Crown Oaks Day, otherwise known as ‘Ladies Day,’ (or blokes day depending on how you see the world) is traditionally a day for women to enjoy the races. I’ve no idea when or why it came to be, but I do know you see groups of women all dressed up out for a day of racing, punting and champagne of course.
I attended the Lexus marquee with my friend My Lingerie Addiction and had a wonderful time dining on chef Neil Perry’s freshly churned gelato and burgers. Upstairs award-winning chef Ben Shewry’s pop-up Attic‘ restaurant was fully booked by 11am each day of the carnival I’m told, with VIP guests arriving as soon as the marquee opened in order to reserve a sitting. The waiting list for the restaurant is up to eight months so I’m not surprised.
Hundreds of light bulb vases hung from the ceiling on the second level with the installation by Joost, which only needed to be refilled once over the four major race days. Quite impressive considering on Cup day it reached 30 degrees.
The sky deck rooftop space was designed by Jamie Durie and an entire wall was filled with herbs and strawberries. As the breeze came through you could smell the fragrant basil and mint which went down a treat as you sipped on G.H.Mumm and watched the races.
I wore a dress by Melbourne designer Estelle Michaelides from her label Micky In The Van. The dress had it’s debut at Paris Fashion Week earlier in the year so it was a privilege to have worn it to the races. My head piece was a vintage number from The Eternal Headonist to which I added some real roses at the very last minute for no other reason than I thought it would look nice. Nothing like a last minute addition to one’s outfit!
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*All the Lexus Marquee Oaks Day 2014 images are copyright and were taken by KAREN WOO for What would Karl Do, please contact Jess for permission to use these images. jess@whatwouldkarldo.com or click on the link above to see more.
