Summer Sales
By Sireen, Year 10
Spices permeate the air as locals flock to surround the auctions at the Tripoli markets. I’m squeezed between multiple bodies, struggling to inhale the humid summer breeze. A warm hand envelopes mine. It feels like comfort. It feels like safety. Jewels of every colour, shape and length hang from a stand. They sparkle, and the crowd sighs in awe as the shopkeeper spins them round and round like a carousel. I’m not looking at them. Her eyes, my grandma’s eyes, sparkle. They shimmer as she looks down at me, as she smiles at me.
‘Hundred,’ she screams. ‘We’ll take it for a hundred.’
Surprised, the shopkeeper yelps with glee, slamming his hammer and sealing the deal.
On the way back to her apartment, my grandma stops to adorn me with her new purchase. A string of pearls that dangle like the branches of an olive tree. My grandfather’s olive tree.
My heart splinters with joy, tears running down my face.
Now, in Australia, where we grow eucalyptus trees, not olives, I remember her. I remember her spark, her smile, her laugh. I remember home.
An excerpt from Free to Fashion.
Sewing the fabric of their own identity, the students of Birrong Girls High School and Bossley Park High School took a deep dive into what it means to be Free to Fashion.
The Social Outfit, a fashion label with a difference and Story Factory, a not-for-profit creative writing organisation, ran storytelling, writing and art workshops with these creative young women. They were free to write, draw and craft their own unique ideas about what fashion means to them. These became the inspiration for a bespoke fabric collection and one-of-a kind outfit produced by The Social Outfit. The thoughtful stories the young women wrote, and images of their artworks, are collected here, alongside brief self-portraits.
The culmination of this work was proudly displayed at Carriageworks on Gadigal Land during The Social Outfit’s 10th birthday celebration.