Melbourne Cup Hat Of The Day

In the end, it looked like the QANTAS debacle was a bonus for Sydney with every pub, bar, restaurant, hotel ballroom, park and garden packed with hundreds of people celebrating the Melbourne Cup.

John Ibrahim & Chelsea Mitchell

Charlotte Dawson & pals

There were parties everywhere one looked.

A few of the smartest : the  Moët & Chandon party at the W Hotel hosted by TV personality Charlotte Dawson with a room full of good looking young punters including Liberty & Somer Watson from Coco Ribbon in London's Notting Hill Gate plus some fine food and plenty of champers.

The Chandon luncheon in Centennial Park with social heavyweights like Glen Marie Frost, Deeta Colvin, Melissa Hoyer and Victoria Morish and top party designer James Gordon.

Sharon Sargeant & Frank Monte

Liberty & Somer Watson, Alison Barton-Chen

The Finger Wharf, which the W Hotel forms part of, had a dozen parties with every restaurant packed to the rafters, with the very swish Otto's booked out weeks beforehand.

Cup cakes at the W

Radio king John Laws was there with wife Caroline and Malcolm Coppleson , Frank Monte with party girl Sharon Sargeant and keeping a low profile, nightclub tsar John Ibrahim with his girlfriend Chelsea hosting a table with about a dozen friends.




At the Cup itself at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne , international stars were few on the ground.
Shane Warne and Elizabeth Hurley failed to show nor did Joan Collins. Kim Kardashian is in Sydney for a party tonight (pursued by the world's media)

The W Hotel

But they will be there on Oak's Day (Thursday) which is far more genteel and fashionable, along with Sarah Jessica Parker who flew in to Melbourne on Monday but lunched at the Chandon's Greenpoint Brasserie in the Yarra Valley. The only star of note at the Cup-actor Adrian Grenier.


And amongst the wild and wacky costumes that appear on Cup day-the prize goes to multi-millionaire self promoter Dick Smith for his simple but effective Dick Smith's Ozemite hat !. That's Dick's political statement on his annoyance that the iconic Aussie spread Vegemite has been snapped up by a foreign corporation and a clever plug for the new spread he is marketing.