Damien Woolnough

Damien Woolnough treats entertainment as a fashion and beauty story, focusing on how clothes, cosmetics and retail brands shape public culture and the business behind it. As Fashion Editor at The Sydney Morning Herald, he covers the intersection of celebrity, designers, and consumers with a mix of industry insight and clear, service-focused reporting.

Fashion editor with an industry lens

Woolnough’s core beat is fashion within the masthead’s Lifestyle coverage, where his byline appears regularly on fashion and beauty stories.

He holds the Fashion Editor title at The Sydney Morning Herald, and writes with a strong grasp of the commercial and structural forces driving the industry, not just the aesthetics. His reporting on Adore Beauty’s push for “billions” and the opening of its first physical store places retail strategy, competition and investment goals at the center of a beauty story, showing how digital-first brands reposition themselves against rivals like Mecca and Sephora.

In coverage of the closure of Lincraft stores, he frames the shift as a “fashion war” won by newer players such as White Fox and Anko, treating brand positioning and changing consumer tastes as part of a broader structural realignment in affordable fashion. His piece on the Zimmermann sisters’ reported billion-dollar sale of their womenswear label examines the sale as a benchmark for local fashion entrepreneurs and an example of global private equity interest in luxury brands.

Celebrity style, royals and red-carpet coverage

Woolnough brings an entertainment angle through celebrity wardrobes, royal dressing and red-carpet scrutiny. In his Golden Globes live coverage, he appears as the fashion expert and fashion editor charged with showcasing and analysing the most striking outfits on the red carpet, treating the broadcast as a rolling fashion commentary rather than a pure awards recap. He writes about how skinny jeans are “squeezing back” into fashion, using examples from rock stars and royals to show how high‑profile figures influence the return of a silhouette that had slipped out of favour.

In a feature on how “everyone wants to dress like Stanley Tucci,” he treats the actor’s polished, comfortable look as a template for readers, breaking down the specifics of cut, fabric and grooming that make a celebrity style aspirational yet attainable. His work on global events extends to examining themes such as “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” at the Met Gala, drawing out how the event’s dress code, designers and celebrity attendees contribute to ongoing conversations about representation and tailoring traditions.

In the piece “The Zara effect: Aussie designer joins royals in the inner sanctum,” he follows an Australian designer’s entrée into royal wardrobes to show how mainstream high-street brands and luxury commissions meet inside palace dressing rooms, reinforcing his focus on the way fashion choices signal status and cultural shifts.

Beauty trends, products and procedures

Alongside fashion, Woolnough covers beauty with a blend of trend reporting and practical evaluation.

In “Forget big lips and frozen foreheads: the new home of ‘natural beauty’,” he tracks the move away from heavily altered faces toward a softer aesthetic, profiling the businesses and practitioners championing subtle treatments and explaining what “natural” now means in the industry. He revisits the hype around high-priced devices and treatments, as in his assessment of whether the Dr Dennis Gross LED mask is “really worth the hype,” weighing cost, technology and realistic outcomes for consumers.

In a reported piece on microneedling, he writes from direct experience, setting out what he wishes he had known before trying the procedure and balancing expert commentary with candid detail on side effects, pain and after-care demands. Across these stories, he treats beauty as both an industry and a set of personal decisions, giving readers concrete information on efficacy, risk and value rather than repeating marketing language.

Consumer guidance and brand culture

Woolnough’s reporting often turns fashion news into guidance on spending and style.

His piece on whether $870 Golden Goose sneakers are “worth the hype” interrogates the brand’s deliberate “sophisticated scruffiness,” price range and retail footprint to help readers decide whether a distressed luxury sneaker justifies the premium. When he profiles the brand pronounced “An‑een,” he treats the confusion around its name as part of its cool‑girl appeal, then moves quickly to the clothes themselves – slouchy jeans, oversized blazers, retro sweatshirts – and the expansion from Sydney to Melbourne boutiques as evidence of growing demand.

In coverage of Kit Willow’s decision to “hop off the treadmill” and leave fashion again, he uses one designer’s ethical and creative struggles to explore the pressures of running a sustainable label over nearly a decade. His Lifestyle fashion pieces, collected in the section’s archive, show a consistent pattern: he connects price points, store openings, product details and designer decisions to broader questions of how people dress and spend, making his work useful to readers who want both cultural context and clear cues on where trends are heading.