What is Canberra Core? Trendsetters talk local street style

Despite appearing less than two months ago (27 May), the titillating Instagram @canberra.core has already made a name for itself as the only page “doing the street style thing” in Canberra.

Back in July 2020, slow motion clips of pedestrians in Shanghai, Beijing, casually strutting the streets while wearing impossibly cool outfits took over TikTok, inspiring countless copycat (walks) hailing from Milan, Paris, New York.

While the rest of us were trapped indoors and in sweatpants, living vicariously through the trend, a shift was occurring. No longer a specific style, “street style” content had become a means of bringing a variety of different fashion subcultures onto people’s feeds and into the spotlight.

This is what inspired two sisters, one with a background in fashion design and one self-taught in photography, to create a page to let the cool kids of Canberra shine.

Their mission was to encourage more fashion enthusiasts to come out of the woodworks.

“We noticed that a lot of Canberrans, especially younger ones, are screaming for an outlet,” said the Canberra Core founders, who preferred to remain anonymous.

“We did a poll on Instagram, just asking what do creatives want? What do you guys want to see? And all the replies said, ‘A place to showcase our creativity, because nowhere else is really giving us that.’

“It was important that the platform was free as well, because a lot of the kids were 16- to 18-year-olds who were just getting into the creative scene.”

The page was inspired by the street style trend that originated in Shanghai. However, it was Tokyo’s take on the trend that largely influenced Canberra Core’s style.

FRUiTS magazine, a monthly publication on Japanese street fashion, was also a “huge inspiration”.

“It has that same attitude of ‘I don’t give a damn if you don’t like the way I dress, this is how I’m going to express myself’.

“In Canberra, and Japan, there are so many people that dress the same as everyone else, so when you stand out, you really stand out.”

Canberra Core hopes to put an end to the idea that “you have to move away to be creative”.

“You don’t have to move to Melbourne to be a fashionista, you can be one right here, and you will be celebrated for it,” they said. “This isn’t just a city for people to work in government.

“There are so many young people who are creative and love Canberra and don’t want to move but they feel like they’ve got no outlet here. Teenagers, who are so sure of their aesthetic, of what they want to look like and what they want to express to the rest of the world.”

Canberra Core: an aesthetic

The aesthetics that make up Canberra Core are tied together by a focus on second-hand and handmade. Freelance model @favor.wallace (left) crocheted her entire outfit.

From the punk rockers to the Y2K lovers, an underlying theme of Canberra Core is a focus on second-hand and handmade – a far cry from the head-to-toe branded looks that dominate street style in other capitals.

“‘Oh, it’s thrifted!’ We get that so much … There’s such a push with younger generations towards sustainability.

“They’re very into buying second-hand and buying from their friends as well, who are knitting, crocheting, making jewellery. The amount of people who make their own stuff is incredible.

“Canberra gets a lot of flack for lanyards and puffer jackets. But there are so many subcultures and little golden nuggets of vibrancy,” said Canberra Core. “And they’re not being celebrated in the way that they should be.

“It’s the same with the night culture. The people who aren’t in it, don’t know about it, so they label us this boring city, and it’s not. You just aren’t being shown anything else besides suits and lanyards.”

The striking absence of such may raise questions about the spontaneity of the page’s street style shoots. However, as Canberra Core sat down with CW at Such and Such, they remarked that this was the first planned photoshoot they had ever attempted.

“99 per cent of the time it’s spontaneous. It’s us stopping people on the street. Everybody on our Instagram so far, they just dress like that,” they said.

“And they’re so happy to be photographed as well like, ‘We’re so glad you guys are showcasing this!’”

Where are these fashionable Canberrans? According to Canberra Core, they can be found everywhere from Civic to Fyshwick, Braddon to Kingston.

“We hit the streets. It really depends on where the buzz is for Canberra that day. If Haigh Park or the Old Bus Depot has got a market on, we’ll hang around there.

“We put it out to our followers as well. We’ll ask them what they’re doing this weekend, and then they’ll say, ‘This party is on’ or tag us in gigs that are happening.”

A ‘Canberra-Core Yes’ is often wearing something a bit unusual, with the confidence to make it work.

“When someone is walking along and they’re confident in what they’re wearing and who they are, you can almost feel it.

“We don’t want to have a bias from our own preferences [so] our rule of thumb is that if you look like you’ve put in effort into what you’re wearing, and you have an idea about what you want to present, it’s a Canberra Core tick.”