From the moment you walk under the Mickey Mouse archway, Disney’s The Magic of Animation exhibition at ACMI is just that - magical. Designed to show the true magic of animation and its power to impart life and spirit into static images, the curators of the exhibition wonderfully captured the significance of the artists and filmmakers work whose talents and innovations have been shared with audiences all around the world. 

The exhibit gives you a greater understanding of the work behind the scenes, as well as all of the technologies used throughout each decade and the incredible processes involved in animation. What became apparent was how much Disney has done for innovation in this space; often designing new technologies and techniques to change the world of animation forever. 

While the exhibition started with identifying the 12 basic principles of animation, each of the films we know and love have such a large significance to the world of animation. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is the world’s first ever feature-length animated film in Technicolour; Fantasia is the world’s first feature film with stereophonic sound; and Lady and the Tramp was the Studio’s first animated feature to use widescreen Cinemascope technology. 

The exhibition has something for the whole family, and takes you on a journey through all of your favourite films, including the classics (Mulan, Pinocchio, Bambi, Alice in Wonderland, Sleeping Beauty, The Jungle Book, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Pocahontas) to worldwide phenomenons (The Lion King, Frozen and Frozen 2), to the more recent favourites (Tangled, Big Hero 6, Wreck-It Ralph, Moana, Zootopia and Raya and the Last Dragon). 

Get excited! Sugar Republic is returning to its Melbourne hometown with a brand-new experience at Woodlea in Melbourne’s west this January.

Bloomville will see colourful shipping containers made over in the signature Sugar Republic style, brought together by outdoor play spaces to bring a smile to all ages.

From a topsy turvy flower power bedroom to planting a little happiness, Bloomville is full of colourful and fun activities that will see visitors enjoy a unique experience during the summer holidays, raise funds for local charities and provide some much-needed joy for Melbournians.

Colourful and fun activities at Bloomville include:

• Scratch n Sniff the flowers
• Make a Wish
• Topsy turvy flower power bedroom
• Sparkly swing
• Immerse yourself in cherry blossom
• Singing in the rain below a cloudy sky
• Take a spring shower in confetti
• Win at rainbow ping pong
• Jump into giant gum boots
• Plant a little happiness

Beautiful new backdrops include:

• Neon flower crown
• Giant daisy wall
• Chasing the Sun 
• Bloomville Hippy Van
• Life is Beautiful
• Silver lining
• and much more…

DETAILS:

• Woodlea Town, Lim Way (enter off Field Street) Aintree
• From January 15
• Tickets : $5 per person,
• 100% of ticket sales for the Sugar Republic Bloomville pop-up will be donated to local charities. Visitors have the option of supporting Alex Makes Meals, the Lort Smith Animal Hospital, or the Good Friday Appeal.
• Tickets can be purchased via https://www.eventbrite.com.au/o/sugar-republic-36387229023.

NGV International | 4 December 2021 – 25 April 2022 | Admission fees apply 

Opening to the public on Saturday 4 December 2021, Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto is the first exhibition in Australia to exclusively focus on the significant contribution to twentieth-century fashion culture by the renowned French couturière Gabrielle Chanel (1883–1971). Presented by the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) in partnership with the Palais Galliera, the preeminent fashion museum of the City of Paris, the exhibition will be launched with an opening weekend of programs and events, as well as an audio guide narrated by house ambassador Tilda Swinton exclusively for the NGV. 

With more than 230 garments, accessories and jewellery pieces drawn from the rich holdings of the Palais Galliera and the Patrimoine de CHANEL in Paris, complemented by important loans from major public museums and private collections, Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto showcases the impressive breadth of Gabrielle Chanel’s output and her design codes. The Melbourne presentation also features several designs from the NGV Collection, including recent, never-before-seen acquisitions generously gifted by Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM and Family, including an embroidered organdie Evening dress, spring-summer 1933 and spectacular shirred red silk velvet and marabou-lined Evening cape, c. 1924–26. 

Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto premiered in Paris in autumn 2020 and makes its international debut at the NGV in Melbourne, Australia. Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto was developed by the Palais Galliera, with outstanding loans from the Direction du Patrimoine de CHANEL, the fashion house's heritage department, and is curated by Miren Arzalluz and Véronique Belloir, respectively the Director and Head of Collections of the museum. 

Throughout the opening weekend, audiences can hear from NGV’s fashion and textile curators and fashion industry experts, including in the three-part talk series, Chanel in Context. Placing the couturière’s designs in their historical, social and cultural contexts, the series explores the language and iconography of Gabrielle Chanel’s designs, the emergence of modernity in the early twentieth century, as well as how Chanel’s early work fits into the complex picture of twentieth century feminism. All opening weekend programs will be broadcast live from the NGV website. 

