- Dressed in Sunday best.

(From Canberra Times)

I 've had the shop nearly 20 years. After Manuka Village burned down 20 years ago I had an opportunity to get in. Originally, I was a designer and I sold to other stores but then I thought I could sell things through my own shop. Now I don't design at all, I just buy from Australian designers. It's easier. Canberra is too small a place to manufacture. You don't have the makers or the resources you have in Sydney, or the time. Ambia specialises in clothes for special occasions - formal wear, bridesmaids, mother of the bride. Anything you can wear to a wedding, even a casual wedding. We have lots of girls coming in for dresses for a beach wedding. They just want something fun, that's suitable to wear on the beach with a pair of thongs or barefoot. Because I started in the early 1980s, I've got some great dresses that my girls use as dress-ups. They say, ''Mum, did you really wear that sort of thing?'' Back then, it was the bigger the better, and amazing colours - purples and pinks, gold, big bows. It's changed a lot since then. Now, we sell a lot of colour for formals, but they're starting to go back into black dresses. Some girls want something different so they go for black, whereas 10 years ago ...