Last week in fashion: New fashion award celebrates Indigenous designers, the new beauty craze ‘Dolphin Skin’, and Shein offends again
By: Bianca O'Neill
Tags: Beauty, Retail, Fashion, Indigenous, Australia

Your past week in fashion, condensed into point form. Here’s to another week… Happy Tuesday!

Diet Prada picks up Maison Cleo’s allegations against online retailer Shein.

Beauty insiders have coined a ridiculous new phrase, ‘Dolphin Skin’. We find out WTF it is below, as well as discovering our first ever National Indigenous Fashion Awards winners and investigating online retailer Shein for their latest gaffe. For the biggest stories in fashion from the past week, read on.

New Indigenous fashion award, NIFA, celebrates First Nations designers

Last week we saw the winners announced for the new National Indigenous Fashion Awards (NIFA). Such an award has been a long time in the making, and it was amazing to see so much local talent up for nomination.

The winners announcement saw six designers recognised in six different categories, including:

Peggy Griffiths, for the Cultural Adornment and Wearable Art Award

for the Cultural Adornment and Wearable Art Award Kieren Karritpul, for the Textile Design Award

for the Textile Design Award Maara Collective X Bula’bula Arts, for the Community Collaboration Award

for the Community Collaboration Award Ninti One, for the Environmental and Social Contribution Award

for the Environmental and Social Contribution Award Bede Tungutalum, for the Special Recognition Award

for the Special Recognition Award Julie Shaw, for the Fashion Design Award

The inaugural awards ceremony was broadcast on NITV — and we’re looking forward to a much bigger celebration in person, post-pandemic.

‘Dolphin Skin’ is the stupid new beauty trend you’ll probably keep hearing about this summer

Coined by make-up artist Mary Phillips, ‘Dolphin Skin’ is the latest catchphrase for glowy, summer makeup that makes you look like you’ve just emerged from the water. Like a dolphin. Ugh.

Apparently the new trend, mostly focused on placing high-contrast highlighter on various parts of the face, gives you the appearance of looking “slick, sun-kissed, and a little slippery.”

I don’t know about you, but ‘slippery’ isn’t what comes to mind when I think of the perfect beauty look. Find a bunch of inspo pics here, if looking like Flipper is your thing.

Shein offends again with latest rip off

Following a collar-pulling gaffe where online retailer Shein offered a gold-plated swastika pendant for sale, they’ve offended again — but this time, it’s a direct rip-off of a small family-owned business’ designs.

Maison Cleo shared the below Instagram post, accusing the retailer of directly copying their made-to-order design — which was then picked up by Instagram watchdog Diet Prada.

“Oh.my.god @sheinofficial are you kidding me?? Take off this blouse!!!” said Maison Cleo, with a screenshot of Shein’s already-on-sale knockoff. To make matters worse, Maison Cleo make sustainable pieces, in limited runs, from dead stock — the complete opposite to the churn ethos of a retailer like Shein.

According to Diet Prada: “The cult brand, launched in March 2017 and run by mother-daughter team Cléo and Marie Dewet, only makes a few pieces a week available for purchase. Each is made by hand from deadstock fabric, and they take care to explain their pricing, which is due to the higher costs associated with making small runs in specially sourced materials.



“The blouse Shein copied, with a vintage-inspired oversized collar edged in pleated lace, was first released by MaisonCléo last spring. The “maid-inspired” black version dropped in April of this year, and quickly sold out at the €220 price point. Shein’s version is already marked down to $8 in the US.”

The isn’t the first time a young brand has been ripped off by the big boys, and I fear this won’t be the last.