What is fashion anyway?

I was very pleased to read that Senator Kim Carr, bless him, has recognised that there is such a thing as a fashion industry in this country. His recently announced review seemed a long overdue validation that fashion is not just fluff... it's an important sector that employs around 60,000 people and undoubtedly has a strong future as long as we all stop panicking about the threat of cheap offshore labour and start to think creatively.

Of course putting a story about such a serious issue on the front page of Ragtrader did cause some problems. Allegedly the reporter who wrote the piece had a lot of difficulty accepting that the photo illustrating it had to be of Senator Carr. Senator Carr is perfectly nice looking fellow, a cuddly, bear-like creature with a librarian's beard and beady eyes which regard the world through owl-like spectacles. As an example of politicians he's not a bad specimen in fact, but fashion icon he ain't. Try imagining him strutting along a runway in those clodhopper shoes, his legs gleaming with shimmer lotion, and you'll know what I mean.

Ragtrader's front cover looks quite wrong unless there are slinky shots of catwalk babes or glossy glimpses from a label's most recent catalogue campaign splashed all over it. Of course the whole point of Senator Carr's review is to change people's perceptions of what fashion might be, and why it is important, but I had a far more enlightening epiphany on the subject watching Cashmere Mafia the other night.

What on earth did Lucy Liu think she was doing wearing a weird Grecian style head-dress, with a whacko little pony tail at the side? And then I remembered, Liu was dressed by TV fashion darling Patricia Fields, of Sex and the city. So renowned is Fields' work that she had a strong presence at New York Fashion Week earlier this year.

No surprise really. For six seasons women all over the world tuned in to see what Sarah Jessica Parker was wearing. Those Manolos gained immortal status thanks to SATC. I recall being as intrigued by Carrie's clothes as the sexual scrapes she found herself in. There were some definite fashion fizzers too. Remember that headband she wore in one episode? And those truly crazy rainbow design toe-socks...? (What an invention... about as useful to fashion as the waterbed was to home furnishings).

But what was inspiring about SATC was that it didn't impose limits on what fashion should be. In one episode Carrie gets dragged into a catwalk show with a crowd of other "non-models" including the writer Frank Rich. Now I think about it, remembering portly, white haired, elderly Frank sauntering down the catwalk was a truly inspirational moment.

Maybe seeing Senator Kim Carr up there wouldn't be such a bad thing. Why not, since we're trying to think outside the box? And on that note, maybe it's time we stopped imposing limits on what this industry should be.

By Kat Walker