If anyone can make a feral animal print cool it’s Arabella Ramsay. The designer, who skipped the city in favour of the coast a few years ago, has launched a new lifestyle brand in collaboration with her dad Dougal Ramsay, an accomplished artist who has designed ranges affectionately named after all things Aussie; Hello Cocky, G’day Love, Veg Out.

Burnt out from more than a decade in the fashion industry rat race where she had amassed a cult following among adoring 20-somethings and private school girls for her unique apparel, Arabella shut her Melbourne shop five years ago and moved to Jan Juc where her husband has a yoga studio, her daughters play with bunnies and organic eggs are collected from the backyard coop.

Yet the fashion industry has come calling again, albeit in a different guise born of her slower lifestyle and rearing two children. A born and bred farm girl from Kyneton, she has forgone on-trend collections and retail overheads for family-friendly leisurewear and an online boutique.

The print-heavy collection features irreverent Australiana imagery created by her dad: “Bonza” bunnies, cheeky runaway gnomes, larrikin cockatoos, and come summer, a “******” croc print. The coloured sketches run across all-over yardage on leggings, hoodies and T-shirts for men, women and kids.

Dougal says his brief comes from his daughter who then “weaves her magic so the next time I see those drawings they are transformed into cute frocks and tops”.

She has a great eye for pattern and scale. “I enjoy seeing the finished product where a small crab on a skinny leg can grow into a giant monster crab on a rounder leg.”

A successful illustrator and author, Dougal has been fascinated with Australian culture for years, his nostalgic pencil sketching idiosyncratic scenes of country town lifestyles and coastal culture; seedy caravan parks, fishing hamlets and an architectural vernacular that “sadly has pretty well gone now”, he laments.

It was these scenes and Arabella’s own wholesome rural childhood that inspired the father-daughter label. In the spirit of Linda Jackson and Jenny Kee, Arabella wants to “show people the exciting things our country has to offer”, she says of her desire to “celebrate what’s in our back yards and in doing so, tap into the tourist market with a bit of style”.

Manufacturing is done in Australia where possible; a favoured maker is Cheryl, a woman Arabella’s nan found years ago while shopping at Spotlight in Ballarat. “She works from her small shed and has been making my clothes for years. It’s nice having quality control so we don’t overproduce.”

Lighthearted and a little bit kooky, the Dougal range is cultural cringe re-imagined as contemporary cool. Its Instagram (@wearedougal) is a feed of everything from Aussie idioms (Stoked! Strewth!) to summer vacations in Menorca, photography honouring Rennie Ellis, Dougal in the home studio, surf reports and Arabella’s idyllic beach house that has graced the pages of international magazines. Her own sartorial style is an inimitable mix of “70s vintage, preppy, **** and even a bit dorky” that’s equally at ease with the yuppies and the grommets.

“You can basically wear your pyjamas to school pick-ups and your wetsuit to the supermarket,” she says of the local surf town look. “But I still love high fashion and just bought a pink lace Gucci suit for my best friend’s wedding.”

An online purchase, it arrived via the dirt track leading to her secluded beach house. Fair dinkum.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-sydney | www.marieaustralia.com/blue-formal-dresses

Waiting Still for Tomorrow

Deafening tone,
Makes me not alone,
Continually singing a sorrow.
Bring not today,
For I beg keep away,
That lament until Tomorrow.

It whispers so loud,
“You are lost in the crowd,
Lost in a sea of harrow.”
It’s censure grew — strewth!
Mocking my sad truth,
Threatening what follows Tomorrow.

I attempt to evade —
Stopped by a palisade,
Yes, stopped by a wall of yarrow.
Plucking mere few,
Intent to make new,
My wounds and be healed by Tomorrow.