Considered to be one of the most influential designers of the twentieth century, Gabrielle Chanel introduced a language of modernity into fashion that still resonates today. With the opening of her first fashion boutique in Deauville in 1912, then her couture house on 31 Rue Cambon in Paris in 1918, Chanel began to reform women’s wardrobes by creating a new code of dress that privileged comfort, function and elegance, and responded to the growing desire for greater social freedoms among women. 

Chanel’s designs offered a restrained luxury that rejected ornamentation and, above all else, allowed women to move with ease. She pioneered the use of jersey and tweed, drawing inspiration from menswear and sportswear conventions, and championed the ‘little black dress’ and the suit as liberating modes of dress for women. 

Unfolding across several chronological and thematic sections, Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto explores Chanel’s design codes through a visually arresting and sumptuous display of more than 100 garments that trace her remarkable career. These are placed alongside her innovations in perfume, jewellery and accessory design. Highlights include early examples of her use of black to connote modernity and chic; delicate lace gowns; wool jersey and tailored tweed suits; dazzling beaded garments; and bold costume jewellery. The survey offers audiences an unprecedented opportunity to appreciate Chanel’s significant impact on the development of womenswear throughout the twentieth century, and to consider the legacy of her designs in contemporary culture. 

Minister for Creative Industries, Danny Pearson said: ‘Melbournians love their fashion so it is fitting that Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto makes its first international debut right here in Melbourne after its premiere in Paris.
 

‘Exhibitions of this calibre attract visitors from right across the nation, boosting local tourism and adding to Victoria's standing as the creative state,’ said Pearson.  

Brendan McClements, Visit Victoria CEO, said: ‘Fashion lovers from around the country will flock to Melbourne for this exclusive exhibition of Chanel works, straight from its debut in Paris to Australia’s very own fashion capital.’ 

Tony Ellwood AM, Director, NGV, said: ‘There is no bigger name in twentieth century fashion design than Gabrielle Chanel. Her originality, timelessness and elegance forged a radically modern vision of fashion and a singular style. Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto will be expansive, visually sumptuous and will reveal the achievements and enduring legacy of the extraordinary French fashion designer.’ 

Miren Arzalluz, Director, Palais Galliera and co-curator of the exhibition, said: ‘Gabrielle Chanel devoted her long life to creating, perfecting and promoting a new kind of elegance based on freedom of movement, a natural and casual pose, a subtle elegance that shuns all extravagances, a timeless style for a new kind of woman. That was her fashion manifesto, a legacy that has never gone out of style. 

‘Gabrielle Chanel’s success was based not only on the functionality, comfort and chic elegance of her designs, but also on her ability to grasp and interpret the needs and desires of the women of her time,’ said Arzalluz. 

Bruno Pavlovsky, President of CHANEL Fashion and of CHANEL SAS said: ‘By bringing together all the facets of an exceptional creativity, this exhibition throws new light on Gabrielle Chanel's stylistic legacy. A rebel at heart, she transposed her personal needs, audacity and freedom into creations that reflected her personality and that she initially made for herself. Her demands – comfort, functionality, simplicity – subsequently became those of all women. For the first time, fashion reflected the aspirations of women, the changes to come in their lives and the evolution of their place in society. Ephemeral in essence, with Gabrielle Chanel fashion became perennial. By breaking away from the standards of her time, her codes and stylistic vocabulary have endured.’ 

Highlights of the exhibition include rare examples of Chanel’s early daywear and her wool jersey suits, which marked a radical departure from the elaborate fashions of the Belle Epoque and Edwardian periods in France and England. 

Equally captivating are the gowns associated with Chanel’s so-called ‘romantic’ period of the 1930s. Dedicated sections of the exhibition showcase Chanel’s love and use of floral motifs - realised as printed textiles or as appliqued florets – and her skilfully manipulated lace eveningwear. 

Chanel’s innovations also included the first composite and abstract perfume, Chanel N°5, created in 1921; cosmetics and highly decorative costume jewellery that combined precious and semi-precious materials. The exhibition also explores the design codes Chanel introduced in the 1950s, including the quilted 2.55 bag and two-tone slingback that remain closely associated with the visual language of the house.  

