The 2025 Australian Liquor Industry Awards (ALIA) will take place at The Fullerton Hotel, Sydney, on Wednesday, 5 November.
As always, ALIA has a theme, it’s one of the things that sets it apart from other industry award nights. This year’s theme is 90s Pop Culture, a fitting choice as ALIA celebrates its 30th birthday with a nostalgic look back three decades.
Costume inspiration: The best of the 90s
The 1990s gave us a wealth of pop culture icons to draw inspiration from.
On television, we had sitcom favourites like Friends, Seinfeld and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, while dramas such as The X-Files, The Sopranos and The Practice kept us glued to the screen. In Australia, audiences tuned in to Sylvania Waters, Blue Heelers and Police Rescue — and of course, we can’t forget Home & Away’s Alf Stewart, Sally Fletcher and Flathead, or Neighbours’ Harold, Madge and Toadie.
The 90s also delivered some of cinema’s biggest hits, from blockbusters like Titanic and Jurassic Park to cult classics such as Pulp Fiction and Forrest Gump. Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace just sneaks in with its 1999 release.
Top 10 Highest-Grossing Movies of the 90s:
- Titanic
- Jurassic Park
- Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace
- The Lion King
- Independence Day
- Forrest Gump
- The Sixth Sense
- The Lost World: Jurassic Park
- Men in Black
- Armageddon
Other great 90s movies for costume ideas include Aladdin, Toy Story 2, The Matrix, Mrs Doubtfire, Apollo 13, The Mask and The Flintstones.
The 90s were also an incredible decade for music. Nirvana and Pearl Jam led the grunge movement, while hip-hop exploded into the mainstream with Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur. Artists like MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice, LL Cool J and Salt-N-Pepa brought hip-hop to a wider audience.
Later in the decade, pop reigned supreme with boy bands such as Take That, *NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys, while female pop icons including Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Madonna, Whitney Houston and the Spice Girls dominated the charts. In the UK, Oasis, The Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and The Verve defined the Britpop sound, and gave us some memorable fashion moments too.
The 1990s was a carefree, pre-9/11 era reflected in its music, TV, film and fashion, a decade defined by fun. So have fun with your costume this year.
ALIA is a celebration of Australia’s liquor and hospitality industry, and while we honour excellence across the sector, the night is ultimately about coming together and enjoying ourselves.
Pick your outfit, embrace the nostalgia, and we’ll see you at the bar.
