2004 Brownlow Appearance
In September 2004, Judd received considerable media attention due to wearing a revealing red dress to the Brownlow Medal presentation. The dress was custom-made by Perth designer Ruth Tarvydas and was valued at A$2000. Although Chris Judd, at that time her boyfriend, won the Brownlow Medal, much of the media attention focused on Judd's dress. Judd received more hits on Australian news website news.com.au than did the crowning of Miss Universe 2004, Jennifer Hawkins, surpassing all previous records for a single news day. AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou described Judd as one of the 20 highlights of the 2004 AFL season. Speaking about the dress, Judd said: "I really didn't think it would grab that much attention, but I got hounded on the red carpet. Everyone wanted an interview and pictures." The media still refers to her dress as "that dress".
Radio presenter Jon Faine criticised Judd's choice of fashion, saying that: "A lot of effort has gone in this season by football codes... to try to stop footballers looking at women as objects as nothing other than sexual desire or bits of meat and flesh... It's kind of like they are undoing all the work that was done earlier in the season." Colleague Virginia Trioli disagreed, saying that "They are powerful, individual, attractive, strong women who want to look nice." Trioli's comments were directly opposite of her earlier views about not seeing women in a sexual way. Trioli was proved wrong when Twigley covered up the following year.
Judd donated the dress to national children's charity TLC for Kids. The dress was auctioned off in October 2004, going for A$23,000. TLC later rejected the winning bid when it discovered the buyer had links to adult dating agency RedHotPie. The charity then offered the underbidders the dress, but later changed their mind because they could not guarantee media coverage for the purchaser. The dress was returned to Judd, who donated it to Chris Judd's then football club, the West Coast Eagles.
Read more about this topic: Rebecca Judd
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