A further highlight of the exhibition is a display of iconic Chanel suits. Debuted by Chanel in the 1910s and reintroduced after the re-opening of her haute couture house in 1954, the two or three-piece suit, in lightweight woven tweed or wool bouclé, remains a feature of the house’s collections to this day. Popularised by the likes of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, Princesse Grace de Monaco and actresses such as Marlene Dietrich, Romy Schneider and Lauren Bacall, the Chanel suit quickly became the embodiment of sophistication and functionalism, defined by its tailored lines, allowance for ease of movement and comfort, and clever use of gilt buttons and braiding as means of both decoration and structure.  

Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto will be on display at NGV International, Melbourne, from 4 December 2021 – 25 April 2022. For further information and tickets, please visit the NGV website. 

An exhibition organised by the Palais Galliera, Fashion museum of the City of Paris, Paris Musées.

PROGRAMS AND EVENTS 

Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto Audio Guide 

Narrated by Tilda Swinton 

In this NGV-exclusive audio guide, house ambassador Tilda Swinton will guide audiences through the space, expanding on the themes and ideas embedded in the exhibition. 

Chanel in Context 

From Head to Toe: The Language and Iconography of Chanel 

Saturday 4 December, 11am 

Take a journey into Chanel’s extraordinary world with Chanel in Context, a three-part series exploring the design, innovation, legacy and influence of Gabrielle Chanel. In this session, NGV curators and guest panelists discuss how Chanel’s early brand and identity creation was so radical at the time, the role this played in its success, and the key elements that became synonymous with the style and language of Chanel. Speakers: Katie Somerville, Senior Curator, Fashion & Textiles, NGV; Fashion Buyer Christine Barro; Karen Webster, Dean and Principal of LCI Melbourne. 

Chanel in Context 

Chanel’s World: Modernism & Modernity in Changing Times 

Saturday 4 December, 1pm 

Progressiveness amid conservatism; ostentation amid sobriety. In this session, NGV curators and guest panellists take a close look at the emergence and early work of Chanel in the context of Modernism, modernity and society in the first part of the twentieth century. Speakers: Miranda Wallace, Senior Curator, International Art Projects, NGV; Natalya Lusty, Professor of Cultural Studies, The University of Melbourne; Dr Jess Berry, Senior Lecturer, Design History and Theory, Monash University; Professor Amy de la Haye, Joint Director of the Research Centre for Fashion Curation at London College of Fashion. 

Chanel in Context 

Fashion as Freedom: Chanel and Feminist Design 

Sunday 5 December, 11am 

Although Gabrielle Chanel didn’t identify as a Feminist, her designs emerged on the fashion and social scene at a critical time in the narrative of women’s rights and freedoms. Chanel’s clothes and accessories were ground-breaking in the way they fit, moved and looked, as well as in their unexpected materials and styling. In this final Chanel in Context session, NGV curators and guest panellists discuss fashion, freedom and Feminist design, and how Chanel’s early work fits into this complex picture. Speakers: Danielle Whitfield, Curator, Fashion & Textiles, NGV; Dr Harriette Richards, Research Associate, School of Culture and Communication, The University of Melbourne; Author and Fashion Historian Dr Liliana Grace Pomazan; Professor Amy de la Haye, Joint Director of the Research Centre for Fashion Curation at London College of Fashion. 

NGV Gala 

Saturday 19 February, 2022 

The exhibition will be celebrated at the NGV Gala, an annual black-tie event, on Saturday 19 February 2022. The NGV Gala is an annual black-tie event that celebrates art, fashion, fine food and music. First held in 2017 to coincide with the major fashion exhibition, The House of Dior: Seventy Years of Haute Couture, the NGV Gala has become an anticipated event on Melbourne’s social calendar and has been attended by the likes of Nicole Kidman, Natalie Portman, Elizabeth Olsen, and Winnie Harlow. 

ABOUT PALAIS GALLIERA  

The Palais Galliera is a permanent fashion museum in Paris, established in 1977 in the nineteenth-century building commissioned by Duchesse de Galliera. The museum displays exhibitions of French fashion design and costume from the eighteenth-century to the present day and has a collection of over 200,000 items. Collection highlights include garments owned by Marie-Antoinette, Louis XVII and the Empress Joséphine, and important pieces by such renowned designers as Madame Grès, Cristóbal Balenciaga, Christian Dior, Hubert de Givenchy and Yves Saint Laurent.  

The Palais Galliera has secured a reputation for inspired, off-site exhibitions, including Paris Haute Couture at the Mitsubishi Ichikogan Museum in Tokyo; Outside Fashion, at the Huis Marseille, Amsterdam ; Backside – Dos à la mode at the Musée Bourdelle; and Balenciaga in Black, at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, a tribute to the “couturier of couturiers” Cristóbal Balenciaga through the prism of his favoured colour.  

