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The Rolling Stones’ She’s Like a Rainbow has long been a catwalk soundtrack favourite. Lately, though, it seems designers have been taking the song far more literally.

Flourishes of psychedelia were a street-style hit during Australian fashion month, with Paula Cademartori handbags and striped Fendi monster backpacks dangling off shoulders. Meanwhile, Beyoncé has made a lasting commitment to Roy G Biv.

The global rainbow wave has demonstrated that kaleidoscopic clothing and accessories aren’t just for the Iris Apfels of the world. In How to Be a Woman, Caitlin Moran wrote that leopard print, gold sequins and silver lamé are “neutrals”, and a similar principle applies to rainbow designs. When you wear every colour at once, it doesn’t “go” with anything, which means the rainbow clothes in question come full circle and end up matching everything (even orange and olive green simultaneously).

Multicoloured accessories can be used to bring a joyous touch to an otherwise conservative black, white or navy outfit, or rainbow pieces can be piled on top of each otherfor a delightfully insane look.

While designers including Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli of Valentino looked to Elmer the Patchwork Elephant for inspiration, and Mary Katrantzou took cues from 60s op art, Australian designers have looked to more organic muses to find their pots of gold.

For the Sydney-based designer Emma Mulholland, native birds and heatwave maps provided fruitful colour palettes. “I often look to animals and nature for inspiration,” she told Guardian Australia.

“I find there is so much to draw from, whether its colour combinations or funny animal traits. I find it all pretty fascinating and amusing.

“I think so many designers stop at leopard print or something basic but there are a lot more ways to use nature in design.”

The artist and fashion legend Linda Jackson introduced Romance Was Born to thediffracted beauty of opals this season, while her longtime friend and collaboratorJenny Kee was painted for the Archibald prize in varicoloured silks of her own creation, drawing on native flowers and desert sunsets.

The rainbows Australian designers have been producing are less clean and precise than their international counterparts. This point of difference is in an advantage. Rather than being explicitly tied to the flower-child moment that is gripping the fashion world more broadly, Mulholland, Romance Was Born and Kee’s colourful creations feel more timeless than 2015-takes-on-1970. A piece like Bella Freud’s1970 jumper is literally designed to date, whereas a waratah and ying-yang patchwork is more eccentric than slyly retro.

While rainbow has the potential to tire the eye quickly, it also lasts. Buying a prismatic printed skirt for spring might only yield three or four wears this season, but unlike pieces that are in “good taste”, which tend to be influenced by the It silhouette or palette of the moment, something that looks fabulously garish now is likely to look fabulously garish three years from now, too.

Rainbow clothes are also a relatively cheap way to bring colour into your wardrobe. Unlike colour blocking, which requires full commitment and various garments (the yellow blouse, the fuchsia trousers and the aqua satchel all at once), like a shard of light through the clouds it only takes a little rainbow to create something beautiful.

The ultimate University of Wisconsin Oshkosh wedding story goes a little something like this …

A sweet alumni couple—May 2014 graduates Abigail “Abby” (Schultz) and Ryan Roushia, of Neenah—tied the knot at the gorgeous Alumni Welcome and Conference Center on campus in September with a meaningful “master” of ceremonies officiating.

“This was a special wedding for me,” said Sally Masters, UW Oshkosh’s associate director of academic advising. “With the couple being alumni, the venue being on campus at the AWCC and me, a UWO staff member performing the ceremony, it all seemed to be an aligning of the stars.”

In the Undergraduate Advising Resource Center, Masters helps students sort out their personal, educational and career goals. In her other vocation as an experienced wedding officiant (more than 700 couples married since 2004), she personalizes ceremonies to reflect the couples’ values, beliefs and individual tastes.

Masters performed her first commitment ceremony for two friends back in 2003. She loved working with the couple and received compliments on how she tailored the ceremony. Masters was appointed as a Justice of the Peace for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 2004, just a month before marriage equality was legally recognized there … the first state in the U.S. to do so.

“As one might imagine, I was extremely busy with weddings right away,” she said. “There were some days that first year where I performed four or even five weddings in one day.” Later in 2008, she moved to North Carolina and continued her “wedding work” by becoming ordained with an interfaith church in Florida.

“I feel honored and privileged to play such an important part in a couple’s most special day up to that point in their relationship. Since I am an encourager by nature, encouraging a couple as they start their life together is a perfect fit for me,” she said. “It is also important to me to help every couple celebrate their relationship, whether the couple is a same gender or opposite gender couple. It is my philosophy that when a person finds the ‘someone’ they want to share life with, it is a gift and deserves celebration through a marriage ceremony created to fit them, performed by someone who fully supports their relationship.”

For the Roushias, the choice to have their wedding on campus and to have a UWO staff member officiate just made sense.

“The campus is very special to us,” Abby said. “We met each other here, developed into professionals and met wonderful people along the way. We decided to get married on campus because the Alumni Welcome Center is a new building, and it is just gorgeous.”

When AWCC director Laura Rommelfanger recommended Masters as a possible officiant, “we thought it would be awesome to keep all of our wedding in relation to UWO,” Abby explained. “It turns out that Sally knows what she’s doing when it comes to being an amazing officiant. She definitely made our day special, and we still have friends and family talking about our ceremony, because she took the time to get to know us and incorporate all pieces of our relationship into our ceremony.”

Masters worked with the couple to “weave their story” into the ceremony.

That story actually started when Abby and Ryan were in the same homeroom for all four years at Oshkosh North High School. But they never once talked to each other. Later, at their Odyssey freshmen orientation at UW Oshkosh, the two were grouped together by their zip codes. This time, they started chatting.

