It’s interesting how much time you spend not being a musician: G Flip

Georgia Flipo never dreamed this scene. The other one, about taking the world by storm as a rock drummer/ singer and songwriter, performing to fields of adoring fans from Splendour to Reading, yes. The G Flip “project” was very much “manifest” in a Brighton bedroom over years of dogged planning and visualisation.

But the bit where Melbourne Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece steps up in a florally festooned corner of the Queen Vic Markets to unveil G Flip as this year’s ambassador of Melbourne Fashion Week? No. That’s one of the surreal details that wasn’t glimpsed in the crystal ball.

“I’m very fortunate to have a nice Karla Laidlaw outfit on today,” Flip tells me after the cameras are done flashing. Extravagantly frayed black jeans hang low from a “seafoam Django jacket” over yellow zippered and buckled bandeau plus a white logo tank. “I’ve got New Balance shoes on as well,” the ambassador adds, flashing that ever-ready grin.

“It’s interesting, being a musician, how much time you spend not being a musician. There’s doing this, doing content and social media, and you do spend a lot of time away from your instrument. Ever since I was 13, 14 years old, I would just be in my room doing that all day, playing drums and guitar and piano and teaching myself stuff,” they say.

“What I’ve learned in the last five years is that music and fashion play a little bit hand-in-hand. Every shoot I do, every music video, every red carpet, every stage ... Fashion is very much a part of my career, which is not something I thought about when I was making music in my bedroom, being an antisocial music nerd.”

It’s a moment that must dawn fast on the 21st-century rock star. “I’m a Big W girl,” Amy Taylor from Amyl and the Sniffers protested when Gucci called in 2019. She accepted the flight to Sicily all the same. “Fashion sensation,” Vogue trilled.

For G Flip, who identifies especially loudly and proudly as a non-binary lesbian and prefers they/ them pronouns, the exposure on any platform necessary is all part of a bigger agenda for LGBTQIA+ representation. “Fashion helped me cement my gender identity,” is the key soundbite from the QVM MFW launch podium.

“My mum would tell stories about this. When I was two or three years old, I did not want to wear dresses. I loved just wearing little shorts or pants and T-shirts… I was pretty headstrong on how I would dress… If you look at G Flip in 2018, 2019… I kind of just went back to what I wore as a kid.”

Flipo spent a few years in the shadows before G Flip emerged. Stints as a drummer and backing vocalist nailed technical requirements of a job still to be fully dreamed. Wardrobe choices were more about fitting in with crazy funk ensembles or all-black prog-metal bands; looks that wouldn’t necessarily help a solo act soar.

Fast forward a few years, after Triple J had “Unearthed” a hit called About You, and a second album, Drummer, topped the ARIA charts, and red carpets had become a staple part of Flip’s fast-lane life.

Last year’s Las Vegas marriage to American soap star turned reality TV queen Chrishell Stause upped the sartorial stakes big time. She wore a sheer, belted Gemeli Powers gown. G Flip wore a black suit by E Nolan. The odd couple turned tabloid “power couple” overnight: another development that defied conscious manifestation.

“That one I didn’t pick, and also I would have never imagined. Chrishell always [says that] as a little girl, she imagined this six-foot prince that would come along in shining armour and sweep her off her feet. And no, it’s just a five-foot-three Aussie who lived near the beach who loves drums.

“I think that’s one of the most beautiful things in life. There can be some things that are so unexpected, and we did not expect to fall for each other at all. It happened, and it happened without pressure.”

That said, being married to someone whose job demands her life be an open book meant readjustment, even for an extroverted rock drummer. Stause’s Netflix show, Selling Sunset, is high-end real estate porn steeped in Kardashian Housewives cheese. Sample dialogue: “Botox, filler, spray tans, nails, hair, makeup, IV drips, you name it… there’s absolutely no excuse to not look fabulous!”

“Obviously, with her line of work being reality, you’ve got to open up to the world and share your life, which I’m comfortable with to a degree,” says Flip, who moved to Los Angeles in 2021 and entered the Selling Sunset narrative in series six last year. “The drama side, the cattiness, the producers manipulating, that’s the stuff that I’m not as comfortable with,” Flip says.

“I’m actually very comfortable talking about our relationship and us as a couple. When it comes to me and Chrishell’s relationship, queer representation is something that’s very much dear to our hearts. You know, there’s people in parts of America or different countries that have never seen a non-binary person, or a healthy queer relationship represented in any form of media.

“I know that if I had Chrishell and G Flip when I was a kid, it would have changed my life, to look up and see a queer couple who are proud in their identities and their sexualities. So it’s definitely something that we were stoked to share with everyone.”

The stokedness is palpable. Music may be their driving force, but the way in which Flip has embraced the PR demands of ambassadorship on all fronts is remarkable. Especially given the escalation of “hateful and hurtful” social media reactions they deal with every day.

“Look, when you’re in the public eye, people are gonna f---in’ hate you for some reason or another. They’re going to hate me because I’m a lesbian… They’re going to hate me because I have long hair… they’re going to hate me for how I dress. They’re going to hate what my voice sounds like, how my music sounds.

“I’m not really listening to the bullshit that’s around me. I just try to be as authentic as I can,” they say.

“I’m still always amazed that I get to do this as my job. I can’t believe that people sing my songs.”

Melbourne Fashion week runs October 21-27. mfw.melbourne.vic.gov.au