic platforms have flourished without the presence of global giants like Amazon and Ebay, and figures from Statista based on World Bank, IMF, and UN data evaluate the sector at USD $1.47tn today.
Within the industry, the Alibabaowned Taobao and Tmall are by far the largest, commanding a 40% combined market share. The former works as a C2C (Consumer-To-Consumer) marketplace, where individuals and small businesses can sell to users, while the latter hosts more legacy brands like Nike.
“They make shopping easy. Easier than it ever has been. And gamify the experience, totally removing consumers from any means of production.”
These two also offer a combined service, hosting over 60,000 vendors and distributors, many of which solely produce apparel, and provide quick shipping services for goods purchased in-app. This fractured producer base gives them a wider catalogue, and allows them to respond quickly to popular trends, extremely important in China’s dynamic consumer landscape.
A huge portion of the industry’s growth can be attributed to the integration of social ecommerce —a convergence of trading platforms and social media. Companies like JD, Pinduoduo, and Taobao attract consumers with social media-esque navigation systems, and foster user interactivity by encouraging reviews and micro-influencing.
Most companies integrate their platforms into major social media apps, connecting direct, in-app
influencer-to-purchase transactions. If you see it, if you like it — you can buy it. Immediately. And some social media apps have even launched their own trading platforms, like 抖 音 (Douyin/Tiktok) that now feature an in-app marketplace. They are endlessly optimised and vast, with endless scroll functions and responsetailored suggestions. They aggregate huge numbers of brands, arrange incredibly quick and convenient delivery systems, provide easy refunds, and instantaneous payment.
It’s hard to overstate just how significant a change this is. Where fast-fashion players like FashionNova, Shein, and H&M once used social media to inspire products, announce them, and direct consumers out-ofplatform to their own marketplaces, this new generation of apps are either fully integrated or connected to social media inside-of-app. And many present like social media platforms themselves.
They make shopping easy. Easier than it ever has been. And gamify the experience, totally removing consumers from any means of production.
Taobao and Tmall trade hundreds of millions of transactions per day, almost all contained within the domestic market. And of these transactions, fashion and apparel is the second highest category, with around 783.1 million users. As mentioned earlier, these products come from tens of thousands of different producers located across China, and Taobao itself makes none of the merchandise.
Unlike fast fashion giants like H&M, Shein and Zara, Taobao has no direct accountability for the products and supply chains involved in the goods it delivers to you. Vendors are mostly promoted and regulated by customer feedback and user interaction, accountable only to Taobao’s sales guidelines which emphasise punctuality and do not mention sustainability or workplace conditions.
Their success, typical of fast fashion, relies on their ability to quickly deliver trending clothes, often at an even lower price point. And while they don’t deal strictly in low-quality, low-price goods, their popularity and delivery system make them the perfect environment for trading them.
It’s important to note that platforms like Taobao have also managed to shake up the Chinese textiles industry, and local consumption practices. The platforms have greatly compressed domestic
supply chains, connecting producers more directly with consumers and demand. Crackdowns on counterfeit trading and access to an online market has also empowered independent vendors, allowing them to compete in a user-regulated, feedback-based market.
“Taobao’s success is predicated on high, close demand, direct access to cheap, domestic labour, and universal digital integration.”
But ultimately, the lack of reporting and division of production makes it harder to hold Taobao accountable, and measure its impact on workers and sustainability. The platform does offer a special page for renewable “green products”, and it does hand out coupons specifically targeted at these products. Alibaba, its parent company, has also spearheaded several recent recycling initiatives, including AI-powered recycling systems, and commitments to transitioning more energy use to renewable sources.
But these efforts are still dwarfed by its and the industry’s consistent high environmental impact. In 2023, according to state media, China’s total package delivery exceeded $100 billion for the third consecutive year.
And 2020 data from the State Administration for Market Regulation indicates that the courier industry produces more than 1.8 million tonnes of plastic and 9 million tonnes of paper waste annually.
And although the Chinese government has committed to a green packaging express system by 2025, the system will only cover 10% of intracity deliveries. China’s commitment to a double carbon goal, allowing emissions to peak until 2030 means that, at least for the next few years, this issue isn’t going anywhere. This is not even mentioning the environmental impact of the enormous traffic and storage incurred by Chinese server-based ecommerce, for which we were unable to find statistics.
But what does this mean for the future of fast fashion, especially in Australia?
Taobao’s success is predicated on high, close demand, direct access to cheap, domestic labour, and universal digital integration. And so it’s unlikely its success will be replicated in a country like Australia. But this new, centralised, gamified form of online shopping may well become the norm.
Online shopping has also grown immensely in Australia, tripling to 16% of our total retail turnover over the last decade, according to the 2024 Australia Post eCommerce report. And Gen Z show an immense appetite for buying clothes online, as the highest consumers of fashion via the web, accounting for almost a quarter of their entire online expenditure.
The growing inaccessibility of designer goods, profusion of clothing apps like Depop, and the rising cost of thrifted clothes may further push the Australian market to lower-cost online fast fashion retailers like Taobao. This transition may not be so simple though. Any ambitious platform will have to overcome the question of sustainability in the eyes of Australian consumers. In Gen Z Australians, fast fashion’s largest demographic, 93% express a preference for sustainable shopping, according to the same Australia Post report.
In any case, fast fashion’s next evolution in Australia will likely be a compromise between the two. Something entirely new to cater for the growing cost of living, demand for aesthetic goods, and the pressing need for circular consumption.
Izzy Gee fast forwards.
Jack Mao, co-founder of Alibaba and Taobao
If you’re reading this, it’s likely that you’ve seen — and perhaps even own — one of the many shirts, jumpers or badges produced by our university’s Student Representative Council (SRC). Perhaps it’s one of Grassroots’ striking green tops you seamlessly stole from their stall during election campaigns on Eastern Avenue last year. Maybe it’s a Women’s or Queer Action Collective tee you took home after attending your first meeting at the beginning of your degree. Or perhaps it’s an old-school rag someone in your family passed down to you after their brief left-wing student politics stint.
Regardless of what it is or where it came from, you can be sure that your SRC merchandise features at least one of the institution’s signature design choices: a bright pop of colour, an unnecessarily large logo, and a pithy political statement. Without these elements, I fear student activists wouldn’t be able to recognise themselves in the mirror.
Such a stalwart of campus culture has undoubtedly been fashioned from a rich tapestry, one whose loose ends can be traced from the archives into our closets today. But Manning Road has not always been a runway; SRC designs have not always been so pronounced and provocative. While miniskirts and turtlenecks appear to be some of the most timeless vestiges of student-led protests, a walk through the University of Sydney’s history says otherwise.
BETWEEN THE 1930S AND 1960S: A COMPARATIVE STUDY
Some of the first editions of Honi Soit to regularly publish photographs of students — and subsequently initiate our foray into the realm of student fashion — emerged in the 1930s. In March 1931, the front page of news centred the “members of the second S.R. Council” draped in their faculty caps and gowns. Two months later, the paper included an advertisement for “the new University coat”, a tailored navy-blue blazer featuring the University arms alongside blue-andgold braiding across its pockets. By the end of the decade, significant debaters and sportspeople like James Byas and Charles Gilton (both students who visited from Le Moyne College in Memphis) were still almost exclusively photographed wearing suits or formal attire.
These Anglo-centric, often explicitly colonial trends, were reinforced by the opening of a David Jones store in the Holme Building. Initially targeting the University’s majority of male students, the outlet sold a range of “made-to-measure suits” and “Townsend shoes” at discounted prices that were regularly advertised in Honi. It was not until the 1940s that the brand began to cater for women on campus, often straying away from skirts in favour of slacks and pants “tailored to flatter.” Although its physical closing date remains unclear,
David Jones’ monopoly over retail promotions within student media was fully replaced by other off-campus brands by the 1970s.
SIMONE MADDISON STRUTS HER STUFF WITH PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE ARCHIVES
Campus fashion for the broadly left-wing coalition of students featured in Honi of writers, editors and SRC representatives would remain modest and uniform until the beginning of the 1960s. In photographs circulated from 1948, law students who had been brutalised by police for marching to the Dutch consulate in protest against the occupation of Indonesia wore suits, ties and bowler hats. Three years later, the newly-elected SRC executive was pictured in collared shirts and blazers. By 1962, gimmicks pointing out “who’s who in the zoo” exclusively pictured Honi editors in their Sunday best — even if they were sprawled over a lounge or having a beer at the pub. Such formalities are almost unimaginable for today’s undergraduate students.
A NOTE ON “MISS UNIVERSITY”
Just as “style” was defined by rigidly Westernised aesthetic standards, so too was it divided along overtly misogynistic lines. The introduction of the “Miss University” contest in 1949, and its subsequent associations with various meanings of “beauty” and “elegance” throughout Honi, raise numerous questions about the treatment of women’s fashion during this period. A front page from June
of 1962 paired the headline “not just beautiful…” with a glowing photograph of Miss Arts’ Ruth de Berg. A cover from the following year captured Miss Engineering’s Cathy Buinover adorned with a chic updo and a shining sash across her chest. The state of play was no different in 1965, wherein Alexis Lavrova was crowned Miss University in a “success for science men.”
