It has been another very eventful week of Australian Fashion. Having been a part of its previous two years with my first foray in 2008, I have seen the growth and progression of many young Australian fashion designers successfully establishing their own business. It is too simplistic and a disservice to just compare them with their European counterparts. It is a different place and time and one considerable quality of Australian designers is their resolute spirit of determination and entrepreneurial flair.
The most significant and ubiquitous trend was a vibrant colour palette, illustrative print. Prints were digital printed on varying fabrics such as silk, silk jersey and cotton in designers such as Karla Spetić , Gary Bigeni, Magdalena Velveska and Josh Goot to name a few.
For these designers they were looking within themselves and somehow finding their own Australian identity. I've enjoyed incredibly my time covering this year's Australian Fashion Week with you all for The Corner Shop.
Magdalena Velveska's showroom post-runway in Alexandria
It was a thrill to have visited Magadelena Velevska's showroom for her sales appointment. There she expressed her raison d'être for her Peruvian knitwear (most impressive), her macrame and other techniques employed where skirts were concertina pleated in a most exquisite way and almost an open-yarn architecture for her knitted sweater and a vest buttoned cardigan. Halfway down her staircase was her affixed storyboard filled with her sample fabric pieces, her unaltered initial sketch of her collection assemblage, the tactile nature of her macrame were the nuanced signs of an astute designer.
Karla Spetić Spring 2011
Karla Spetić is reknowned for producing crisp variegated prints. Her last collection showed the calibre of her skills as a designer for taking us into the interior world of the Australian outback. She was inspired by interiors and furnishings and the illustrative quality of her prints on swim pieces and knee-length skirts made them almost anthropomorphic. At the slightest turn, they appear to dance and animate. Karla's great ability was to translate the visual silence that surrounds us everyday.
Gary Bigeni speaks with Bree McDonald of Belinda
Gary Bigeni needs no prelude but delighted us for the first time with subverted breton stripes on a tank dress and opulent colours of cream white, crimson red on a twisted back dress. He made his collection with constant flowing movement and pieces that were of rich pickings.
Josh Goot Spring 2011
Josh Goot had observed paintings by German painter Gerhard Richter. For his amorphous clashed layers of oil and watercolour, Goot deconstructed this with his own implosion of digital prints - smeared paint brushings, exaggerated repetition of canvassed prints was like the emulsion of his palette.
Sara Phillips Spring 2011
Sara Phillips developed prints from the unrelenting landscapes of Australia and produced reptilian textures, dusty khakis in a soft and pleasing silhouette.
Amber & Thomas Spring 2011
Amber Hourigan and Thomas Williams of Amber & Thomas had proposed a Utopian Mediterranean seascape that led us to an enamored cosmopolitan woman laying hazily in her light khaki fringe and buttery suede pieces, seamfoam blue twisted knot blouses and a cobalt blue deep v-neck dress reminiscent of photographs that once included Jackie Onassis and Lee Radziwill.