“Sweet yarrow await,
I shall be kept late,
By that tormentor who inflicts sorrow,”
But yarrow soon will fade,
Leave my mind in the shade, and
My heart waiting still for Tomorrow.

too circumspect to genuflect
a snide rebuttal of rituals
the dope on the rope says the mob has no hope
yet he feeds on the blood of heathens
stomped to death beneath the cross
convert and confess
the templars and the saracens
and all the ****** rest...

pass the plate, write it off your taxes
don't sweat the big things
the confessional swings axes
forget your past, you are made anew
in the box with Big-daddy
the room with the puny view
oh blessed forgiveness
for a  select few

*And call no man your father upon the earth,
for one is your Father, which is in heaven.
the catechism didn't catch that one
convenient truths abba
take the queers, gypsies, the disfigured and jews
for strewth!  it'll help us win WW2
fewer mouths to feed, and oh so unclean
those unconverted pagans
to the concentrated ovens unseen

For, Silence she chose, to let time reveal the truth,
Clandestine promises she kept, not to get misconstrued,
When fear in believing people, strangled her to death,
For, silence she chose, to let time reveal the truth,
Blind love and compassion she had bestowed with strewth,
On the one, who gave back false hopes with betrayal, all to feud,
For, Silence she chose, to let time reveal the truth,
Clandestine promises she kept, not to get misconstrued.

“Sir. They Hit the Wrong Town”
Ruth was concerned. Spitfire recon photos were the problem. Not the quality but something else. The target, it was wrong. Its street plan was different. Buildings, or what were once buildings, were different. What was wrong? Ruth thought. Do what thy will be the whole of the law. Do it right or it’s a **** up! What have our boys done?

She called her superior officer over. Quietly Ruth raised her concern and he looked closely through the stereoscopic eye glass at the post bombing pic.

“Strewth! You’re right. A right **** up. They hit the wrong ****** town. It’s not Munich. This is bad.

Ruth glanced up with wide intelligent questioning eyes. She looked very pretty in her WAAF uniform, with hair tied back and young features.

“As you sow, so shall you reap,” muttered her officer. Did it matter where the enemy was hit? As long as we bombed them. Our revenge for Coventry, London and a score more. Our Lancasters were pulverizing Germany. Bomber Harris had unleashed his whirlwind, silencing the Luftwaffe’s wind with extreme violence.

An urgent investigation needed to be carried out. It was the wrong target. A new raid would be needed...

Ruth was concerned. Spitfire recon photos were the problem. Not the quality but something else. The target, it was wrong. Its street plan was different. Buildings, or what were once buildings, were different. What was wrong? Ruth thought. Do what thy will be the whole of the law. Do it right or it’s a **** up! What have our boys done?
She called her superior officer over. Quietly Ruth raised her concern and he looked closely through the stereoscopic eye glass at the post bombing pic.
“Strewth! You’re right. A right **** up. They hit the wrong ****** town. It’s not Munich. This is bad.
Ruth glanced up with wide intelligent questioning eyes. She looked very pretty in her WAAF uniform, with hair tied back and young features.
“As you sow, so shall you reap,” muttered her officer. Did it matter where the enemy was hit? As long as we bombed them. Our revenge for Coventry, London and a score more. Our Lancasters were pulverizing Germany. Bomber Harris had unleashed his whirlwind, silencing the Luftwaffe’s wind with extreme violence.
An urgent investigation needed to be carried out. It was the wrong target. A new raid would be needed...

Thinking of getting linked in?
think on,
there are forces at work
that would force you to work
and work's not all you think
it could be,

now
opting out
is not to be sneezed at,
if you're *******
this option's for you.

I'm on the fence
between here and hence
flipping a fifty pence coin,

but I'm being inked in
not linked in
just thinking
of things that go bump
in the night.

if there was truth in the truth
of the lies that they told us,
gawd strewth
I'd be linked in right now.

The finesse of Grace knows
Real Princes do not come a dime a dozen
neither do they swagger unnoticed in the pen of yokels
or sit in taverns in abandon ribaldry with the carpetbaggers  
or with haymakers and the naysayers brigade of lame affiliations

For t'is highly and lowly known
these duds merely mouth off in vacuous tirades
filling the air with the stench of uncouth notions
reeling the politics of the gutter parliaments in absentia
in the rabbles House of commons of the uncommon senses

For strewth they have to display
starved attention makes for attention seekers
the alchemy of the reprobates and fishmongers
brews elixir of stunted minds in vivid hallucinations
ungainly choristers yodeling the hangman's blase anthem

As solid as the pillars of Athens
privilege is courage bravery knowledge and truth
freedom comes in cerebral leverage not hedonistic sermons
the scale of mother Justice holds balance in equity not disrepute
we uphold the dignity not the shallow vowels of repugnant liars
in guided light we pour scorn on the johnny come lately cultural bandits