The museum’s Director, Miren Arzalluz, joined the Palais Galliera in December 2017, bringing fifteen years of experience in fashion curatorial and collection practice, including eight years at the Cristóbal Balenciaga Foundation. She has led the redevelopment of the site over the past several years, which has doubled the size of the museum by transforming the vaulted cellars to exhibition galleries. 

The Palais Galliera is part of Paris Musées, the public institution incorporating the 14 museums belonging to the City of Paris. 

Long awaited since their mega 2019 Australian tour, the World’s Biggest Bounce House has announced a return trip to Australia! (yep, it is still Guinness World Record certified) 

The Big Bounce Australia have announced tour dates from 14 January 2022 until 13 May 2022, and they’re bringing their latest, custom built, inflatable playground - Sport Slam, for an all Aussie debut. 

Alongside this highly anticipated new addition, they are bringing an incredible 300 metre long inflatable obstacle course and four part themed wonderland to six awesome Aussie Cities for their 2022 Tour. 

ABOUT 

● Tickets will be available for purchase on the website. ON SALE NOW ! 

● Toddlers, Family/ Kids, Bigger Kids and ‘Adult Only’ sessions 

● The Big Bounce Australia is the largest touring inflatable event in the entire world and features in the Guiness Certified World’s Biggest Jumping castle 

● Sport Slam | Brand new for 2022, a customized sports arena filled with goals, nets, hoops and balls of every size and type you could imagine! There’s also zones for wall climbing and a ‘battle zone’ where you can compete against your family and friends 

● Unique and exciting custom-built inflatable playgrounds featuring racing slides, competitive and leisurely options, obstacle courses, mazes, DJs and confetti. 2 

● 300 metre long inflatable obstacle course with slides, ball pits, a maze and climbing walls galore ● Local food vendors to be announced for each state 

● Live DJ and MC curating tunes, games and dance competitions 

2022 DATES (weekends only) 

● Brisbane QLD: Jan 14 - 16 

● Melbourne VIC: Jan 28 - Feb 6 

● Adelaide SA: Feb 18 - 20 

● Canberra ACT: March 4 - 6 

● West Sydney NSW: March 11 - 13 

● North Sydney NSW: April 15 - 17 & 22 - 24 

● Newcastle NSW: April 8 - 10 

● Perth WA: May 6 - 8

Melbourne’s CBD will roar back to life with a new fast-paced zipline that will take Melburnians from Fed Square to Alexandra Gardens over the Yarra. 

It’s an adrenaline-pumping adventure that will be a drawcard attraction and entice people back to the city as part of a summer of fun. 

Throughout December, Firefly Zipline, Melbourne CBD’s first zipline experience and the first in Australia to go over a major river, will send thousands of thrill-seekers over the Yarra River in an exhilarating 130m experience that will take participants 9m off the ground and hit speeds of up to 40km/h. 

The pop-up zipline has been made possible through a joint grant from the City of Melbourne and the Victorian Government. 

Melbourne Lord Mayor Sally Capp said attractions like the Firefly Zipline will bring the buzz back to the city.

“We’re thrilled to support operators with attractions and activations that will reinvigorate Melbourne and draw people back to our wonderful city,” the Lord Mayor said.

“The Firefly Zipline is an unprecedented opportunity for Victorians to enjoy the city from a stunning new angle.

“There’ll also be significant flow on effects for other city business owners, as participants make a day of it and enjoy Melbourne’s world-renowned dining scene and a spot of shopping.”

Federation Square chief executive officer Suzana Bishop said the venue is the perfect location for the zipline to start from. 

“We can’t wait to welcome everyone back to Fed Square.

“The zipline is one of many in the kaleidoscope of experiences we are set to announce.

“The Firefly Zipline is an unprecedented opportunity for Victorians to enjoy the city from a stunning new angle.”

One of the event operators, Emma Moad, says the zipline is the culmination of years of work in preparation. 

“The pandemic has been difficult for everyone, and Melbourne’s re-emergence from lockdown is the perfect time to launch this thrill-seeking venture that we have wanted to bring to Melbourne for years. 

“We can’t think of a better way for Melburnians to celebrate their freedom with a never-before-seen experience like this, in the heart of the CBD.”

Bookings will be live via www.fireflyzipline.com.au in early November and people are encouraged to reserve a seat, with tickets anticipated to sell out quickly. 

After what will be two and a half year hiatus, the festival celebrating your favourite grape variety, Pinot Noir, will finally be BACK!

Pinot Palooza is all about the fun side of wine and our line-up of Pinot producers are the best from Australia, New Zealand and beyond.

So come join us and soak up the wine, music and taste your way across the #pinot spectrum.