Cupboard: Haute Amateur
Melbourne's post-punk, scrappy, and artist-run self-styling as “derelict and delinquent,” as Hagger calls it, has a well-worn history.
Holding the first issue of Cupboard is somewhat disorienting. Its glossy stock and familiar format give the feeling of a high-end fashion magazine, but its cover girl tells another story. An auburn-haired figure, she is dressed in a tan and black ensemble with downcast eyes. Her hands-on-hips pose and power suit recall a nostalgic, eighties image of style constructed in the chunky, quick strokes of a crayon. The illustration, by artist Anabel Robinson (who is also Cupboard’s fashion editor), has a jaunty amateurism that signals fashion and style, though not through the high-production aesthetics typical of a glossy.
Exclusive to the Magazine
Cupboard: Haute Amateur by Laura Gardner is featured in full in Issue 5 of Memo magazine.
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Laura Gardner is a writer, lecturer, and publisher of the imprint Mode and Mode. Her research and projects focus on the methodologies of experimental publishing, culminating in the recent book, Marginal Fashion Publishing: Tactics, Practices, Market Forces (2026).
