We all await the Melbourne Cup, aka the “race that stops a nation.” It is not just about the racing event; the Melbourne Cup Carnival itself is a highly anticipated event as well. Every year, a number of influencers, celebrities, and fashion enthusiasts mark their presence at this prestigious horse racing event. For spectators, fashion and horse racing go hand in hand, as it allows them to dress up the best to make a fashion statement.
Whether you’re a seasoned Melbourne Cup attendee or a first-timer eager to experience the glamour, planning your outfit is essential. In 2024, aspects like statement accessories, bold colours, a focus on comfort, and individuality are expected to be the main highlights. Dressing up in outfits carrying vibrant colours, bold patterns, and head-turning accessories is a must when attending the Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival, as it’s a fiesta that elongates to four events: Derby Day, Melbourne Cup Day, Oaks Day, and Stakes Day.
To help both female and male attendees look their best, we’re here with a brief guide on what to wear to the Melbourne Cup this year. We’ll be focusing on all aspects of clothing, ranging from the pattern and colour to wear, dress styles to opt for, and much more. Using it, you will be able to look at your best for all four events.
Colour & Pattern To Follow For The Melbourne Cup
Not just for 2024, but every year, the Melbourne Cup is about embracing colour. No doubt classic hues like grey, black, navy, and white are the most preferred ones; you should always go with something that radiates confidence and joy. For it, consider options like hot pink, cobalt blue, citrus yellow, lime green, etc., all of which ought to be the most trending colours that will give you a show-stopping look.
Colour itself has the power to elevate your overall looks to whole new heights. With it, you can always add accessories to enhance your outfit. For it, consider a clutch or a statement necklace. Patterns have their own significance as well, and geometric prints are expected to be key players in the 2024 Melbourne Cup. Floral patterns are always a safe bet for women, as they add a touch of femininity and elegance to them.
Pro Tip: When choosing bold colours or patterns, ensure they go along with your skin tone and body type.
Melbourne Cup Fashion For Men And Women
Although it’s necessary to blend in with the crowd, you can’t miss out on the chance to stand out with your trendy fashion. For the Melbourne Cup, hats are the synonym for accessories, but there is much more worth trying. Below you will find the details for the fashion that both men and women can try for the Melbourne Cup 2024.
For Men's
It’s always best to go with something that showcases your classiness and, at the same time, carries a personality and flair to it. Doing experiments with all sorts of fabrics, colours, and patterns is accepted as long as it remains within the fashion rules of the Victoria Racing Club. Take a look at what you can opt for.
Suit Styles
- Bold Colours: Tie and jackets are essentials, but in place of the black, you can go with shades like navy, burgundy, light grey, beige, or even soft light blue.
- Tailored Fit: Your suit needs to be a well-fitted one to give you a polished look.
Shirt and Tie Combinations
- Colour: The most popular option for it is a white shirt.
- Tie: Go for a contrasting tie that will complement your overall looks. You can consider a pattern-based one as well.
Essential Accessories
- Hats: Choose a hat that is stylish and complements your style. Make sure it finishes off your look and matches your outfit too.
- Pocket Squares: It needs to complement your shirt, but it should not be of the same colour as your tie.
- Cufflinks: Choose one carrying an aesthetic design that matches your outfit.
- Lapel Pins: Go with something that looks unique and standardised while complimenting your outfit.
- Shoes: Go for dress shoes that go well with your chosen suit style and colour of it.
For Women's
Ladies, go with something with which you can make a bold statement. For it, combining all different kinds of bright colours and designs would do the job. Additionally, keep factors like comfort and style in mind while carving out your desired outlook.
Dress Styles
- Midi Dresses: These help you strike a perfect balance of comfort and elegance.
- Cocktail dresses: A popular choice, offering a balance of luxury and style.
- Jumpsuits: A trendy and practical option to help you stand out.
- Pantsuits: Gives you a modern and edgy look with ease.
Recommended Fabrics
- Lace: Gives you a classy and feminine look.
- Silk: Quite comfortable, might be less breathable than cotton and linen.
- Sheer Fabric: It has a transparent look, allowing you to show your unique style.
Hats and Fascinators
- Soft Pastels: Opt for a fascinator made from feathers, flowers, or beads. Consider the ones that match your shoes, bags, or jewellery.
- Metallics: Great for adding shine to any outfit and they often go well with a metallic dress.
Accessorising
- Shoes: A spring heel and sandals are the best picks, but it’s still advised to pack a pair of flats as a backup.
- Bags: Opt for a bag that contrasts your outfit but carries the same tonal elements as your outfit does.
- Jewellery: Go for a unique and fine piece of jewellery. For different events of the carnival, opt for different options. For Derby Day, you can go with monochrome jewellery; for Cup Day, gold or silver jewellery with pearls. And for stakes day, go for jewellery that has a relaxed feel to it.
Trends To Look Out For In The Melbourne Cup 2024
From supermodels and sports stars to renowned celebrities, each year the Melbourne Cup features a number of personalities from across the nation and worldwide. Thus, you can’t afford to miss out on this outstanding opportunity to grab everyone’s attention with your fashion sense.