EASTERN AVENUE IS MY RUNWAY: A HISTORY OF SRC FASHION
To be sure, these women were not necessarily associated with the SRC; in many ways, their prominence in each respective faculty is no different from attending the Law Ball or participating in Science Revue today. But we also cannot ignore that those who were named “Miss University” were always photographed in a glittering ball-gown. Sometimes, they wore long satin gloves or expensive diamond-laden jewellery. Others were even introduced through their relationship to male students, including “beautiful, blonde, 18-yearold” Keryl Egan in 1964.
More than a superficial insight into the trends and styles of oncampus formal attire, these articles reveal that a truly ‘activist’ fashion profile has not always been embedded in campus culture.
Article continues on page 10.
PROTESTS,
EDITIONS AND MORE PROTESTS
However, the mobilisation of protests around the Freedom Riders, anti-Vietnam War campaigns and opposition to faculty cuts during the 1960s would soon change this. As a forebear to the hand-painted banners you will find scattered throughout the SRC today, physical campaign symbols in the past centred on posters and signage. For activists like Charles Perkins, displays like the famous “Student Action for Aborigines” canvas became central to the movement; peace symbols and anti-Nixon slogans were similarly popular throughout various Vietnam War Moratorium rallies in 1970. Although these items could not be worn, they represent a move towards identifiable, reproducible and loud techniques to mark campaigns.
We’ve all seen the 1983 photograph of Anthony Albanese sitting atop the Quadrangle’s Clock Tower. Holding a walkie-talkie and chanting protest slogans, Albanese was part of a student-led movement advocating for the establishment of a Political Economy Department separate from the Faculty of Economics. All of the people in this image wore jeans and some variation of an Adidas sneaker; two layered a v-neck sweater with a white collared shirt, while the rest opted for a simple denim jacket. Similar patterns are visible in images from a 1977 boycott of social work lectures by pupils demanding increased funding, and a 1981 Honi edition detailing the 10,000 students who marched through Sydney’s CBD in the Sparticist movement — it was sweater vest and bell-bottoms galore.
At first, these details appear to represent little more than popular
trends amongst young people. After all, student protestors in the 1940s all wore the same outfits according to what was ‘in-style’ at the time. But amidst an increasingly individualistic consumer culture, it is significant that students were beginning to identify with informal and unspoken signifiers for their values, politics and campaigns.
Aside from the clothes students chose to wear throughout their studies, fashion also became one of the SRC’s most utilitarian assets as its body became more widespread and inclusive. Honi’s first stand-alone Election Edition was published in 1981, its pages filled with head-shots of students in casual clothes. In the same year, the editors devoted a two-page spread to a review of the Art Gallery of NSW’s Fabulous Fashion exhibition — a testament to the cultural capital and importance of this topic on contemporary students’ minds.
But as SRC elections for Presidential, Editorial and councillor positions became more competitive, their campaigners had to become more creative. It was not until 1986 that Honi hopefuls made their first attempts at cohesive campaign aesthetics by planning photoshoots and coordinating themed outfits. By 1990, these efforts were translated into some of the earliest documented campaign shirts: organised by Rachel Rillie, Anita Sheehan and Jeremy White, this paraphernalia featured a striking logo against a plain white background. Overtly political shirts as we now know them — aligned with on- and off-campus factions, parties and their respective causes — would only emerge in 1995.
THE SRC’S BARGAIN BIN TODAY
Flash-forward twenty years and you’d be hard-pressed to find an SRC or USU candidate without a personalised campaign shirt. A brief glance over the many colours and logos dotted along Eastern Avenue today will allow you to precisely ascertain each student politician’s faction: red is reserved for Left Action, a yellow lightning bolt for Switch, and blue for L/liberal. The shirts each faction’s campaigners wear also typically include their Presidential candidate’s name, a shift which (luckily) means we do not have
to see Tony Abbott’s name anywhere in the Wentworth Building’s archive boxes. While the peculiarities of these designs may change each year — for example, Grassroots recently transitioned away using shoots of grass to solidarity fists within its branding — the basic associations remain the same between both of our student unions.
However, the visual landscape of materials, hues and patterns differs for teams hoping to win an Honi term. Candidates are not bound by any explicit political associations or informal rules; they are only limited by their graphic design capabilities. This has led to a variety of unique and innovative designs over the past
decade, the most notable of which include Scoop for Honi’s ice creamthemed paraphernalia in 2015 and Fit for Honi’s bright pink sporting gear in 2019. In similar ways to the cashmere knits and tweed pants of the 1960s, these outfits have made their way into the broader fashion vernacular beyond protests and campaigns for many students. But no shirts have become more popular in daily life than those produced by the SRC’s many collectives. The most notable designs have emerged in recent years, including the 2019 Women’s Collective shirts featuring the phrase “a woman’s place is in the revolution”, and the Autonomous Collective Against Racism’s (ACAR) “Give Back
Gadigal” shirts developed in 2022. While it remains unknown when this kind of merchandise emerged, it is thought to have coincided with the SRC’s production of unique union shirts throughout the 2010s. In light of recent campus events like the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, student organisations such as Students For Palestine have also distributed protests shirts centred on ending the genocide.
Fashion trends come, slogans go, but the SRC’s unique political history is forever. Whether it be through a suit jacket or a hand-cut tee, University of Sydney students have always known how to show up to a protest. Eastern Avenue — and Science Road, and the Redfern Run — will always be our runway.
An interview with @usydfashion FASHION IN FOCUS:
The University of Sydney is not recognised for an illustrious sense of style. Instagram reels document the immaculately-layered fashion students at UTS, or the effortlessly chic design students at UNSW, rarely acknowledging the icy Eastern Avenue catwalks or Quadrangle poses.
But with the introduction of fashion sighting pages on Instagram in recent years, a subculture of style commentary at USyd has emerged. One such page is USYD Fashion (@usydfashion), which was founded in 2019. They define themselves as scouters of “the best of USyd style”. To be scouted, interviewed and photographed by USYD Fashion has become an aspirational and hot commodity on campus.
Zeina Khochaiche scouts the scouter.
WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?
It appears the USYD Fashion account has finessed a formula for every post: cool outfit, degree credentials and cryptic interview quote. Often the subjects are caught between classes or catching up with their friends on the Law Lawns — they strike a pose or stand in situ, making for the perfect ingredients for a viral Instagram post.
With irregular posting schedules, every post is hotly anticipated and scrutinised. Sometimes the account goes months without posting and other times posts weekly.
To be featured on or find out more about the account feels like threading a knotless string. What constitutes being “fashionable” enough for a spot on the page? Who is it that runs the account? When do they scope out campus? Do they only capture people they know? When will they capture me?
MEET YOUR SCOUTER
I wanted to better understand how and why this page exists, so I sat down with one of the scouter’s and admins of the account, Hanna, to chat about all things fashion, trends and parasocial relationships.
For full transparency, I found out Hanna was a fashion scouter because she scouted me. I was leaving a souldepleting Public Relations class in the Abercrombie Business School late last year when she whipped out her camera and asked myself and a friend if we would like to be photographed for the Instagram account. That was my entrance to the elusive world of USYD Fashion’s Instagram.
The Instagram account has one
main admin, dubiously known as ‘The Founder’, and a small rotation of 2-3 scouters. There is no particular deadline or quota of photos to snap and interestingly, the scouters have to send their content to The Founder for approval who will eventually post the picture. Although unclear, this may be the reason for their unpredictable posting schedule.
Despite this seemingly bureaucratic process, Hanna describes her fashion scouting responsibilities as “unregimented” and prefers to “organically” capture her subjects.
For Hanna, her love of fashion was inspired by growing up on 2014 Tumblr, her cultural identity, and her fashion collector grandmother in Japan. When asked what her personal definition of fashion is, Hanna told Honi that she sees it as “curating something that feels authentically myself,” all while “pushing the boundaries of statement pieces.” She notes she also draws a lot of influence from fashion designers like Issey Miyake.
Even today, Hanna leans on Tumblr pages and Pinterest boards for inspiration. For the general student populus, Hanna’s headhunting has led to the observation of the “masc bottom/femme top” phenomenon. This looks like boxy or more textured bottom apparel contrasted with dainty and more feminine tops and layers.
Hanna found the state of fashion on campus this year inspiring, telling Honi that “last semester was hopeful! There was a great sense of style on campus with every second person worth photographing”.
When asked why, Hanna attributed this to how “outfits stand out when the wearer feels the most themselves,” and as a photographer for USyd fashion, “that’s what I want to see.”
ANY OPS?
USYD Fashion is not without their fair share of friends and foes. One such friend is USyd Fashion Revolution, a registered University of Sydney Union society that is also the Sydney arm of Fashion Revolution’s global movement. This group specialises in making “wardrobes more sustainable”, “experimenting with clothes” that isn’t “at the expense of people of the planet”.
