Quay’s green room was a vision in white on Monday 14 April as a suitably sparkling Sydney crowd gathered to celebrate the launch of the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation’s 2014 White Shirt Campaign.
The campaign, now in its 14th year, has raised close to $5 million for ovarian cancer research through the sale of white shirts at Witchery stores across the nation.
“One-hundred per cent of the gross proceeds go to this vital research for early detection of this insidious and silent disease that takes the life of a woman every 10 hours,” says the OCRF’s CEO and co-founder Liz Heliotis. “We now have fully equipped research labs across Australia; we’re coming up, in 2014, to having close to 15 researchers that we fund … all being funded to find that elusive early detection test, and that makes me enormously proud.”
This year, she tells us, is slated to be a record-breaker. “You’ve heard about (raising) close to $5 million? Well, we’re going to blitz that this year.”
The OCRF’s official White Shirt Day is 1May, and white shirts can be purchased at Witchery stores or by visiting uniteinwhite.com.au.
The food The canapés by Quay chef and OCRF ambassador Peter Gilmore were as refined as they come: jewel-like balls of sashimi scallop filled with crème fraîche, delicate sheep’s milk curd tartlets dusted in a beetroot powder, slow-braised lamb and sour cream pastry pies and bowls of pommes pureé with braised oxtail and mushrooms.
The drink Robert Oatley wines, Red Rock sparkling grapefruit drink and sparkling water.
We loved The impressive turnout of high-profile ambassadors and supporters of the campaign – models Cheyenne Tozzi and Valerija Erokhina and TV personality Catriona Rowntree among them. Peter Gilmore’s lemon curd and meringue tarts were pretty sweet, too.