Tuesday night's inaugural W Awards was a game-changer for sports awards in a country where red carpets have become obsessively focused on what – or who, as the parlance goes – the wives and girlfriends of the players are wearing.
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Erin Phillips wins AFLW's best and fairest
Adelaide premiership co-captain Erin Phillips has capped her outstanding AFLW season by winning the best and fairest award. Vision courtesy AFL Media.
The sight of so many women players arriving hand in hand with their partners – male or female – was a sight to behold. As was the overwhelming number of conversations on the red carpet that were, shock horror, actually about football. Or their children. Or how the game will affect their children's lives.
Not to say fashion was entirely overlooked. Many of the women relished the chance to frock up, have their hair and make-up done and walk the coral carpet for the cameras. Girls will be girls.
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But the point is the fashion felt like a part of the overall picture, not the picture itself.
It was a refreshing and stark contrast to the fashion-obsessed Brownlow, which has spawned annual worst-dressed lists and the infamous "Brownlow burn book", a social media group that in the past tore apart the outfits of attendees, many of whom are stay-at-home or working mums who do not court publicity.
The Brownlow reached an all-time low several years ago when the broadcaster installed a "twirl cam" – a Lazy Susan-style podium so the WAGs' outfits could be scrutinised from all angles.
On the matter of equality – the men's league still does not have one openly gay player – and on the objectification of women, the Brownlow could take a few lessons from the W Awards.
And then there was the atmosphere. Whereas the Brownlow has military precision in its organisation and bureaucracy, the W Awards were slightly shambolic in their running, at least initially, but endearingly so.
Whereas the Brownlow red carpet is often a sea of back-slapping and sneering, the W Awards began with a throng of hugs and laughter, the women united to celebrate the achievement of what many thought was impossible.
There was AFL matriarch Susan Alberti, almost crying tears of happiness at seeing the league eventuate in her lifetime. And rising star nominee, 20-year-old Sabrina Frederick-Traub, walking arm in arm with her partner, Shannon Turner.
And who could ignore the undisputed faces of the game and its values, player of the year Erin Phillips and her wife (yes, wife), Tracy Gahan, extolling how happy they are their five-month-old twins will grow up in a world where women's AFL is a given and not just a dream.
What the women's AFL has done for equality in the game in six months the men's game has not managed to achieve in more than 120 years.
But there are some positive moves afoot. Last year, radio station Triple J flipped the Brownlow red carpet routine on its head when Demi Lardner asked the men what they were wearing and the women how their "season" (read: year) had gone.
In the future, when the women's competition inevitably runs the length of the AFL season, there may be no need for separate women's and men's awards ceremonies. A Brownlow medal could arguably be awarded to the best and fairest male and female players of the season.
And when it comes to covering the red carpet for that event, let's hope the tide keeps turning.