Ebook: Butterfly on a pin: a memoir of love, despair and reinvention

Intro; Title Page; Contents; Prologue; TASMANIA; 1 Shadow Doll; 2 The Lapsed Catholics; 3 The Hills Are Alive with the Fumes of Tioxide; 4 Free-Floating Anxiety; 5 The Great Fleeing; 6 A-Grade; 7 Girl on a Train; 8 Death by Lawnmower; 9 Mushroom Perm; 10 Where Did She Go?; 11 Tantallon Boarding House; 12 Jicky Parfum; 13 The Social Poltergeist; 14 Glory Box of Angst; 15 Live and Let Live; MELBOURNE; 16 Good Luck, Sailor Girl; 17 Shallow Grave; 18 I Did a Bad, Bad Thing; 19 Lan, Dear, Where Are You?; 20 Indigo Bow Teek; 21 Don't You Want Me?; 22 Revolt Into Style; 23 Dinner Party as an Idea.;Unflinching, funny, shocking, inspiring and tender: this is a story like no other. Alannah Hill, one of Australia's most successful fashion designers, created an international fashion brand that defied trendswith ornamental, sophisticated elegance, beads, bows and vintage florals. But growing up in a milk bar in Tasmania, Alannah's childhood was one of hardship, fear and abuse. At an early age she ran away from home with eight suitcases of costumes and a fierce determination to succeed, haunted by her mother's refrain of 'You'll never amount to anything, you can't sew, nobody likes you and you're going to end up in a shallow grave, dear!' At the height of her success, Alannah walked the razor's edge between two identities - the 'good' Alannah and the 'mongrel bastard' Alannah. Who was the real Alannah Hill? Reprieve came in the form of a baby boy and the realisation that becoming a mother not only changes your life, but completely refurbishes it, forever. Yet 'having it all' turned out to be another illusion. In 2013 Alannah walked away from her eponymous brand, a departure that left her coming apart at the seams. She slowly came to understand the only way she could move forward was to go back. At the heart of it all was her mother, whose loveless marriage and disappointment in life had a powerful and long-lasting effect on her daughter. It was finally time to call a truce with the past. This extraordinary book is the fierce and intelligent account of how a freckle-faced teenage runaway metamorphosed into a trailblazer and true original.