21 years of STM: Guest Editor Bec Judd on 2004, the year a red dress changed everything, and life since

When STM’s first edition hit the streets on February 8, 2004, Rebecca Twigley’s life was sweet and pretty simple.

Newly 21, she had just switched degrees to study speech pathology at Curtin University. She was a few months into dating West Coast superstar Chris Judd, after a classic Perth love story involving a meeting at Club Bay View and then, later, a Sunday session kiss at the Cottesloe Beach Hotel.

But by the time STM’s first anniversary rolled around, things looked very different for Ms Twigley — courtesy of a daring red Ruth Tarvydas dress, worn to the Brownlow Medal later in 2004, as Judd won the AFL’s best-and-fairest award for the first time.

Looking back on it, now Bec Judd, juggling a media career with parenting the couple’s four children, it was a sliding doors moment.