Undercover critic tackles the fashion world

It’s easy to spot Fashion Critical when I arrive at the Grain Store cafe in Flinders Lane.

Seated at a table in the corner is a woman wearing a large hat obscuring part of her face and a pair of dark sunglasses.

If you want to stand out, this is the way to do it.

However, what Fashion Critical is actually seeking is anonymity; in public she always appears partially disguised.

For years, she was an anonymous person behind a keyboard who rose to fame with her biting and hilarious analysis of red carpet events posted on Facebook.

From the Oscars to the Brownlow, Fashion Critical runs her gimlet eye over big fashion events, often saying what everyone else is thinking.

Her signature takes come with their own vocabulary, including fashion sins such as “toesss” or a “toe violation” when toes spill out awkwardly from high heels; “crotch whiskers”, when the fabric of a dress is creased from sitting down and the wearer “shoulda caught a bus”; and “bewbs” when there’s a lot of cleavage on display.

Her criticism is uniquely Australian, with mentions of Spotlight specials, Janome sewing machines and Clarks shoes.

It has amassed Fashion Critical more than 400,000 followers across social media channels, and last year she published a book, Fashion Critical: Red carpet lewks and LOLs from an undercover fashion critic.

Her fans around the world include Monica Lewinsky, Naomi Watts and Alex Perry, and she is now invited to major events, along with being fashion editor-at-large for the Australian Open.

Through all this, Fashion Critical has resolutely maintained her anonymity and to interview her, I have agreed not to publish her name or identifying personal details.

It’s a departure from our usual interview protocol, and we are also slightly bending the rules of this column and meeting for breakfast rather than lunch as Fashion Critical has a flight back to Sydney.

Given the early hour, we both need caffeine. Fashion Critical orders an English breakfast tea while I go for a latte.

Now we can talk.

Fashion Critical has thoughts on anything and everything – after all, that’s how she made her name.

When comparing fashion between Melbourne and Sydney, she says Sydney has a more LA vibe chasing trends, whereas Melbourne is more New York.

“I do think it’s more classic, more understated,” she says.

She caused controversy by posting a reel that said “Melbourne is the fashion capital of Australia”, showing everyone wearing black puffer jackets.

“People were very upset,” she says, laughing. “They said, ‘It’s very cold. You can’t survive in Melbourne without a puffer jacket’. It went wildly viral immediately and got about 1.7 million views because people were so defensive about it.”

Our breakfast arrives, and I admit that I also own a black puffer jacket, but Fashion Critical generously does not hold this against me.

She is vegetarian and has the avocado breakfast bruschetta, which comes with smashed avocado and poached egg piled high on sourdough toast.

She adds a side of mushrooms for an added vegie boost.

The sourdough is so dense that our table shakes as Fashion Critical tries to saw her way through it, always a breakfast risk.

My menu indecisiveness leads me to order the brunch board, which showcases a small taste of much of the breakfast menu.

There’s a granola with yoghurt and fresh fruit, avocado and fetta toast with a poached egg on some more cutlery-defying sourdough, and a halloumi and potato hash topped with sweet and crisp bacon.

Fashion Critical says her couture commentary started as a personal post on Facebook about 2011, “back when everyone was on Facebook all the time”.

“It was the Oscars or something, and I just did an album of what everyone wore on the red carpet, funny captions,” she says. “Everyone thought it was very funny, and so then I did another one. I promise you, there was no thought behind it.”

Instagram was only a fledgling social media network at the time, TikTok did not yet exist, and it was before influencer and content creation were career options.

“I just like making people laugh,” Fashion Critical says. “People say, ‘Oh, do you really love fashion?’ and I do, but it didn’t come from that. It came from, I really did like making people laugh, and that’s where it came from.”

From 220 followers, Fashion Critical’s following gradually grew.

“It didn’t just blow up one day,” she says. “It wasn’t a thing to make money on the internet then. It was just something funny that I found amusing.”

Eventually, Fashion Critical added Instagram, and she has a small TikTok presence, although she says her engagement is still strongest on Facebook.

“I just don’t have the capacity right now for a whole other channel,” she says. “And I also wonder if I’ve missed the boat a little bit.”

She says she knows a fashion hit or miss when she sees one, but it’s difficult to pin down exactly what makes a person well-dressed.

“I wish I had a technical answer for you, but as I have freely said to everyone, I have absolutely no fashion expertise,” she says. “The only thing I have is eyeballs.”

Her view of fashion is that of an outsider, focusing on fun rather than insider knowledge.

She believes being well-dressed comes down to the fit and how something is worn with intention and confidence.

“It’s not just like I bought a dress in a shop that was Zimmerman,” she says. “It’s how you style it, how you wear it, and really how you carry yourself. You really have to feel like a million bucks in what you’re wearing.”

‘Half the time you look at what’s on the runway, and you go, they’ve got to be trolling,’

Fashion Critical is clear on what she does not like among current fashion trends, including thongs with heels, hosiery with open-toed shoes and naked dresses.

I am relieved I am not wearing any of these to breakfast.

“I don’t care for them,” she says of heeled thongs. “I feel haunted by the early 2000s, I just can’t. They hurt if you are wearing a kitten heel and your toes are pushing into the toe strap.”

