The highlight of the Embolden Festival is a Fashion Parade for models aged 65+. The Fashion Parade is called SPUNK. Spunk is an attitude - it is about courage, determination, pluck, spirit, strength, fortitude, guts and grit. In Australia, 'a spunk' is also a person who is sexually attractive.
The Fashion Parade invites models and delegates to think about beauty is an attitude. We ask our models to tell us their cat walk attitude. We also invite our models to think about taking their catwalk attitude into everyday life as a protective factor against ageism. It’s about not waiting for the world to be less ageist - it’s about living our lives to the full right now.
The Fashion Parade challenges the ageist misconception that beauty is limited to youth. We suggest that beauty changes as we age – but is not less. We want to show how older people have grace, style and a sense of play. The Parade celebrates models of a range of body shapes, genders and skin colours. Photographs and attitudes are shared on a page for each annual parade and we share our films below.
Bush Blokes: a tribute to older farmers - link here
Runway 6: older LGBTI people on the catwalk - link here
SPUNK On film
Producing a film from our Parade each year is a way to share this powerful event with those who cannot be there. Thanks to Chris Franklin for producing three beautiful films from a Fashion Parade Called SPUNK.