When asked if USYD Fashion has any competition Hanna giggled and shook her head telling Honi that “we love USyd Fashion Revolution[...] but because we are so irregular and so aloof, there is no competition”.
By chance, Honi stumbled across an anonymous subject of the Instagram page and their reviews were mixed. Whilst they cited that their experience was “nice” and they “appreciated them following up before the actual post”, they also noted that when asked not to use a specific quote, it was unfortunately still published. Whilst this is not the dramatic exposé you would find on Deuxmoi, it seems to reveal the curatorial and fabricated nature of fashion-posting. Publishing in the scathing Instagram world is not for the faint of heart.
HOW DO YOU GET FEATURED?
We should start with what the account looks for. According to Hanna, USyd Fashion brings “an account that celebrates those who love clothes, those who love experimenting with textiles and those who want to bring a splash of colour” to our campus culture. The philosophy seems to endorse leaning into the kind of clothes that makes you feel most like you. Simple enough,
right? But of course, fashion scouting is inherently subjective and scary. Hanna herself finds it intimidating to “walk up to all these cool looking people” but jokingly said, “If there is a girl with short bob hair with a camera walk past her three times and that’ll be my sign that you are with it”. Even so, there is no masterful hack or method to lock in your chance to be featured on the USyd Fashion account, they just simply have to find you.
CAMPUS IN’S & OUT’S
Much like advice found in every fashion editorial, Hanna wants you to understand fashion trends like the weather — seasonal and unpredictable. In this season keep an eye out for hiking shoe chic, boxy silhouettes for trousers and bottom wear and leaning into accessorization like scarfs, clips and belts. For Hanna items that are “in” for each category include:
• Shoes: Merrell, Salomons
• Bottoms: balloon pants
• Accessories: chunky headphones, slim scarfs
• Tops: texture, asymmetry, layers
The “out” list was made with some hesitation. Consistent with Hanna’s views, “out” trends are particular to the person or community and can often be rooted in memes or groupthink, and can contribute to unsustainable practices of fast-fashion. These are the items fell into the “out” list:
• Shoes: Crocs
• Bottoms: two-tone panelled jeans
• Tops: tops with too many frills
• Accessories: visor
Reflections on
clothing and culture
I. CHILDHOOD II. “WOMANHOOD”
In Year 5 my ammu gave me my first pair of thick, black tights to wear under my school uniform. They were harsh against my skin, prickling against the hairs that were beginning to grow along my legs. They would slip down in inches during a playground game of tips, causing me to stop every few strides to adjust them.
My first pair of tights coincided with my first period — I was finally a woman. The shift into puberty was sudden enough to confuse me as to why overnight my body had become a risk, a hazard, something to be protected rather than a vessel for the more interesting parts of myself.
I came home from school one afternoon and found my closet empty of the clothes I used to love. Anything considered immodest was dumped. This began the process of ‘spring cleaning’ of the body I used to have.
I remember the silk, pink, Disney boxer shorts I used to wear to bed every night. They were my favourite. I remember tearing through my closet that night, through all the gaps where the fabric of my childhood used to lay, and crying when I realised that the shorts, too, were missing. If childhood was synonymous with innocence, then childhood was over the day I grew out of my kid clothes. My legs were suddenly a safely kept secret that no man should ever gaze upon — even in my own home.
I began wearing long skirts and maxi dresses to the park. I stopped running as fast as the other kids, and then stopped running all together. I chose instead to sit with my legs folded neatly beneath me on the hill. On the way home I would argue again and again about how I didn’t understand why I had to wear so many layers.
I got some variation of the same speech so many people hear – it is my duty to protect the body I am growing into. Men and boys (but especially men) would look, so it must be my responsibility to turn their gaze away, to not give them anything to look at.
Growing up, the expectation was that I would develop a sense of modesty (hayya) as I aged, and eventually carry myself with this sense. The headscarf itself was never suggested to me, nor was it implied I would ascend to that level of modesty; it was explicated that the choice to cover my hair was mine entirely. Islam was always explained to me logically, mostly with clarity of rules and expectations. I was always encouraged to read scripture in detail to understand practices instead of mindlessly abiding by them, and I had less than average “because I said so” comments from my ma which I was grateful for. Despite the fact that the covering of hair was an Islamic obligation, my ma understood and reiterated it was not something that could be forced. It has perplexed me, to this day, why this logic did not extend to lower thresholds of modesty — shoulders, stomach, knees, etc. I was expected to maintain, at least, a “bare minimum” level of modesty, but the threshold for this seemed subjective and indicative of cultural expectations rather than religious ones.
I had a “cover-up jacket”: worn over an allegedly scandalous top before leaving the house, tossed aside, and then worn before re-entering. The jacket functioned as a lot more than just a piece of fabric, it separated me into two people. There is Me at Home; there is Me at Everywhere Else. It did not just cover up exposed collarbones, it covered up an entire identity: the desire to date, to drink, and to dream.
III. BEAUTY
I no longer felt beautiful. This wasn’t because I didn’t believe modesty could be beautiful: I saw my sisters so I knew it could be. It was because I did not consider myself beautiful before then. I was made to draw and read and play and laugh – beauty was something that ‘just happened’ with growing up, not something that should have been considered or contemplated on. Modesty is beautiful, but when you were a child there was no such thing as ‘modest’ or ‘immodest’, and all the implications that come with the labels. There was only the beautiful and the ‘other’. My tights and maxi dresses and layered cardigans put me in the ‘other’ category – I was explicitly Muslim, explicitly brown, the moment I put them on.
In my cohort, the only other girl to wear tights like me was the other Muslim, brown girl. Cool girls did not wear tights.
IV. CULTURE
I often couldn’t help but wonder if I had been born in a different time period, or a more conservative country, would the hijab have also been an expectation? Perhaps not, as it stands to reason that the covering of hair is a marked step above other forms of modesty; it’s a notable visual signifier of religiosity and explicitly requires the wearer to behave accordingly. It still perplexed me, however, how my ma decided upon the boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable skin. What logic rendered an exposed shoulder illegal, but legalised an exposed upper forearm? The answer is, of course, that like many things in life, it was entirely a constructed ideal. I don’t think this makes it any less real, or any less important to my ma and many others; I respect this. But I think it fundamentally underscores my confusion and disregard for these expectations. I understood the desire behind encouraging this bare minimum standard; it is the same logic by which parents expect a bare minimum level of good behaviour from their children, and it is an idea borne out of love, care, and deeply-held faith. But it was fundamentally tearing into my relationship with my ma.
V. MOTHERS
The relationship between ma and I becomes strained, and clothes start to manifest as the ultimate form of rebellion. It’s too difficult — too guilttrippy, too anxiety-inducing — to say “I don’t align with your perspective on religion and modesty; I feel stifled and pushed away”. So instead you say, “I want to wear a tank top”. And the tank top becomes the object of a screaming match where every sentence, every accusation, is buried by the weight of its connotations. I craved my ma compromising on clothing because it felt like a broader existential tug-ofwar about identity, faith, and love. If she couldn’t do that, how would we ever reconcile our much deeper irrevocable differences? I could not comprehend why she was legitimately willing to strain our fragile relationship over endless arguments about clothing, instead of accepting our differences in peace. I still cannot comprehend it.
Mehnaaz Hossain and Purny Ahmed cover up.
Men in Skirts:
What utopia lies beyond gendered clothing?
William Winter imagines a feminine path forward. Gender is a shape. Sometimes it’s a line, a spectrum, binaried and contained. Sometimes it’s a circle, and it spins and spins and spins at the behest of two opposite magnetic poles. Sometimes it’s a football field. Long, expansive, traversable; two clear goals, situated on opposite ends. There are clear expectations as to how you can score, and win, at gender. Usually we don’t get a choice, we just have to play the game.
My gender? I’m a fucking star baby. But somehow that doesn’t translate to gender at all.
I’m a man who wears dresses sometimes. Well, I’m a he/they, but there’s still a sense of cis-ness I cling to, with my broad shoulders and hairy body and stringent homosexuality. Part of the joy of my presentation is transgression: it’s relishing in the confusion of a tight dress and hairy legs, broad shoulders and bright colours. Fitting in a box is boring and unfulfilling, and considering we as humans have unequivocally broadened the horizon of human endeavour with every turn of the modern century, why should we stop with the way we express ourselves?
Androgyny and gender play have always existed in fashion, at a couture and common level. Across cultures, across time, dresses and tunics, skirts and pants, formal regalia and cloth have signified many things to many different people. But let’s situate ourselves now.
Clothing is gendered. That is a fact
of our times. We look at clothes and instinctually assign them as a male or female item. We have bathroom signs with men in pants and women in dresses. Clothing stores are stratified, whether it be the entire store, or by sections.
