Style Stories with Madeleine Park

In episode 4 of season 10, I chat with Farah Celjo, Managing Editor of SBS Food. Farah believes everything has a story whether it be food or the people that share it. Farah’s story stages her from the Maroubra skate park to the SBS subtitling offices but it’s from the kitchen she’s gleaned her greatest inspiration. As a little girl sitting by her mother’s side listening to her stories from Bosnia and beyond, Farah’s connection to storytelling through food was always in her fate. And while her sense of style doesn’t mind a food print and reflects the curious and colourful combination she’s come to know her mother to be, it’s her centre stage of sand, sun and surf that give her look that happy hook and sprinkle her story with pure joy.

In episode 3 of season 10, I chat with Anna Ugarte-Carrel, winner of the Good Food Guide 2020 Young Chef of the year award who has helmed the kitchen of the Old Fitzroy and adds notorious restaurants such as Huberts, Momofuku, and 3 Michelin-star Noma to her impressive resume. Anna doesn’t mind putting herself in the pressure cooker but takes nothing for granted especially when it comes to storytelling, community and beauty. Like her food her style is simple, tasty and gives us colour in context while always offering a little bit more bite.

What better way to kick off Season 10 than with a live broadcast of the East Sydney Fashion Feast, an event I hosted and produced at Kings Cross’ Ezra Restaurant as part of the Eastside Unlocked Festival. With the help of our couture designer darling, Mariam Seddiq, and Sharon Salloum, the lady acclaimed for modernising Middle Eastern food in Australia, the lunch met it’s goal of being an elegant afternoon of food, fashion and fun! Together we explored the influence Sharon and Mariam’s Middle Eastern and Middle Asian heritages had on their crafts, highlighting the similarities and differences between the food and fashion industries, with an accent on sustainable practices. The guests broke the bread, they shared the wine and they sat back, relaxed and got a taste of both Mariam’s and Sharon’s stories and I hope you can too.

What’s considered to be good taste may lie in the eye of the beholder but at it’s heart, there’s a deliciousness and depth of flavour that invites us in and begs us to ask for more.

I’m Madeleine Park, stylist and vintage fashion hound. I believe everything has a story whether it be clothes or the people that wear them.

Last season of Style Stories, I endeavoured to navigate our fashion landscape by understanding how our love for fashion can move forward in ways that also love our land. Naturally, connecting to the stories that sit behind our clothes, from their growers to their makers, helps cultivate a healthier relationship between clothing, culture and country.

It seems the food industry has already cottoned on and as consumers we are far more aware of what we put in our bodies that what we put on them.

In the following season I want to digest what fashion can learn from food. How can we apply the principles of farm-to-fork to fashion and if we beckon chefs to serve a sense of self on our plates, how does fashion follow suit?

That and I love food - cooking it, eating it and the culture that surrounds it. Like fashion, food gives me a platform to bring together art and science and I’m inherently attracted to it’s culture of of chaos and control. And done well, gosh it tastes good!

So this is Season 10 of Style Stories, a collection of conversations with the fashionable forces in food, who not only bring together beauty and purpose but are able to cook up stories with heart, humour and of course great taste. I hope you can sit back, relax and enjoy taking a bite out of Style Stories Season 10: In Good Taste.

As we come to the end of 2022, I conclude Season 9 of Style Stories with a a message of appreciation for the little things.

I will be taking a short break to reflect on some of my more vivid achievements, to dream up what’s next, and to re-energise but I look forward to connecting in the new year with more style and stories wrapped in great taste.

Thank you for listening this year, I hope it’s the little things that make your holiday great and that you can sit back, relax and enjoy.

In episode 6 of season 9  I chat with Anna McLeod, Global Content and Communications Manager at the Woolmark company. Working with wool may have been written in Anna’s stars, but it’s taken twists of travel and the turns of time to return her to a place that sits at the heart of her story. And while she may have left forward focussed frontiers and fast fashion behind her, she remains serious about style. Whether it be investing in the well-made, treasuring totems of her past, or being passionate about her purpose on the planet, Anna is a marriage of the classic and the considerate and it’s her style to simply lay this out in black and white.

In episode 5 of season 9  I chat with Eloise Bishop, former Head of Sustainability for the Country Road Group and David Jones. Eloise may be set to embark on new adventures, however it is clear her passion for care, craft and community has left a firm touch on these iconic Australian fashion institutions. A tactile person, Eloise is passionate about how things feel and whether it’s fabrics, farming practices or folk it’s her sensibility to marry sustainability with style and ensure everything has a story, whether it be clothes or the people that were them.

In episode 4 of season 9  I chat with Amy Low, Brand and Marketing Director at Piping Hot Australia. While fashion may have been a defining force for generations of her family, culture and community are at the heart of Amy’s history. Whether she’s supporting sustainable ocean research in line with Piping Hot and Unicef, or working as a Board member for a not-for-profit that provides fashion-focussed employment & training to refugees, Amy carefully applies passion to purpose, and does it with colour and charisma.  Her affection for the quote “I’m trendy as f*ck but I don’t want the world to blow up” gives us a window into Amy’s style and as we sit at Bondi Beach on a sunny afternoon and feel the inherent joy that comes with being by the ocean, Amy shares the joy and meaning that sits with her story.

In episode 3 of season 9 I chat with Jess Nathan, best known for meeting her love match on Australian dating show, Farmer Wants a Wife. While Jess may have once had lofty goals of wanting to be on television, the reality of the spotlight has proven things are not always as they seem. Despite being painted as the heart-breaking city girl, in the light of day Jess is a country girl at heart. And now she is all shacked up with farmer Andrew in rural Delegate, it’s her return to the good old country values of being practical, taking only what you need and considering community that have come to define her style.