September 6, 2024

LETTER 369

Is Brisbane Ready to Be the Equal of Sydney and Melbourne?

By Julia Bergin

Numerous people in wild outfits, including fishnet stockings, conical bras and elaborate feather headdresses, crowd a stage.

Jean Paul Gaultier's "Fashion Freak Show," in Brisbane, Australia. Brisbane Festival

The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau. This week's issue is written by Julia Bergin.

Brisbane has always been behind Sydney and Melbourne as Australia's No. 3 city, both in population and international renown. But last week it trumped the other two to be the top choice of Jean Paul Gaultier, the international fashion icon.

The French designer picked Brisbane as the sole Australian city to host his autobiographical theater/cabaret cross-couture production, "Fashion Freak Show." Told through a theatrical smorgasbord of song, dance, burlesque, acrobatics and runway, the show documents the life and creations of Mr. Gaultier.

Although his clothing and costumes have been featured in art exhibits in Australia and have been worn by such Australian cultural heavyweights as the singer Kylie Minogue and the actress Nicole Kidman, Mr. Gaultier has never staged a couture runway show or theater production in Australia before. "Fashion Freak Show" debuted last weekend and will run through Sept. 15 as part of the Brisbane Festival.

For Brisbane, it is another step as it gears up to host one of the biggest events of them all in 2032: the Summer Olympics.

Elin Charles-Edwards, a demographer and associate professor at the University of Queensland, said that even if many Australians don't see the city as an equal to Sydney or Melbourne, Brisbane's cultural and demographic growth say otherwise.

In the past 50 years, the population of Brisbane has grown twice as fast as that of Sydney or Melbourne. At last count, greater Brisbane had more than 2.5 million residents.

Ms. Charles-Edwards said that growth gave Brisbane a critical mass of people that tipped it into big-city territory, meaning it had enough pockets of creative talent and subcultures to have an outsize impact culturally. Although not yet a global city, she said, Brisbane was "on the cusp" and culturally was already behaving like one.

But its reputation within Australia has been harder to change.

The state of Queensland has traditionally been viewed as Australia's conservative capital, known for industries like mining and agriculture. But over the past two decades, there's been a steady shift in the state, both politically and demographically, particularly in greater Brisbane and in places like the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Cairns.

Brisbane, Queensland's capital, is not the only Australian city trying to rebrand itself. This year, the South Australian Tourism Commission put out a statement requesting that media no longer refer to Adelaide, the state capital, as "RADelaide" or "The City of Churches." Instead, it asked people to focus on things like its wine industry or outdoor experiences.

Ms. Charles-Edwards said that in order for Brisbane to be in the same league as Sydney or Melbourne, it too needed to be taken seriously by the rest of Australia.

To Gary McQuinn, the international producer of the Fashion Freak Show, Brisbane already had clout.

Asked whether it was as an Australian cultural powerhouse to rival Sydney and Melbourne, his answer was a strong yes, emphasized with an expletive.

"Australian producers are going through a somewhat conservative phase," Mr. McQuinn said. "They're happier to import yet another production of 'Wicked' than they are doing something as outrageous as Jean Paul Gaultier's 'Fashion Freak Show.'"

But Brisbane, he countered, was different. It didn't matter that the show's ensemble of outfits arrived only 24 hours before the show started because of a transportation problem, or that the show opened on the hottest day of the year. Mr. McQuinn said the members of the Brisbane Festival team were world-class in their approach and always ready to think outside the box.

"The very secret to Jean Paul and his genius is that he doesn't know there's a box to think out of," he said, complimenting both the designer and the Brisbane Festival.

Louise Bezzina, the artistic director of the festival, was the woman responsible for securing the show. She called the "bright and shiny" production a perfect fit for her "bright and shiny" city.

"It's a bold move to go with something so sexy when there's government officials sitting next to you on opening night," Ms. Bezzina said, laughing. "But I haven't had anyone say to me, 'What the hell were you thinking?'"

On the contrary, she's been receiving thank you's all around, she said.

As Brisbane gears up for the 2032 Games, the city is grappling with the planning, infrastructure and promotion required for such an event. That's why, Ms. Bezzina said, when big-ticket international acts like the Gaultier ensemble come to town, the city seems to give it its all.

It's how she found herself on opening night wearing a cone bra, in honor of a Gaultier creation worn by Madonna while on tour in 1990.

In recent decades, international, interstate and intrastate migrations have created a much more diverse population in Queensland, said Ms. Charles-Edwards, the demographer. Politically, that's resulted in big cities swinging toward the Greens. Economically, it's meant increased activity and a sharp rise in housing prices. (As of June, it became more expensive to buy a home in Brisbane than Melbourne).

And culturally, it's given Brisbane national and international heft.

But Ms Charles-Edwards said the changes can't simply be attributed to an influx of "cool people coming up from Melbourne."

"I think there's an internal maturation," she said. "Brisbane is ready to launch on the world stage."

Damien Vasta, who grew up in Brisbane and now runs a mobile payment tech startup there, felt similarly about his hometown, but he said it was still missing a few key ingredients to be equal to Sydney and Melbourne, most notably infrastructure around sports and cultural events.

"You want people to say 'Brisbane is great because we went to this cinema, we went to this theater, we went to this stadium, and then we went to this great restaurant'," he said. "Melbourne is the benchmark in how they've blended the attendance of events with their culture."

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