In red carpet circles, there’s an unwritten rule: criticise the outfit, not the woman. However, social media – and certain gossip websites – see to it that this convention is often ignored. And so, like it or not, stylist Lana Wilkinson’s work can receive some harsh scrutiny.

“It doesn’t feel great [to get bad reviews], but it doesn’t bother me like it used to,” she says. “Because as long as the client doesn’t feel that way, and I don’t feel that way … that’s all that matters.”

After 13 Brownlow Medals, including the two conducted remotely during the pandemic, Wilkinson, 42, has seen – and done – it all. She’s deployed voluminous gowns to help women hide early pregnancies, scrambled for replacement dresses and shoes when clients gave her the wrong size, and once had a clothes steamer helicoptered to Flemington during the Melbourne Cup Carnival to fix a wrinkled dress on a visiting international celebrity.

The Brownlow has been held at Crown Melbourne since 1997 (except for the virtual 2020-21 years, and 2002, when it was held at what’s now Marvel Stadium), so it’s fitting that Wilkinson and I are lunching at Nobu, the Japanese restaurant situated a few steps from where the AFL’s best players – and their partners – will walk the red carpet on Monday night.

“I’ve had some of the biggest things in my career happen here [at Crown],” Wilkinson says.

Arguably though, the biggest had nothing to do with football. It was getting the opportunity to dress her hero, US celebrity stylist Rachel Zoe, during a speaking tour of Australia in 2015. Wilkinson still remembers the exact outfits she chose for Zoe, including Australian labels Zimmermann and Manning Cartel.

“She was the only client I’ve ever shat myself doing,” Wilkinson says with a laugh.

Food is usually the last thing on Wilkinson’s mind as she primps and preens her clients for the red carpet. In this rare break between red-carpet fittings, meetings for her eponymous shoe brand, and a flying business trip to New York ahead of the Brownlow, we’ve decided to let the team at the restaurant choose our dishes so we can spend more time talking.

Before we can even dissect whether the Brownlow is more “valuable” to the fashion industry than other red carpets, such as the Logies or fashion week, a spread of Nobu’s greatest hits is laid before us: yellowtail sashimi with jalapeno and ponzu; a platter of sushi and nigiri of scallops, tuna and salmon; and a salad of lobster and shitake mushrooms I later learn costs $98.

Forking a piece of zesty fish – Wilkinson has eschewed chopsticks for greater ease – she agrees the Brownlow, or “Gownlow” as it’s colloquially known, delivers far superior brand recognition and flow-on business for the designers involved, who mostly supply the gowns for free.

“The Brownlow is powerful in that way,” she says.

Wilkinson’s Brownlow looks have made overnight stars of women such as Jessie Murphy, wife of former Carlton captain Marc Murphy, who in 2018 was best dressed in a pink and nude gown by local designer Sam Oglialoro. Another one of her looks ended up at the Met Gala in New York City after a stylist spotted it on Instagram. And plenty of others have inspired wedding dress designs – the ultimate payday for many in the Brownlow game.

So, are there any Brownlow moments she’d rather forget? A few, Wilkinson admits. “Don’t go too far down my Instagram!” she says. “But then there are some, and [I say to myself], ‘Babe, I was ahead of my time’.”

Since dressing her first Brownlow client – Lynette Bolton, wife of former Sydney Swan Jude Bolton – in 2011, Wilkinson has seen the event evolve, mostly for the better. “The critiquing isn’t as bad as it was,” she says. Though, thanks to social media, “everybody’s a fashion expert now”.

On cue, a waiter brings the main course: Nobu’s signature miso black cod and beef short rib with corn salsa, both of which are served compliments of the kitchen, and leave us completely stuffed. The meat, which has been sliced on the bone, is rare and tender, and I already know dinner is off the cards. We begin discussing the growing emphasis on capturing cinema-quality behind-the-scenes content over the red carpet itself.

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So, I ask Wilkinson, has social media made the Brownlow too … stiff? Does the obsession with Instagram and “content” leave little room for risks – and missteps – like Tanya Buckley’s “g-string gown” in 2001?

“I don’t think it’s as curated as it once was. I think the younger generation coming through doesn’t give a shit,” she says – not meaning to denigrate Gen Z, who account for the largest portion of the AFL’s playing group, but to praise their willingness to take more fashion risks, the men included.

Speaking of young people, it occurs to me that as someone whose profile has grown in large part via Instagram, Wilkinson must have considered how to educate her two daughters – aged eight and 10 – about social media.

Wilkinson says she and husband Liam don’t allow their daughters to use devices on weekdays, and they don’t have access to social media. “As an adult, I have at times found it difficult to navigate [social media], and those early teen years are formative and shape the person you become,” she says. “I want [my daughters] to do so without comparison to others or discovering things that their minds aren’t mature enough to comprehend.”

The critiquing [of the Brownlow red carpet] isn’t as bad as it was, [but] everyone is a fashion expert now.

Lana Wilkinson

As a full-time working parent, Wilkinson says she has been especially inspired by her father, who owns a dry-cleaning business in Niddrie, near her childhood home in Essendon. But, she admits, she has also inherited his unrelenting work ethic, whether it was in her early career on reception at Fox Footy, or at Westfield, where she worked until she went out on her own in early 2011.

“I don’t know that anyone, when they have all the information, would want to disrupt their life like that,” she says of starting her own business. “But then, me personally, I kind of thrive on chaos.”

In her peak styling days, Wilkinson regularly dressed more than 10 women for the Brownlow, including some of the league’s highest profile women: Brit Selwood (wife of former Geelong captain Joel Selwood), Emma Hawkins (wife of retiring Geelong forward Tom Hawkins), and Bel Sloane (wife of retired Adelaide captain Rory Sloane).

But the demands of the business and her busy family mean this year she is taking on fewer Brownlow clients.

“People may say … ‘Why is she still doing that [styling the Brownlow]?’” she says. “I get angry about that because the Brownlow made people take notice, not just of me, but gave me the confirmation that I could also help other brands.”

Call it karma – or just good business – but those same brands are now lining up to promote Wilkinson’s shoes, which have been worn by everyone from Kylie Minogue to Rita Ora. It helps, too, that her close friends include celebrity businesswomen (and former WAGs) Rebecca Judd and Nadia Bartel.

Indeed, Monday’s Brownlow ends a month of milestones for Wilkinson: her shoes went on sale at David Jones, and, in the US, at department store Fred Segal and 50 other stockists – a deal she signed in New York in February.

On the advice of her sales agent, the US expansion required Wilkinson to re-invest heavily in her brand, which is self-funded. Catering to northern hemisphere customers, who like louder colours than Australians, has also invoked her styling mantra: it’s about the client, not you.

“When I started the brand, I said, ‘I’ll never make flats, I’ll never make beige shoes’. And sure enough [we have],” she says. But she draws the line at sneakers; she prefers to own “glam with comfort”, and leave the trainers to others.

After knowing Wilkinson for about 10 years, she appears more confident, backing herself without the self-deprecating backhanders that were once hallmarks of imposter syndrome, which she says came from not being a “trained” stylist.

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Wilkinson admits she used to do crazy stuff out of fear the work would dry up if she refused – like the time she went to New Zealand with Victoria Racing Club when she was 33 weeks pregnant, or when she had a model come to her maternity suite at the Park Hyatt to “zip her up” for fashion week.

“I don’t know if the person I am today would still do that,” she says, before adding, “but I’m not sorry I did because I think it’s probably led to where I am now”.

The 2024 Brownlow Medal is on Monday, September 23. Follow our live blog on our website, or via The Age app.

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