“We spent a lot of time hanging out in Reeve and getting a simple lunch from the Corner Store. We also spent countless hours studying for our business classes,” Abby said.

They learned to balance their developing relationship and their studies.

“It can make a relationship difficult if each person has their own thing they have to do,” she said. “However, you need to make sure that you allow each other to grow as individuals on campus as well. You each need to grow educationally, professionally and personally.”

In May 2014, Abby and Ryan earned marketing and economics degrees, respectively. Abby now works in customer care at Guardian Insurance, while Ryan is a business analyst with Jewelers Mutual Insurance Co. Following their special day in September and a honeymoon in Disney, they’re looking forward to their future together.

“We’re enjoying each other’s company and trying new things that we have not yet done together. We want to save up to buy new cars and also start looking to buy a new house. We both want to grow in our careers as well. We just want to see where life will take us,” she said.

Sounds just like the advice Masters often offers to newlyweds.

“There are two things I remind couples of in the ceremony … first, remember often what a gift it is to have someone you love to share life with and don’t take that for granted,” she said. “And, second, spending time together as a couple is really vital. It’s what makes the craziness of life dissipate and brings a couple back to what’s important … their relationship.”

In additional to weddings, Masters performs other rituals, such as baby and home blessings, with her business Masters Ceremonies.

When Deb Boyer Maevers, owner of Pastimes Antiques, came into an estate of vintage clothing, the first idea that popped into her head was to launch a fashion show. She called it VintageNOW.

The first show in 2009 was in the upper level of the now-closed Buckner Brewing Co., with about 300 people attending.

Last year, the annual fundraiser for the Safe House for Women was at the Osage Centre in Cape Girardeau, and attendance had grown to about 1,100.

The show is themed according to a chosen decade. Maevers said she was reluctant to highlight "her" era, but in the days after last year's show, people already were asking for a 1970s theme.

"Once I gave in and said, 'OK, we'll do the '70s,' it's been fun planning, and the atmosphere, not just the clothing, the room has been fun," Maevers said.

The sixth VintageNOW Fashion Show will begin at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, with doors opening at 6 p.m. at the Osage Centre.

The preshow is designed to be "mix and mingle" time. Disco balls and motion lights will fill the room to take people back in time.

"We want the atmosphere to feel like you've stepped back in time, 1975, and you are at a disco in New York or Studio 54," Maevers said.

Attendees also can bid during a silent auction.

A vote will take place between 6 and 7:30 p.m. to determine which of the male models will walk the runway first. The group of men, called peace ambassadors, includes Kevin Greaser, Eric Becking, All Bisher, Brian Gerau, Ronnie Glover, Lyle Randolph, Jeff Gremmels, Bud McMillan, Virgil Jones, Mike Rust, Kirby Ray, Wes Wade and state Sen. Wayne Wallingford. Ballot boxes -- one for each of the men and displaying a photo of him -- will greet attendees as they walk in, and they can vote for their favorites with a $1 donation.

As a part of the show's kickoff, opening-number dancers will model John Travolta's moves from "Saturday Night Fever" as the film is projected above.

Forty models will display 80 styles as they take to the runway, each changing once. The two show segments are titled "Groovy Days" and "Boogie Nights."

Leshay Mathis, a Southeast Missouri State University alumna and now an admissions counselor, is one of this year's models. The models range in age from 14 to 75, including Maevers' mother, who is 75 and has participated since the show's beginning.

Maevers participated in each model-fitting and style session, with four stylists each assigned 10 models who ultimately have the final say in what they wear.

Nicole Fouche has been a stylist for VintageNOW the past four years. She said to help find the right outfit, she looks at the model's style and applies it to the theme.

"We always try to ask them, 'Hey, do you feel comfortable wearing this? If not, we're not going to make you go out there and wear something you don't feel good in,'" Fouche said. "The show's about feeling good and being a woman and empowering them. I think if you walked out there and you didn't feel comfortable in what you're wearing, then you wouldn't be too empowered."

Fouche custom-designs dresses as a full-time job, so she's not unfamiliar with pulling trends together.

"When you're making garments, you're thinking about the entire look, so you're styling anyway," Fouche said.

Maevers said the 1970s were when a younger generation still fought to be heard. That was evident in the music and more so in the period fashion.

"I think this year feels like the most really diverse selection of clothing, but that was the era, that was the '70s, man," Maevers said, laughing, and noting fashion trends tends to repeat themselves every 30 to 35 years.

"With a twist," she added.

Wide-leg, bell bottom-inspired pants, fringe and beaded garments line store racks today. Several local retailers -- The Buckle, Stash, Philanthropy and Ophelia -- provided pieces to complement the show's vintage clothing.

"It fits in with the trends you're going to see today, so at least people know when they come to the show, they're going to be able to see something they could probably go to a thrift store and buy and put together with their modern pieces," Fouche said.

Proceeds from VintageNOW benefit the Safe House for Women.

For Maevers, the event was never really about the clothes. It was about the women wearing them, and the women they're wearing them for.

"In our fashion show, all of our models are mostly local women and all ages, all sizes. That's important to me," Maevers said. "And also, that we show the audience that every woman's beautiful. Every woman who walks, I kind of do a little pep talk when I go backstage, like a football coach, I guess, similar to a ballgame, is just tell these ladies, 'Remember, you're walking for a woman from the Safe House; you're walking for someone. Be strong, be confident, because you're walking for someone who can't.'"