As we turn towards a more free expression of gender in modern fashion, a troubling trend I’ve noticed is the masculinising of women’s clothes. It’s skirts for guys being called “kilts”. It’s a specific bubble-gum pink proliferating in men’s sections which say “I experiment with colour but only in baggy jumpers.”. It’s a single string of pearls outlining an incredibly chiseledc collarbone on Instagram — not too gaudy, but tasteful. Tastefully, femininely masculine.
I see men wearing crop tops that show their abs and yeah it’s hot and sexy, but it’s also something that only gets encouraged on masculine or androgynous bodies. Femininity becomes an affordance only some can pay for because they still sit within the masculine range.
The entire discourse of embracing men in our current wave of feminism is flawed. Men bring other men into the fold of tears and emotions by making it a “manly” thing to do. We put a rugby player in a video discussing mental health and it widens the discourse because mental health becomes destigmatised. But why is it destigmatised? Because discussing mental health becomes something you do with the boys. It’s another one
of our little tasks we expect men to perform to prove that they are men.
The problem is not that dresses and skirts aren’t manly enough as they are, that was never the problem. The problem is that men are not afforded the comfort/ease/safety/joy/torture/ heartache/pleasure of expressing femininity. We aren’t breaking the game of gender when we make skirts ‘for men’, we’re simply moving the goalposts of when you can score. If we make emotions masculine, if we make clothing masculine, that still creates room for penalties for people who defy those lines.
What happens to me when I play the game? With my soft tummy and thick thighs and that feeling buried deep inside of watching the kids at my all-boys school partake in genderbender day because it was a funny rite of passage knowing deep down that the idea of wearing a skirt wasn’t funny to me, it was freedom.
I am a guy who expresses himself femininely. What that looks like internally versus externally is very different for different people, but for me, that means my innate sense of gender isn’t compromised by the shape of the clothing I wear on my body. What that means — what I am suggesting — is that we need to stop making it okay for feminine things to be masculine so that men can engage with them. We need to make it okay for masculine people to be feminine. To embrace femininity.
Now, changing the perception
Identity In Flux: Opting Out of Aesthetics
Are you an it girl or a clean girl?
Coastal granddaughter or coquette?
Art hoe or cyberpunk?
Being a young person often comes with a desire for a sense of belonging. Microtrends, or ‘core’ trends offer a superficial yet alluring solution to this pursuit of acceptance and approval, promising an instant inclusion into a community — just as long as you buy the right products, from the right brands, at the right time.
But where is the line drawn between belonging and conformity?
Social media algorithms and the influencers who control them now hurl orders to purchase niche and colourway-specific pieces at viewers in order to fit the bill for whatever aesthetic the consumer hopes to embody.
Physical realms and communities like the goths, emos, punks, and ravers, within which young people historically birthed their identities, started to fade when social media came to its peak. There is no denying that the isolation people faced during COVID, and the coinciding amplification of TikTok, meant the death of these physical
hubs of identity birthed a new breed of diluted experience of adolescents searching for meaning and connection.
A manufactured authenticity begins, where ‘Punk’ is now a ‘core’ that you can achieve by stocking your cart on AliExpress with fishnet tights, a black tennis skirt and leather jacket, without having to tap into the inconvenient anti-capitalist and activist practices that created it.
The process of identifying with art, musical movements, political ideas and practices that were the former to creating an aesthetic has been removed and replaced with an ever changing ‘viral fit-check to shoppingcart’ channel.
Specific styles are synonymous with certain media and interests. If an individual reflects a certain aesthetic, this comes with an assumption of their taste beyond simply fashion. An affinity for lace and ribbons equals loving Lana Del Rey and bingewatching Sofia Coppola films, diet Coke in hand. Floral dresses and frills means they listen to Hozier and spend their days frolicking in a countryside field.
of femininity and feminine clothing doesn’t actually incite revolution either. There still lie questions of sizing and design and accessibility, like how so many skirts have ropey waistbands which don’t sit on my non-childbearing hips, or how so many genderneutral clothing lines are aesthetically pretty boring, or how dresses compact in the middle of the body and don’t account for my erroneously large torso. But this is not a unique problem because of my male body — this is a problem many people of many genders and sizes and bodies face.
What utopia lies beyond gendered clothing? How do we categorise things? Size? Colour? Shape? There is a whole future beyond men’s and women’s clothing. I do not have the vision to comprehend what that looks like, but I have the heart to tell you it exists somewhere. It’s in my wardrobe, nestled between my black work jeans and the dresses I used to only wear in my room when I was home alone.
I’m not a sporty person. I don’t know why I chose a sports metaphor for this article. But if gender is a game played on a football field, I subbed out a while ago. I’m still watching it. I pretend to know where I’d be playing if I was on the field. But scoring doesn’t matter when the score is rigged. Why can’t we change that?
Men, have you ever stood in the middle of a room in a dress and spun? Have you? Guys? You should. You’ll see a whole other world in front of you. You can reach it with me.
This is not to say that fashion isn’t an expression of identity, but rather that it deviates from its true purpose when everybody is wearing a new-age uniform, reinforcing the idea that fashion is less about self-expression and more about fitting in.
The microtrend rise has also seen an unprecedented shift from the fashion industry decreeing what is considered en-vogue, to consumers holding the power, leaving designers and brands scrambling to keep up.
This incessantly revolving door of trends is unattainable, particularly for the average consumer. After pushing a certain item that simply must be purchased (run, don’t walk to buy it!), a few weeks later, the influencers and trend forecasters who were so insistent will undoubtedly be making videos labelling it as out-of-style, or ‘cheugy’.
While the average consumer realistically cannot afford to purchase some of these popular items like this $3,850 pair of Miu Miu biker boots, this is where fast fashion labels take their chance to strike with duplicates. This democratises luxury fashion items, making them accessible to a
wider group of people. However, we are seeing an increasing level of design theft from smaller labels, begging the question of whether this process is entirely disingenuous as it undermines the creativity and originality of designers, while also contributing to the unsustainable practices of fast fashion. Despite the 307 million difference in population size, Australians have overtaken the US as the world’s biggest fast fashion consumers, purchasing an average of one new item of clothing per week.
In a world where trends change overnight, perhaps the most revolutionary act is to resist the pressure to conform and instead cultivate a style that is genuinely your own. Use trends as the inspiration, not the rule. Rewear or revamp what you already own, identify patterns in your own wardrobe and pieces that you like, and curate a personal style that you know is the result of dressing for nobody but yourself.
Allegra Welsh and Ava Jenkin surf the trends.
I’m not sorry to say the saree is here to stay
Kuyili Karthik drapes a history.
Everything I have learned about the Ambani wedding has been against my will.
The event has been shoved in my algorithm and its ubiquity is even more undesirable than flickering through a thousand Euro summers that aren’t mine. I get FOMO from everything; I wasn’t invited to the Cannes Film Festival or the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics in Paris. But the circus of the Ambani wedding inspired more resentment in me than any other emotion. I expected even to have some vehement, jealous form of FOMO, knowing that my sarees and lehengas are rotting disused in bags with mothballs. Western media described it as a Met-Gala-esque parade of celebrities, with Indian media treating it as their own version of Royal Family nuptials.
Indian media revelled in the world’s sudden fascination with traditional Indian clothing at its highest form on the Ambani red carpet, crafted by high-fashion names like Sabyasachi, Manish Malhotra, and Anita Dongre. Validation from the West has long been a goal for India, has it not? So it follows that the saree takes its course of westernisation, morphing to Hollywood bodies to garner some international acclaim.
But the saree’s beauty, to me, is muddied in the exorbitant, grandiose, gluttonous dystopia of the Ambani wedding. A live broadcast of the event was screened on a skyscraper towering somewhere in India, the country with the world’s largest number of people living below the poverty line: 228.9 million. Even in a country where weddings are happily lavished upon, hardly any Indian can fathom the $600 million price tag of the Ambani wedding.
India’s poverty is undoubtedly the consequence of British colonial rule, where nearly 400 years of looting has deprived South Asia of economic and social development. The Indian source of pride for the Ambani wedding and its spotlight on lehengas and sherwanis and sarees may be because the Ambani family are the modern antithesis of the British Raj. A New York Times essay compares the wedding — attended by political elites like Narendra Modi, Boris Johnson, and John Kerry — to the 1911 Durbar, or the Coronation of King George V as Emperor of India. While the East India Company and British Raj impoverished Indians for centuries, Mukesh Ambani’s company Reliance Industries is such a formidable beast that it’s been regarded as a proxy for
India’s rising economy. The Ambani wedding heralds a desirable vision of a Gilded Age for Indians, where their wealth is attention-grabbing rather than attention-seeking: where cultural clothing isn’t deemed uncivilised and savage, but worthy of the Kardashians.
There’s no better time for the recontextualisation of the saree, which is not simply a status symbol or weaponised assertion of a billionaire’s wealth, but a garment worn from premodern times until today by working women, women protesting their colonial masters, and by transgender women in India asserting their rights.
