win a copy of frida las vegas' new book 'australianarama'
A chinwag with the clever lass behind the Australiana-filled book.
We caught up with queen of kitsch Frida Las Vegas to find out all about her colour-crazed new book, Australianarama: A Campendium of Kitsch.
When did your love for Australiana begin? Much of my 1990s childhood was spent glued to the telly. I secretly fist pumped when I caught a cold and got to stay home from school, because it meant I could spend a full day watching the idiot box at Yiayia’s house. As a Greek-Australian kid, I grew up with a jelly sandal in both cultures, but fit into neither. Studying TV ads, game show hosts, cartoons and cooking demos was how I learnt to belong to Australian culture.
Why did you turn this passion into a book? Years ago, I asked an English designer about Australian fashion and he replied, casually and callously, “What happens on the island stays on the island.” I thought: “If nobody else is going to take Chiko Rolls seriously, I will.” I initially celebrated Australiana through textile design, but a garment can only say so much. The book let me pour my obsession into one place and make the bigger case that kitsch is just history that hasn’t been taken seriously yet.
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How’d you source everything in the book? I had an archive from a decade of illustrating prints and photographing my designs in front of milk bars and motels. Many of these buildings sadly no longer exist. I also ran an open call-out for personal happy snaps from the 1970s to the 1990s, and people from all around the country enthusiastically sent me their family photo albums of backyard birthday parties and shoddy theme park visits.
Favourite chapter? My favourite idea lives in the “Future Nostalgia” chapter, which asks: “What are we making right now that the next generations will first find embarrassing, then irresistible?”
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Any surprising facts you learnt while researching? South Australia invented chicken salt! A local named Peter Brinkworth, from the town of Gawler, an hour north of Adelaide, created it as a rub for roast chooks in the 1970s.
Where can we see more? Australianarama: A Campendium of Kitsch (Pink Shorts Press) is in all good bookshops now. Melbourne kitsch-sperts, get among it at Readings Carlton on Friday October 16th at 6pm.
Head to our win page for a chance to score one of two copies of Australianarama.
This ripper chinwag comes straight from the pages of issue 134. To get your mitts on a copy, swing past the frankie shop, subscribe or visit one of our lovely stockists.
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