How spring racing has changed pace

3 weeks ago 12

By mid-September, milliner Nerida Winter’s phone starts “blowing up”, heralding the start of the Australian “season”.

But things are a little different these days as her Sydney atelier fills with pretty ribbons, feathers, reams of raffia and delicate, hand-crafted silk flowers ahead of the nation’s biggest social gatherings – Sydney and Melbourne’s duelling spring racing carnivals.

Winter still has “private” customers, but these days the corporate demands of big business are also in the mix, especially when it comes to celebrity guests keen to stand out in the social media age. “They come with sponsors. I will always create something true to my design DNA, but from the planning stage we also know it has to fit a brief. It is all quite strategic,” Winter says.

Nicky Hilton Rothschild wearing a pillbox hat made by Nerida Winter in 2024.

Last year, she created an elegant buttercup-yellow pillbox hat for Melbourne Cup VIP guest Nicky Hilton Rothschild, which she happily wore for a hefty appearance fee.

Sydney’s Flemington has long witnessed the rise and fall of Australia’s corporate landscape. During his ascendancy, James Packer hosted one of its most coveted tents, filled with political and social elites. Today, it’s a distant memory, replaced by the likes of car salesmen.

Last year the Melbourne Cup Carnival generated more than $502 million for the Victorian economy, while Sydney’s younger Everest carnival is estimated to inject $100 million into NSW’s.

Corporatisation of Australia’s social calendar stretches beyond the racetrack, from the Sydney Children’s Hospitals Foundation’s Gold Dinner fundraiser (to which mining magnate Gina Rinehart has donated millions) to big-business sponsorship at Dance Noir, September’s Sydney Dance Company soirée.

In Thredbo this past winter, Range Rover opened its own chalet and threw choreographed parties for hired social media influencers. Brand-friendly content was duly uploaded.

A similar crowd turned up earlier this month in the Whitsundays for Hamilton Island’s 40th annual sailing regatta, this time dining out on sponsor American Express’s dime.

Before smartphones, in the ’80s and ’90s, Sydney’s fabled Cointreau Ball’s mission was simple: promote French liqueur with a lavish, invite-only party filled with genuinely interesting people. Brand awareness blossomed as stories of cavorting soapie stars being locked in portaloos and socialites misbehaving filled the newspaper columns.

“No one was preoccupied with taking photos of themselves back then,” mastermind Deeta Colvin laughs. “People still remember those parties; they were never boring.”

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