Before colonial times, the saree was worn sans blouse. Meaning “strip of fabric” in Sanskrit, the saree was a singular length draped and pleated, covering the bare breast in communities like Bengal, and in some areas of Southern India not covering the bosom at all. During the Victorian era, donning simply the semi-transparent six-yard length was deemed savage. The simple beauty of the saree was complicated thereafter with mandates for blouses and petticoats to enter establishments. The echoes of this stifling demand for modesty ring bitterly today, where rape rhetoric blaming women’s dress persists on national television in India and Bangladesh.
Britain’s exploitative economic policy in India literally changed the fabric of a nation, leaving an irrevocable stain on the saree. Destroying local textile industries, the British syphoned the profits of Indian craftsmen and weavers, exporting their products for the international market. Meanwhile, British mill-made cheaper fabrics were sold to Indians, with their traditional textiles heavily taxed, putting saree-weavers out of jobs and contributing to a loss of saree designs and patterns. Sarees traditionally feature motifs and stories woven in gold thread or embroidered intricately, like peacocks, parrots, mangoes, elephants, and instruments. Even beyond colonial rule, the Indian Independence Movement demanded that Indians wore white, forsaking the unique jewel-like colours of shifting silk for resistance.
The reclamation of the saree’s colours and patterns became integral to the revival of culture. Not a short stroll away from my grandparents’ home in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, the Kalakshetra school of dance was founded by Bharatnatyam dancer Rukmini Devi in the era of Independence. In 1937, Rukmini Devi saw that the tales of
gods, myths, and history were unable to be told in classical dance without the vividness of saree designs which were then fading into obscurity. With a government grant, she started a weaving room with a solitary loom and craftsmen, restoring artistic dignity and employment. Going to weavers’ homes, Devi dug out patterns from attics that hadn’t graced the Madras sun’s hotness in years. Stitched into sarees the colour of peacock’s necks, Devi rediscovered temple borders depicting ancient architecture, golden banana flowers, and native trees with their tamarind seeds. The Kalakshetra was a cornerstone moment in cultural fashion evolving from the paternalism of the British.
However, the saree, from its Indus Valley origins till now, has always been a marker of caste and the wealth gulf between castes. The gold threads adorning the saree’s borders and the luxury of materials like pure silk make some sarees unattainable, with some styles marked as exclusively Brahmin. The saree has been interconnected with status virtually since its inception. What constitutes the ‘elevated’ saree at present is its shift away from ‘traditional’ patterns imbued with local significance, and towards florals and glittery simplicity for the Eurocentric palate, seen in Sabyasachi pieces worn at the Met Gala earlier this year. Such is the natural course of globalisation. Paradoxically, however, the saree is a symbol of nationalistic pride in an India that is more fiercely assertive than ever before. Only last week on August 15, Indian Independence Day celebrations echoed all the way to the USyd Quadrangle. The event marks 77 years of Indepedence, but also 77 years since India’s Partition from Pakistan, a “mutual genocide” with “Hindus and Sikhs on one side and Muslims on the other”.
Indian PM Narendra Modi also joined in the Ambani wedding festivities. The Ambani family plays fiddle to Modi’s weaponisation of
traditional clothing as a way to aggressively push Hindu-nationalist ideology. Modi’s 2014 ‘Make in India’ campaign, an incredibly politicised attempt to sever India’s dependence on Chinese and Western goods, seems to be a bitter reply to the British Raj’s one-way trade policy. This movement championing local manufacturing was initially led by a fashion designer and urbane party politician, Shaina NC, beginning with a saree exhibition called the ‘Banarasi Textiles Movement’. Modi promised to revive the tradition of the opulent Banarasi saree, primarily donned by Hindu women and woven in the holy Hindu city of Varanasi, also his constituency. Political, economic, and celebrity elites seem to be ushering in a cultural renaissance for India in which the saree plays a starring role. Still, the saree is bittersweet for the expanding South Asian diaspora: where, when, and how to tie this garment? Brown women are done with tied-tongues and tied-hands on this conundrum. My favourite ‘Saree Architect’ Natasha Thasan is teaching people to drape sarees in under a minute, reminding me that I can wear it to both temples and the bar.
The flowing saree feels like the river in Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha: “for it only the present exists, not the shadow of the past, nor the shadow of the future”. I find myself longing for the saree’s golden past and cursing the tide of modernity that sullies it. But the saree’s fluidity and persistence is something beautiful; when I wear it I am unburdened, at peace. I pose Siddartha’s question to you: “Have you also learned that secret from the river, that there is no such thing as time?” As a girl from a long line of saree-wearers, I say yes.
7.3+ Questions with Jack Schlossberg
Valerie Chidiac digs
in.
Why is Honi Soit writing about John Bouvier Kennedy Schlossberg, grandson of JFK? Is it not antithetical to all we do? Are we not supposed to run counter culture? But what more counterculture than to pull a reverse UNO and interview a Kennedy who was also a student contributor at the Yale Daily News, The Yale Herald, and The Yale Bullblog. After all, it prepared him for the (subtle) politicisation of Vogue as political correspondent.
When I contacted Schlossberg, the answer was an immediate yes but it became a matter of coordinating schedules across time zones. He just missed out on being featured in Honi’s Art edition where he was going to talk about body sculpting. If you think I’m kidding, check out his tweet where he ponders “Jesus Christ’s body type.”
Jack-out-of-the-box
Son of US Ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy, and her husband Edwin Schlossberg, Jack Schlossberg studied History at Yale and holds a JD and MBA from Harvard. He notes that he was more inspired by Elle Woods than JFK, arguing that “Only one of them said that the law is reason free from passion.”
To the uninitiated, Jack described himself as “just a man who wants to make some change in the world whether that be introducing younger generations to Lord Bryon or handing out the Profile in Courage Award.”
After much discussion I discovered that we had the following things in common: frequently wearing black, practising Catholicism, thinking that Shawn Mendes is the voice of a generation, romanticising libraries, having stylish mothers and googling random asf questions.
Australia’s adopted son
I asked about what Australian-isms he has adopted, and he says that his “mom with an O says Autumn now” so he says Autumn now.
VC: You also pull off an Australian accent! Did you see the quote tweet comparing you to Andy Lee?
JS: Who?
VC: To be honest, I don’t know either. But I know that you look like him.
Accents down pat, I asked if Jack considers an acting career, perhaps once TikTok gets bought by Elon Musk.
“I have been auditioning actually. My first on-screen appearance was in
Shalwar kameez lite
Mehnaaz Hossain plays dress-up.
Bring back wearing a dress over pants!
The problem with the original 2000s-era trend is that it was often done badly; frequent red carpet looks would feature awkward length dresses, ugly prints, skinny jeans, bad accessories, or mismatched colours. I trust that we as a society have sufficiently recovered —, and with Pinterest, have gained enough experience — to explore an old trend with a more refined eye.
A smart way to envision the perfect silhouette for this combination would be to take proper inspiration from South Asian culture, which champions this style in both its traditional clothing —shalwar kameez, panjabi, kurta, sharara, etc.— and fusion fashion, often incorporating jeans and Western footwear.
It is incredibly common to walk around Dhaka or Delhi and see traditional kurtas being worn with blue jeans and sneakers, or girls hanging out in Desi-style skirts but with Western tops. Likewise, taking inspiration from Desi culture is nothing new in Western fashion. Two-piece “prom” style dresses with intricate beading and often, a matching scarf, are all over my Pinterest currently. I like to call this trend “lehenga lite.”
I propose a similar, inverse, trend called “shalwar kameez lite”, where we should all think about a dress and pants as two halves of the same outfit. This
the season 8 finale of Blue Bloods as a cop. Acting is a dream come true. Ronald Reagan was an actor, so there’s no stopping me. There’s no stopping Elon either.”
Forget the cop role, did he just hint at an SCHLOSSBERG2028 campaign?
works for a huge variety of dresses: a teeny tiny mini can be worn, functionally, as a long top while a mid-thigh or kneelength moment works brilliantly with a flared jean that continues to flow with those curved lines. As for longer, calflength dresses, they pair perfectly well with almost anything.
This also makes individual pieces more versatile, which is so important to prioritise in this era of ridiculous overconsumption, where even opshops are not immune to the Depop reseller pandemic and every “haul” video features a staggering amount of the same polyester athleisure. You don’t need an infinite wardrobe, multiple online shopping sprees, or regular purchases to look cute. The trend cycle —or micro trend cycle— attempts to shorten the lifespan of our clothing, but you can wear items in multiple different ways! A dress is a top and a skirt is a top and a top is a skirt. And a dress can go with jeans. We should bring it back, and I trust that we can do it well.
Obviously you do still need the right colours, fabric, fit, and confidence in order to really make it work; please do not nervously wear ugly jeans with an ill-fitting dress and blame it on me. All I’m saying is: South Asian people have been doing this style forever, and Western fashion should take the initial eyesore trend and embrace a resurgence with the Indowestern silhouette.
