Alannah Hill - The Handbag of Happiness

In The Handbag of Happiness fashion icon Alannah Hill uses items of clothing to share autobiographical stories and nuggets of hard-won wisdom, offering truths and insights for her readers - like the awful truth that paradoxically, happiness doesn’t always make you feel happy. 

She writes about lament, love, shame, resilience, bravado, triumph, silent sadness, delusion, disdain and utopia with mini-epiphanies, anti-epiphanies, and a new kind of epiphany we haven’t thought of yet …

The Handbag of Happiness is the anti-self-help book that goes beyond clichés of new-age mindful self-improvement.

Alannah appears in conversation with Janice Breen Burns.

This FREE event will take place on Zoom. The Zoom meeting details form part of your ticket, emailed to you after registration. You can also pre-order copies of The Handbag of Happiness and have them shipped to you anywhere in Australia for free!

About the Book

From “The Blessing gown of Silent Sadness” and “The Apron Strings of Lament” to “The Brassiere of Lovelessness” and “The Frock of How Dare You”, Alannah Hill shares her unique form of wisdom from a sassy fashion trailblazer, busines woman, single mother and author.

Provocative, self-depreciating and witty, Alannah tells us in her own imperfect way how she overcame adversity – and sometimes didn’t, despite her best intentions. Whether it’s struggling through living with a bruised empty heart, owning a devastating social misdemeanour, navigating the minefield of school yard ‘Mom’s’ or taking the E out of Shame and turning it into a sham, Alannah has an item of clothing and a word of wisdom (or at least a word of warning) for it all.

In a world full of self-help clichés, contradictory messages and new-puritan rules, Alannah opens her bejewelled handbag of happiness, showing us how being a little bit wrong can sometimes be so very, very right.

About the Author

Alannah Hill is an iconic designer, bestselling author and sought-after public speaker. For seventeen years she was the creative director of the trailblazing brand she founded, Alannah Hill. In 2015 she left and launched her own label, Louise Love. Alannah's memoir, Butterfly on a Pin, was released to critical acclaim in 2018. She lives in Melbourne with her son and her beaglier, Jack.

About the Moderator

Janice Breen Burns is a highly respected fashion journalist, editor and features writer of more than 30 years experience in metro daily newspapers and more recently, digital media. Voxfrock.com.au is her blogzine loosely based on the variety of content and style of newspaper fashion pages before the global contraction of “old” media. Mrs. Breen Burns is renowned for her industry knowledge and witty, realistic insights into the role of fashion in everyday life. She is a frequent contributor to workshops and seminars, industry panels, radio and television reports relevant to fashion and its culture.