1. Hats/Fascinators
It’s not just about this year; no Melbourne Cup outfit is complete without a hat or a fascinator. But for 2024, this trend is expected to become a bit larger than normal. For it, oversized hats, metallic crowns, floral headbands, and feathered fascinators are expected to be the main highlights. It is advised to go with those pieces that go well with the colour and style of your dress, but they need to stand out as a main highlight as well.
2. Metallics
By choosing to add metallics to your outfit, you would be adding a touch of elegance, sparkle, and shine to your overall clothing. You can go with skirts, dresses, jackets, accessories, or tops carrying a hue of metallics. This year, shades like bronze, gold, silver, and copper are expected to be favoured, as they trended last year as well. So go for them to complement your outlook.
3. Floral Prints
The charm and freshness that floral prints carry make them a trend that never goes out of style. For women, it stands out as a sign of elegance. Go for including them in your outfit as a part of skirts, dresses, tops, or even accessories. If you are wearing a floral dress, go for a hat that also features some floral elements. For accessories, you can go with a piece that carries a soft and light hue with it. Floral ties are great for men to give them a distinctive look.
4. Waist Belts
For women, waist belts are an impactful fashion accessory that is one of the best ways to get noticed and make a clear, bold statement. This time again, it’s expected that they will be one of the key attractions for all attendees. Whether it’s a thick, thin, plain, or decorative waist belt, you can pair it with jumpsuits, dresses, or even blazers.
Additional Tips & Considerations
Being such a glamorous and standardised event, there are a number of factors that an attendee needs to keep in mind. Ranging from knowledge of all sorts of rules and regulations in regards to how to act or behave to the dress code that they need to follow, there’s plenty of stuff worth remembering. First timers especially need to consider these factors when planning to visit the Melbourne Cup.
- You can’t think of ignoring hats, as not only do they save you from the sun, but they also help you make a perfect fashion statement.
- For women, carrying a pair of fold-up ballet flats is advised, as it will be helpful when heading towards the end of the event.
- As the event extends to a total of four days outdoors, you need a lot of stuff to keep with yourself. Pack stuff like band-aids, sunglasses, sunscreen, small umbrellas, dry hair shampoo, and more.
- Keep in mind the completely forbidden clothing and dress accordingly. Some of the prohibited items include jeans, torn clothing, casual footwear, leggings, caps, jodhpurs, tracksuits, shorts, leather pants, untailored pants, and more.
In summary
Don’t just take the Melbourne Cup as a racing meet; it’s more than that. A number of fashion enthusiasts have their eyes rolling on what’s trending and what people are loving the most. For women, it’s about setting a benchmark that no one else can compete with by combining bold patterns, bright colours, and head-turning accessories. Men’s fashion is more of a refined and classic one that portrays and carries their individuality in it. So after considering the above aspects of clothing, dress up in your favourite outfit featuring some gorgeous colours and patterns to grab everyone’s attention.
Frequently Asked Questions
The Melbourne Cup, also known as the race that stops the nation,” is a celebration of Australia’s diverse cultures. This day is also a public holiday for all those working within the metropolitan area of Melbourne and some areas of Victoria as well. Under it, horses aged three years or older are tied with different weights based on their ratings, age, and previous records and are raced to victory. Along with being the richest handicap race of thoroughbred horses in the world, this racing carnival is also a fashion fiesta in which a number of renowned influencers, celebrities, and fashion enthusiasts come to make a fashion statement.
The most prominent fashion accessory for the Melbourne Cup is a hat. Other than that, it also consists of fascinators and some fancy headpieces that help an individual make a bold fashion statement for the event.
Melbourne Cup Day is a four-day racing event that is celebrated at the Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne.
The Melbourne Cup was first introduced in the year 1861 by the Victorian Turf Club. Since then, it is organised each year and has now become one of the most vital parts of the whole of Melbourne and Australian culture.
The following are some fun facts about the Melbourne Cup:
- Peter St. Albans was the youngest jockey to win the Melbourne Cup in 1876.
- For the first time, the Melbourne Cup was declared a holiday for Victoria in the year 1877.
- Once in 1890, the race witnessed a total of 39 runners, which was the maximum back then, but now the race features a total of just 24 runners due to safety reasons.
- From barrier number 18, no horse won until Verry Elleegant won it in 2021.
- Michelle Payne was the first female jockey to win the Melbourne Cup. She won it in 2015.
Only 16 females have won the Melbourne Cup to date, out of which 13 were mares. The most recent mare to win the Melbourne Cup was Verry Elleegant, who won the cup in 2021.
Phar Lap was a New Zealand-born champion Australian Thoroughbred racehorse referred to as a legend when it comes to the history of horse racing in Australia. Led by jockey Ken Pike, he won the Melbourne Cup in 1930, that too, during the problematic years of the Great Depression.
The total prize money for the Melbourne Cup is $8 million. Out of it, the first-place winner gets $4,400,000 in cash. For the trophies, the first-place holder gets around $250,000. This trophy amount consists of a trophy for the owner, a trophy for the winning jockey, a trophy for the winning trainer, a trophy for the strapper, and a trophy for the breeder as well.
The saddlecloth numbers 4 and 12 are considered to be the most successful numbers for the Melbourne Cup. The number 4 boasts a total of 12 wins, while the number 12 has a total of 11 wins.