“I know how it looks from the outside, but I don’t think I can say that yet. I personally think young people have a duty to vote for Hillary Clinton… at least once. But I’ll need to confirm that Kamala doesn’t do reruns.”
VC: Were you ever involved in Stupol and if so, what does that look like in the US?
JS: Stupol is frankly stupid. I don’t just mean the scene, but why on earth do you use that acronym — can’t everybody down under say student politics?
Let the man speak.
Come on, vogue!
I was given an exclusive look at the Vogue US headquarters via Zoom, and at one point said: “Would you mind moving to the left a bit more, you’ve been hovering over a Biden poster for a while.”
Then I got into hard-hitting journalism.
VC: Was it a condition of you joining Vogue to have your ‘welcome to me’ interview?
JS: You think I just fell out of a coconut tree?
VC: Actually, you kind of did.
JS: Well, thank you.
VC: “Is there a dress code?”
JS: Anything that Anna Wintour wouldn’t wear.
VC: How many bylines do you have?
JS: I don’t check Muck Rack anymore, it’s just unhealthy.
VC: Most of your opinion pieces
are paywalled despite your role at Vogue intended to get young people interested in politics. Or is it more for the goodwill and prestige of having you on board?
JS: Yes.
VC: “Is there a HR department at Vogue?”
JS: No comment (allegedly).
Forced to work, born to yap Moving on from a HR nightmare, I asked if Jack knew why Barack Obama didn’t include a Chappell Roan song in his Summer Playlist. Was it because she refused to perform at the White House Pride Month in protest of American domestic and foreign policy?
“Dude, you’re playing with fire, bro,” before continuing, “I think Obama is going to make playlists on a bi-annual basis — one for the Northern Hemisphere and one for the Southern. So there’s still time.”
We did wade into the topic of the upcoming elections, and Jack appealed to the Americans on campus: “The highest office is that of citizen! Vote!” I wanted to clarify if he meant the US or SRC elections but cognisant of the remaining time, I tried to invite Jack to our Student Media Conference but remembered our strict no-nepo baby policy.
“That’s alright, I only go to symposiums and summits anyways,” adding that he had to go visit his wife. I demanded clarification, and he simply responded: “I’m going to see Douglas Emhoff [Kamala Harris’ husband].”
And just like that, our date was over.
Note: This interview was not real (don’t sue me Jack, this was for fun).
The outfit of a revolutionary is no simple composition. One must look both heavily imposing and impressive. More than just a fashion statement, such outfits must convey the distinct revolutionary strategy of the wearer.
Commissar Chic
“Leatherites”
During the Russian Civil War, Leon Trotsky — the People’s Commissar of Defense at the time — used an armoured train as his mobile headquarters for military and propaganda operations. The Revolutionary Military Council Train was staffed with Trotsky’s personal guard: 100 elite Latvian troops dressed in red leather uniforms with budenovka hats. Commenting on the significance of their attire, Trotsky states: “I dress my guards in red leather uniforms for their ponderous impressiveness”.
Trotsky also made a striking use of leather in his own personal attire. Interestingly, this only came about after the Russian Civil War began — a radical departure to his prior ‘dapper intelligentsia’ look. His ascension to the Head of the Red Army made it necessary for Trotsky to embrace a militaristic aesthetic: “the leather jackets were more than attire. They were a statement to, a declaration of our new, formidable Red Army”. This ‘Commissar Chic’ was not unique to Trotsky but adopted by many Bolsheviks in the Civil War period, who came to be known as “leatherites” by their enemies. However, it is difficult to find any photos of Vladimir Lenin adorning the signature Bolshevik leather outfit. The chairman and leader of the revolution continued to wear an impeccably proletarian get-up: a long cotton trench coat with a wool mariner’s cap. This cap, popular amongst both factory workers and sailors, held a dual aesthetic significance — Lenin was recognised as belonging to the people as their helmsman, contrasted with Trotsky’s duty to lead the Red Army.
“Black is beautiful”
The use of leather was also salient within the uniform of the Black Panther Party. Its centrepiece — the black leather jacket — caught on out of convenience as they were readily available. The Panthers also chose to wear their hair naturally. The afro defied the value placed on straightened hair within European beauty standards and reflected, as party member Kathleen Cleaver states, “a new awareness among black people that their own natural appearance is beautiful”. Atop their afros sat black berets, a symbol party leaders Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale were inspired to adopt by the French Resistance during World War II. As symbols of revolutionary activity and resistance, the black berets made a fine addition to the Panthers aesthetic.
The beret and the jacket reflected the militarism of the Black Panthers and made clear their distinctive strategy for black liberation. During the Civil Rights Movement, campaigners often dressed professionally; the use of suits, skirts, dresses and straightened hair were meant to “show” to the white oppressor that black people were “reasonable” and “worthy” of civil rights. Conversely, the Panther uniform sent no message of conformity, no want of benevolence, but portrayed a challenge to white standards and society.
The Panther uniform was not only eye-catching but practical within their fight against the racist state and police. The Panthers were constantly subject to surveillance and state-sanctioned violence and killings. Furthermore, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover declared them the “greatest threat to internal security of the country”. As such, members wore black sunglasses in an effort to conceal their identities.
Also in response to state repression was the most iconic addition to the Panther uniform: the firearm. Its main purpose was as a tool of self-defence against police brutality. To counter police harassment of the black community, the Panthers would engage in “copwatching”: open carry patrols to ensure police interactions went safely. Here they embodied the symbol of their organisation: the black panther. Huey Newton stated that “the panther doesn’t strike anyone, but when he’s assailed upon, he’ll back up first. But, if the aggressor continues, then he’ll strike out.”
As Newton teaches elsewhere, the gun also served as the most basic tool of revolution: “when a mechanic wants to fix a broken down car engine he must have the necessary tools to do the job. When the people move for liberation, they must have the basic tool of liberation: the gun.” The uniform made it clear that the goal of the Black Panther Party was revolution by any means necessary.
The uniform’s unisex appearance was also distinctive. It symbolised the proper inclusion of women in their organisation; Panther women, dressed in berets and bearing arms, were to be as militant as their male counterparts. While the Black Panther Party was by no means free from sexism, the unisex uniform recognised the power of women, their value to the organisation and the self-determination of black women.
“Would anyone have minded?”
The revolutionary aesthetic of both the Bolsheviks and the Black Panthers is profoundly militant. Both organisations communicated clearly through their fashion that this racist, colonial, capitalist world — “this narrow world, strewn with prohibitions” as Frantz Fanon outlines — “can only be called in question by absolute violence.”
I leave you with one last example of this outlined by Fanon: “Castro sitting in military uniform in the United Nations Organization does not scandalize the underdeveloped countries. What Castro demonstrates is the consciousness he has of the continuing existence of the rule of violence. The astonishing thing is that he did not come into the UNO with a machine-gun; but if he had, would anyone have minded?”.
Ravkaran Grewal puts on a black beret.
Kathleen Cleaver at home, 1968
Demyan Bedny and Leon Trotsky, 1918
Black Panther Minister of Defence Huey Newton, 1968
From stage to streets: Drag culture’s impact on contemporary fashion
Hilary Sutanto dresses up.
“Wasn’t fashion always a queer thing?” fashion researcher Annamari Vanska once asked. While queerness in fashion is considered a particular subset of fashion, the truth is that queerness lies at the heart of it, both culturally and historically. There is a connection between the shaping of fashion and culturally-queer practices, such as drag. After all, fashioning the body is a practice of self-expression, having an element of performativity is part of the practice.
Drag as a practice has been interwoven into our artistic culture beginning with theatre, where male actors took on female roles, as seen in Kabuki Theatres and Shakespearean plays. It eventually evolved into a distinct form of entertainment in underground vaudeville for LGBTQ+ communities.
The rise of drag in popular culture was also supported by films and reality TV shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race, which brought many drag queens into the limelight. Now more than ever fashion trends have taken a maximalist and queer route so it is safe to say that drag queens have an amount of influence in moving the zeitgeist. Inspiring many creative directors and the public themselves,
here are moments in fashion where drag has served as a muse:
The 90s, Rebellion and Revolutionary: High fashion’s best friend has (and always will be) drag
The 80s and 90s saw a rise of drag culture into the mainstream. Drag queens were no longer underground, they were now gracing TV screens and walking runways. And drag became a source of inspiration for designers who did not shy away from unconventionality.
The rise of queens would conspire with the designers’ creative endeavours, and fashion started emphasising gender fluidity and performativity.
Take the 1995 Thierry Mugler’s 20thanniversary party haute couture show. It staged the catwalk in the Cirque d’Hiver and donned models in aerodynamic clothes with exaggerated silhouettes and fetishistic latex, turning the runway into a spectacle of bold expression.
Others like Jean Paul Gaultier, a creative known for his rebellious avantgarde creations, made a collection in 1992 featuring men in skirts and women in pinstripe suits — catalysing the acceptance towards gender-
nonconforming fashion.