She also isn’t a fan of another 2000s-inspired trend – thick belts with low-waisted jeans.

“I am a late adopter in trends,” she says. “I not that long ago embraced the high waist, and now you are going to take it away. Please, I only just got there.”

Also on her no list are hosiery with open-toe shoes: “I don’t care if it is the height of fashion, I just say no, and naked dresses as popularised by Kim Kardashian.

“I’m really over the naked dress. It’s boring. I don’t need to see anyone’s nips. I’ve had enough.”

Fashion trends in general get short shrift.

“Half the time you look at what’s on the runway, and you go, they’ve got to be trolling,” Fashion Critical says. “I feel like they’re sitting there going, ‘Let’s see if idiots wear this.’”

Of the big-ticket fashion events, Fashion Critical says she usually loves the Golden Globes, but they were “a little bit boring this year”.

“I don’t know if that’s the climate of what’s going on in America at the moment, but there was a lot of black,” she says.

The Oscars, she says, are “one of the least exciting red carpets of the year” because everyone plays it safe.

“Obviously, the Met Gala is the event of the year,” she says. “The MTV VMA awards, which is a hot mess year after year on the red carpet, is the best because you can be the funniest.”

For Fashion Critical’s purposes, the more “unhinged” the fashion the better. She rues the increasing commercialisation of red carpet looks.

“Not that long ago, maybe less than 10 years ago, definitely not everyone had stylists,” she says. “There would be some real hit-and-miss things, but the Logies last year, everybody looked pretty much amazing, and every single person had style teams and designers making gowns.”

This can lead to homogeneity, and Fashion Critical says that at the Australian Open in the Emirates marquee this year, on a day when many content creators were invited, they looked “absolutely beautiful” but all had the same look, similar clothes, similar slicked back hair.

“The whole influencer culture means that there is a sameness to the way, especially girls, look and are presenting themselves,” she says.

One red carpet event Fashion Critical does feel conflicted about is the Brownlow, as some attendees are celebrities and therefore are fair game in her view, while others are ordinary people.

“Some of them are girls who are 20 who are just coming with their boyfriends,” she says. “So that album makes me uncomfortable, but people love it.”

The way Fashion Critical covers fashion has changed over the years as well.

“Culturally, a lot has changed about the way that we talk about celebrities,” she says. “Every summer there used to be magazine stories about who’s lost weight and who’s put on weight and the body issue, and we just don’t do that any more.”

As an example, Fashion Critical used to say “sound the alarm” if someone looked really skinny, which meant “sound the cheeseburger alarm, bring them a cheeseburger”. However, she has retired that phrase as she says it’s not fair to comment on people’s bodies.

“I would have made missteps when I didn’t have a very big following; it didn’t really feel like it mattered,” she says. “There is this sense of responsibility to do the right thing while still being naughty and cheeky, and it is a fine balance.”

She says she focuses on clothes, not bodies, except for toes.

“A ‘toes violation’ is not about what the person’s toes look like; it’s about the behaviour of the toes in the shoes,” she says.

Not all Fashion Critical’s fans are fans of her more gentle approach.

“I have definitely had people saying, ‘Oh, you’ve gone soft’,” she says. “The responsibility is also not just my comment, but what it’s going to invite other people to say, which I can’t control and can’t police.”

Releasing her book last year was a turning point for Fashion Critical as it involved fronting up in public for the first time, albeit with her face partially obscured.

She says she considered remaining completely anonymous, but that would have limited the publicity around the book, so she decided to dress as Fashion Critical.

“I’d always had a vision of the character, of who she was,” she says. “I found this amazing milliner who made me all these elaborate, crazy head pieces, and then we did launch events in Sydney and Melbourne and could do TV.”

Just before her book came out, the Daily Mail wrote an article outing Fashion Critical using private Instagram photos.

When the news outlet contacted her for comment, she posted to her followers instead: “You already know who Fashion Critical is – you’ve always known. She’s the one who says what you’re all thinking. She’s your bestie on the group chat.

“Fashion Critical exists in her own right. She’s her own person. Just like Dame Edna wasn’t Barry Humphries. Just like Superman was never Clark Kent.”

When the Daily Mail article went live, she says, “people went psycho”.

Fashion Critical’s fans employed the “I am Spartacus” method, bombarding the news site with comments saying “I am Fashion Critical” and “No, I am Fashion Critical”.

“It actually ended up being very funny, and every other journalist and media outlet has played along,” she says.

She plans to keep posting about fashion and refuses to confirm her identity.

“It’s fun. It’s very Australian for everyone to laugh about people of privilege and how the other half live,” she says. “They have glamorous lives, and we can sit on the couch in our tracksuits with crumbs down our jumper and criticise them.”

Read more great conversations over lunch

Jacqueline Maley explores loss with Bob Carr: Bob Carr on marriage, grief and finally learning how to do a load of laundry

Stephen Brook asks Michael Rowland about his future: In the space of 14 months, Michael Rowland upended his ABC life. There’s more upheaval to come

Margot Saville laughs with Kathy Lette: Kathy Lette on ageing fabulously … and giving cheek to the King

David Wenham bares his scars to Louise Rugendyke: David Wenham on cancer, getting older and being lusted after

Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.