Looking back at red carpet highs and lows, from Margot Robbie to Bec Hewitt and Sophie Monk

For actors, newsreaders and visiting international celebrities, walking the Logies red carpet can be a faster path to ridicule than joining 2011 guest Katy Perry for a rocket ride into space.

It’s an annual opportunity for Australia’s armchair critics to pause from yelling at football umpires and home renovators on The Block and channel their inner Anna Wintour. On Sunday evening, expect cries of “Taffeta? For the Logies? Groundbreaking,” to emerge from the depths of recliner chairs around the country.

People in tracksuit pants with exhausted elastic waists still pour scorn on the asymmetrical ruffled dress worn by Neighbours starlet Margot Robbie in 2009, as though it were a crime against humanity. It’s time to stop.

That dress, inspired by Christian Dior, was made by Queensland designer Rebecca Cobbing, who worked on Robbie’s school formal dress a few years before the Logies.

“If the Met Gala had been two days before, and not two days after, the Logies, it might have been a different story,” says Cobbing, who has put down the sewing needle and moved into hospitality. “It’s interesting how fashion works.”

Former Home & Away actor Bec Hewitt’s motocross get-up from 2003 and Sophie Monk’s beret and tie combination from 2001 are other memorable moments that attract unnecessary derision.

Since 2009, stylists have steered the red carpet to a more widely acceptable view of glamour, fuelled by ballgowns from leading Australian couturiers Velani, J’Aton, Jason Grech and Con Ilio, but younger stars are ready to rewrite the Cinderella story.

“There’s often such a seriousness to it because there’s this one chance to wear that sparkly ball gown,” says stylist Tori Knowles, who this year is dressing Heartbreak High star Ayesha Madon and Home & Away actor Sophea Pennington.