Influence of drag’s playfulness in regards to gender expression would also appear on red carpets and the world of Hollywood celebrities. At the 1991 Academy Awards, Madonna wore a fur coat and sequined gown which took inspiration from drag queen fashion. In 1999, Celine Dion graced the carpet in “full drag” wearing a backward tuxedo, a look that was revolutionary for the time.
The 2000s to now: Drag is alive and thriving
From thereon, drag’s spirit of gender nonconformity and avantgarde fashion became more and more acceptable. Certain diva-status celebrities openly propelled drag to be labelled as ‘fashionable’ by the public. 2010s pop icons such as Lady Gaga, famously known for her close ties with the culture. Gaga had started her career in gay and drag clubs and would bring queer and drag with her artistic persona and drag alter ego, Jo. Gaga took inspiration from drag in her fashion, becoming instantaneously recognisable for her unconventional looks — often dressing in ways that society would label “gay”.
Climbing the K-Pop career ladder
Imogen Sabey scales the rungs. The alarm goes off at five in the morning, so you can start your daily workout. You’ve had maybe four hours of sleep, or five if you’re lucky. Afterwards you will weigh yourself, and send the results to your manager who is keeping a close eye on your weight. If you’ve gained weight, you’ll get a telling-off and a warning to stick more closely to your diet. After your morning rehearsal, your lunch break rolls around — one sweet, brief hour of respite. Then it’s an afternoon of more rehearsals. If you’re lucky, you might be let off at 10pm, with some fan meetings squished in. Otherwise you’ll probably go to your dorms at midnight, preparing for the next gruelling day.
The secret to success for a K-Pop idol is no secret at all. Ruled by discipline, which tends to come in the form of rigid contracts, the career is famous for its competitiveness and glamour. Boy band BTS lays claim to the largest fan group in the world, with a follow base of 325 million known popularly as ARMY. Those who make it big attract devoted fans, make enormous amounts of money and live lives that many would envy. However, the path to success for an idol is by no means easy.
NiziU, a Japanese girl group managed by JYP Entertainment, recently
complained about their schedule while promoting their music shows and a Korean album in South Korea. This involved getting up at 2am and working from 7:30am to 10pm, spending the day doing rehearsals, broadcasts and meeting fans. These routines would continue for up to two weeks, during which time the artists would become sleep-deprived and overworked. Korean music culture involves staging music shows every day of the week, with new and established artists alike re-staging and re-promoting their music to ensure its success. Idols commonly face rigorous schedules because of the demands of self-promotion and preparation for performances, which often involve hours spent on preparing hair & makeup, meeting fans or promoting with other artists. This toxic work culture has become normalised due to its ubiquitousness.
While the workload is consistently intense, the pay is not necessarily meted in proportion. K-Pop agencies select young individuals from hundreds of eager candidates, and these people go on to become ‘trainee idols,’ incurring enormous debts for the dance classes and training that they have to undergo for years. This means the profits gained from performances usually goes to pay off the debt rather than directly to the idol, creating an exploitative cycle. An idol
called Daisy (born Yoo Jung-Ahn) from girl group Momoland shared on social media that during her career she had a parallel job as an English translator. “My translating job was a part-time job and I was making 11 dollars an hour… My translating job made 1.3 times more than when I was an idol.” She amassed debt of $150,000 USD ($228,000) and received a single paycheck during her career, after she had paid off her debt in full.
While up-and-coming trainee idols lust after the wages, which can reach millions of dollars per member, the Korean audience equally provides enormous demand for new faces and new music. As a result, the idol industry is deeply toxic, with highly competitive structures that entrench financial insecurity into the beginning of every idol’s career. They would be compelled to sign so-called “slave contracts” which have different terms depending on the company, but regularly involve the idol committing to several years of training before they can make a debut. If the trainee lives outside of South Korea, they would be expected to move and leave their family behind. An artist called Hanse from boy group VICTON, reported by Koreaboo in May, explained how promoting music shows was not financially feasible because the costs of promotions was less than
Over time, this meant that younger generations would embrace nonconforming styles with confidence. Fashion has become more than ever unapologetically queer with queer artists now propelled to the spotlight. For instance, Chappell Roan, who recently skyrocketed to stardom has captivated audiences with her bold fashion and makeup directly inspired by drag. Her concerts often include dress codes that encourage fans to mimic her looks, and have further propelled the culture of drag fashion into the mainstream. As fans eagerly adopt her aesthetic, the spirit of drag fashion remains vibrant and everpresent.
As RuPaul said, “We’re born naked and the rest is a drag.” Fashion, at its core, is a powerful form of selfexpression, and no one embodies this better than drag queens. The true artistry of fashion lies in defying the constraints of societal norms, and drag culture stands as the ultimate testament to this. Over generations, our cultural landscape has evolved, as fashion and drag continue to inspire each other.
the remuneration that idols received from appearances. Hanse said that the contracts at his agency entailed seven years of work, after which if a trainee made it through their debts would be forgiven.
Idols also have strict regulations on their dating lives, with pressures to hide any relationships in order to maintain their image as an acquirable commodity. Rules vary between companies, with some employing an outright ban and others like SM Entertainment advising dating only within the company to reduce the risk of scandals. However, the implicit assumption is that idols need to appear available as potential partners to all their fans, to boost their sales and marketing. The mindset of idol training is that visuals matter above all else, because dances can be learned. This leads to expectations that idols are unanimously attractive and visually engaging.
The lack of job security in the industry makes the life of an idol trainee precarious. After a debut, of course, it is less intense, but the demands on idols continue to mount. Despite this, there is little pressure on Korean entertainment industries to ease the conditions for younger idols, and the thousands of people who apply for traineeships each year ensure that the supply of willing youths will not dwindle any time soon.
StuJo! Conference
ELECTION WORK AVAILABLE
Do you like elections? Have you worked on the recent state and federal elections?
The University of Sydney SRC is hiring casual polling booth attendants to administer its Annual Elections and count the votes. The elections run 24–26 September and counting continues for up to two weeks afterwards.
$42.15/hour apply here: bit.ly/3bclIiW
Michael Mohammed Ahmad
Sarah Ayoub
Wendy Bacon
Avani Dias
Senator Mehreen Faruqi
Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki
Kate McClymont
Paolo Pasco
Senator Fatima Payman
Sara M. Saleh
Sarah Sasson
Authorised by R.Scanlan, 2024 Electoral Officer, Students’ Representative Council, University of Sydney
President’s Report
Harrison Brennan
SRC Reports
Vice Presidents’ Report
Deaglan Godwin & Rose Donnelly
The Vice Presidents did not submit a report this week.
General Secretaries’ Report
Daniel
Hello!
O’Shea & Rose Donnelly
We hope everyone is settling well into semester 2 and online university, and to those of you for whom this is your first semester, we are so sorry, but it will get better! For now, try to go to your online classes while they’re on, and find a uni community to get involved in - the SRC has plenty of great collectives doing important activism who would love to have you.
Over the winter holidays we have been working on a few exciting things. One of these is Radical Education Week. In the past this has been a chockfull week of exciting and educational sessions run by fellow students on all kinds of topics which you don’t cover in class, and is radical in nature, in allowing students to experiment with different models of democratic teaching and learning. We hoped to be loud and proud on Eastern Av in Week 4, but due to the lockdown, have unfortunately had to push it online. We decided that instead of a week of events, we would have a series of exciting sessions throughout semester - every Tuesday 6pm and Thursday 2pm!
Come along to the first session this week! It is this Thursday at 2pm and will be on education as a form of liberation and will be a great theoretical basis for the rest of the week. You can find more information about the week on our Facebook Page (linked in the QR code), and see new events being uploaded on a rolling basis. We will also be having a very exciting draw each week where participants in the event can win books!
Hope to see you there!
Social Justice Officers’ Report
Tahlia Arnold, Lauren Finlayson, Reeyaa Agrawal & Simon Uptis
The Social Justice Officers did not submit a report this week.
International Student Officers’ Report
Kejun Liu, Zhongxuan Jiang, Fengxuan Liu & Astrid Xue
Last week, the International Student Collective of the SRC successfully organized a hiking event, which attracted over 50 participants. This event was an excellent platform to introduce new students to the Sydney University Student Representative Council (SRC) and to explain its functions. During the hike, we engaged with the participants, fostering strong connections and a sense of community. The event also generated significant interest in the ISO, with many students expressing a desire to get involved in future activities. This enthusiasm is encouraging as we continue to work on raising awareness of the SRC and ISO among the international student population. Additionally, the ISO team has been actively planning the office’s future development. Our primary goal remains to increase the visibility and influence of the SRC and ISO within the international student community. We are currently organizing more events to engage a broader audience, ensuring that more students can participate in and benefit from our initiatives. In addition to the hiking event, we have also been actively promoting the ISO on social media. From the current reports and real-life feedback, it is clear that our chosen approach is both promising and effective. Many new students who have recently arrived in Australia have reached out to us for help with simple everyday issues at the university. We have been patient and supportive, helping them find suitable solutions based on their specific situations. These efforts have significantly improved the visibility and reputation of both the SRC and the ISO among the students.
