The most distinctive and idiosyncratic of Australian fashion designers, Alannah Hill's internationally recognised signature label and accessories - including stilettos and boots, scarves and bags - is intensely feminine and lovingly detailed. If it's quirky you know I'm knocking down the dressing room door. Her website is a magical secret garden with a menagerie of crickets, bunnies, gnomes and owls. Alannah is a little bit BJ and a little bit Junk Gypsies. "Tasmania is a quaint and harsh island outpost out of time with the rest of the world. This is where Alannah Hill grew up, in a rather Wuthering Heights meets creaming soda kind of way. She was one of a catholic family of five children brought up in an old fashioned milk bar in the wild coastal town of Penguin, with lots of mixed lollies but not a sequin in sight. “I landed in Melbourne from Tasmania at 17, with six suit cases and $50, $30 of which went on the taxi to the city. I didn’t know one single person and not one single person knew me. I was quite hyperactive and did anything anybody asked of me. I was fearless, brave, but frightened”. Almost immediately Alannah was noticed in a café where she was waitressing, dressed even then in her coquettish and ornamental manner, and was asked to work in a fashion store in Chapel Street, South Yarra. She stayed 15 years and established her own label 9 years ago. Today Alannah heads her own booming and lucrative empire, the idiosyncratic and intensely feminine Alannah Hill label. With nine opulent and enticing boutiques throughout Australia and sequins galore, her rise and rise is a success story of the old Hollywood variety. She is a testament to what tenacity, natural talent and a glamorous dream can do for a girl. "
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