Mullet dresses and nude illusions: Highlights from the Dally M red carpet

6 days ago 4

During the Dally M and Brownlow Medal awards season, designer Nicky Apostolopoulos is inundated with requests from WAGs and stylists interested in collaborating. Translation: “Can we wear your beautiful gowns for free and can you have it ready tomorrow?”

Understandably, Apostolopoulos was surprised to see last year’s NRLW Dally M winner, Olivia Kernick, politely inspecting dresses in the Sydney boutique for her label Velani, without a stylist but with a credit card in hand.

Olivia Kendrick, 2024 NRLW Dally M winner, wearing a Velani gown and Cerrone jewellery at Coogee Surf Life Saving Club.

“Hopefully, I have pretty good taste, so I don’t have a stylist,” says Kernick. “I had been following Velani for a while and wanted to support her beautiful work. I never expected what happened next.”

In full fairy godmother mode, Apostolopoulos lent the Roosters forward a black silk mikado bustier mini dress with a skirt overlay. Consider it the winning mullet dress of the evening; sporty at the front and sophisticated at the back.

A quick phone call to Australian jewellers Cerrone from Apostolopoulos provided the diamonds.

“I can’t wipe the smile off my face,” Kernick says. “You only find out you’re going at the last minute and your mind is taken up with football. That’s the job.”

Apostolopoulos continued to work her magic, in the same week that one of her gowns starred in a wedding episode of the soap opera Home and Away, for Maria Tedesco, the wife of NRL Dally M favourite and Roosters team captain James.

Six weeks ago, Maria gave birth to the couple’s second daughter. As a tribute to female energy, Apostolopoulos worked on a strapless pink silk and georgette gown, combining old Hollywood glamour with new mother beauty.

James wore a tuxedo from M.J. Bale, potentially a lucky charm, with last week’s AFL Brownlow Medal winner Matt Rowell also buttoning up in the Australian label.

Among sporadic moments of elegance, a dress double-up was narrowly avoided thanks to wildly different colours, even if the cut and design was the same.

The partner of the Dolphins’ Isaiya Katoa wore a pink version of the sapphire mermaid dress from Australian label Misha that was sported by Newcastle Knights NRLW captain Yasmin Clydsdale earlier in the evening.

Fortunately, Clydsdale’s dress was a rental, so the nightmare of every wedding guest won’t happen again.

Legs and cleavage are normally the body zones that steal the show at awards ceremonies, but thanks to the abundance of NRLW athletes, stomachs took centre stage.

Canterbury Bankstown Bulldogs player Tayla Preston demonstrated her commitment to crunches in a wine-coloured dress from Meshki with a stomach cut-out, demurely concealing her navel.

Indie Bostock of the St George Illawarra Dragons must have wanted more people to appreciate her sit-up sessions, with a sheer brown dress exposing most of her toned stomach.

The St George Illawarra Dragons’ Indie Bostock with her guest.

Canterbury Bankstown Bulldogs player Tayla Preston.

The nude illusion trend, recently championed by Margot Robbie in Giorgio Armani, was also ticked off effectively in a Velani chandelier gown worn by Kelsea Peck, on the arm of Hudson Young from the Canberra Raiders. With a Barbie blow-out, Peck doubled down on the Robbie inspiration.