Queer Officers’ Report
Esther Whitehead & Jamie Bridge
The Queer Officers did not submit a report this week.
What is Student Misconduct?
What is Student Misconduct?
Student misconduct encompasses both academic and non-academic conduct, as outlined in the University of Sydney (Student Discipline) Rule 2016. Many students confuse academic honesty allegations with misconduct allegations; however, they are different processes and are investigated in different ways. A misconduct allegation could be academic in nature; however, it could also be related to student behaviour.
Differentiating Between Academic Honesty and Misconduct Allegations:
To determine if you have received an academic honesty or a misconduct allegation, take note of who the allegation letter is from. If your allegation letter is from your faculty (E.g. Science, or FASS) and says you have potentially breached the Academic Integrity Policy 2022, it is an Academic Honesty allegation. If your letter is from the Registrar or the Student Affairs Unit and says you have potentially breached the Student Discipline Rule, it is a misconduct allegation.
What does it mean if I have received a misconduct allegation letter? How should I respond?
If the University believes you may have engaged in behaviour that constitutes misconduct, they will send an allegation letter to your university email address. It will outline the alleged misconduct and invite you to a preliminary meeting.
You can initially respond to the allegation at the preliminary meeting. Final decisions are not made at this meeting. A staff member from the Student Affairs Unit will conduct the meeting; they will explain the misconduct process, the allegations, the range of possible penalties, and then ask whether you admit or deny the allegations. You can also explain any mitigating circumstances.
If you accept the allegations, your case will go to the Registrar for a decision. You can provide supporting documents, such as medical documentation or a written apology.
If you deny or partially deny any of the allegations, your case will go to an investigation. If you plan to deny the allegation(s), you do not have to provide a full response at the preliminary meeting. A few weeks after the preliminary meeting the investigator is meant to email you to explain the process, however there have been very long delays (many months) in this happening.
If you have received a misconduct allegation letter you should contact the SRC via our contact form. An SRC caseworker can provide independent and confidential advice to help guide you through this process of responding to the allegation.
How can I get the best possible outcome?
The SRC’s advice is to be as honest as possible in your response. Where you have done the wrong thing, admitting this as early as possible, apologising and demonstrating remorse will show the university you understand the seriousness of your conduct and are unlikely to engage in further misconduct in the future.
What will the penalty be? Will they kick me out of Uni?
Expulsions are rare, however they do happen. Penalties often include one or two semesters where you are suspended or excluded from study. If misconduct is proven to have occurred in a specific unit of study, a fail grade for that unit is also likely. Additionally, the Registrar has the discretion to suspend a penalty, meaning it will not be enforced unless you have future instances of misconduct. When considering whether to suspend a penalty, the Registrar considers the seriousness of the misconduct, your past conduct, your cooperation during the investigation, your level of remorse, and any compelling mitigating circumstances. Where to go for help?
The SRC’s caseworkers are experienced in assisting students with misconduct allegations. You can contact an SRC caseworker via our contact form (bit.ly/contact-a-caseworker) or by calling 9660 5222.
Ask Abe
SRC Caseworker Help Q&A
Discontinuing a subject?
Census date is September 2nd
Hi Abe,
I’m enrolled in 4 subjects this semester, but I just got a new job, and I don’t think I can keep studying 4 subjects. Can I drop 1?
Overwhelmed
Dear Overwhelmed,
If you withdraw from a subject before the census date 2nd April for semester 1 and 2nd September for semester 2) it won’t appear on your transcript, and you won’t have to pay for it. If you drop a subject after the census date you
will receive a DF grade, which means you will have to pay for it, but in most circumstances it won’t affect your WAM. You can apply for a DC if you have an illness, injury, or misadventure that is stopping you from being able to pass your subjects. It is unlikely that a new job would be viewed as a legitimate reason for a DC. Before dropping subjects, check how it will impact on Centrelink payments, visas, and travel concession cards.
Abe
More Information About Discontinuing a Subject: bit.ly/discontinue-not-fail
1. Which Shakespearean play does J. R. R. Tolkien claim inspired his creation of ‘Ents’ in The Lord of the Rings?
2. In Clueless, Cher Horowitz wears a yellow outfit of what pattern?
3. “Just Do It” and “I’m Lovin’ It” are both examples of what?
4. Which British youth subculture of the 50s and 60s is associated with clean-cut fashion and scooters?
5. Which directional, anti-personnel mine takes it’s name from a sword?
6. Grant’s, Glenfiddich, and Lagavulin are all brands of what?
7. Actor Owen Wilson is known to often use what word in his films?
8. William Shakespeare is often referred to colloquially as ‘The _____’
9. Herringbone, Windowpane, and Barleycorn are all types of what?
10. What connects all these answers?
Crossword
DOWN
1. American guitarist and YouTube creator Rick
2. Frenchman’s farewell
3. U.S. university that has produced over 100 Nobel laureates, in brief
4. Physiques
5. Condition that can be retrograde or anterograde
6. Common food court sight
7. The ___ (Texan battle site)
8. Use programs like Sibelius or MuseScore
9. Sydney station that gets the most visitors per day of any in the city
10. No later than, slangily
11. Recurring printer purchase
12. Tiny weight units, in brief
13. Smooch's sound
15. Sought office
20. Poetic unit
23. Winter Olympics host city of 1998
24. How smashed avo or poached eggs are often served
25. Pseudonym
26. Livestreamer whose 2021 “Dollhouse” streams allowed viewers control over his actions
27. Evaluate, as a metal’s quality
30. Aplenty
31. Blank character
32. Expensive party rentals
33. Jazz great Coltrane
35. ___ Peninsula (the “Horn of Africa”)
38. Game rife with under-the-table exchanges?
43. Resistance to change
46. ___ uno
48. Put one’s name down
51. Quickly go over, as a previous episode
52. Locale settled by players in a classic board game
53. Currency found across Scandinavia
54. Spring month, in brief
55. ___-pen
58. Prefix for gender
59. Square ___
60. Insecticide compound banned worldwide since 2004
61. Releases bigger than singles but smaller than albums
63. Roll’d offering
Dusting off the cobwebs
Connections
ACROSS
1. 2017 Sheck Wes hit “Mo ___”
6. “Critique of Pure Reason” philosopher
10. Comedy duo ___ & Eric
13. Oil or charcoal, for two 14. Blowing the socks off of 16. “___ line!” (“I got here first!”)
17. Fashion runways
18. Served
19. French plural article
21. Heat director Michael
22. Black-and-white interlocking check pattern used on fabric
25. 1977 Steely Dan album
28. Like roughly 20% of elephants
29. Only artist with two albums in the top 10 all-time best-selling list
31. Smeltery byproduct
34. “___ from up there”, 2022 Black Country, New Road album
36. Places of much evil scheming
37. Spiced rice dish
39. Location where the fashion show depicted in 17-, 22-, 50- & 58-across might occur
40. Andean camel relative
41. ___ acid
42. “Lucky you’re with ___”(insurance jingle)
44. ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ opening lyrics
45. Metamorphosis locale
47. With more marbles, so to speak
49. Language suffix
50. Tight tops often associated with Steve Jobs
55. Girl’s name that comes from the French for “esteemed”
56. Like face-to-face meetings but not zoom ones, in brief
57. Word replaced by a letter in textspeak
58. Family jewels protector, in Renaissance fashion
62. Wonder or Helga’s alternative
64. Underground hip-hop genre
65. “Not gonna happen”
66. DJ’s performance
67. High choir voices, in brief
68. Make up (for)
Crossword: Michael Smith.
Answers:
1. Macbeth 2. Plaid 3. Slogan 4. Mod 5. Claymore 6. Whiskey 7. Wow 8. Bard 9. Tweed 10.
Words of Scottish Gaelic origin
Always Balanced Coverage
NEW VESSEL FOR FRED DURST’S IMMORTAL SOUL ALMOST READY
VERY DEMURE, VERY MINDFUL: HAVING A PANIC ATTACK IN BROADWAY SHOPPING CENTRE
‘WAGE DEBATE’ HELD EXCLUSIVELY BY MAGAZINE EDITORS, BOARD DIRECTORS, YOUNG CREATIVES
‘HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE’ SAYS PHILOSOPHY STUDENT WHO IS EVERYONE ELSE’S OTHER PEOPLE CHACE CRAWFORD REMAINS IN PERPETUAL DAYDREAM WHERE HE IS A 17 YEAR OLD NATE ARCHIBALD.
POLITICAL GENIUS: NSW LIBERALS MORE INVESTED IN USYD SRC BOY-WONDERS THAN LOCAL COUNCIL NOMINATIONS
ABC’S BEST TEA FOR THE COLD SUFFERING FROM SICKNESS THIS WINTER?
Chamomile!
Peppermint 3: So your high school worstie launched her new boyfie and he’s kind of fugly
Lemongrass Ginger :) 5: Oh and he bought her Shein jewellery for her birthday
