For seven days this September, Perth Fashion Festival (PFF) returns with a spectacular calendar of over 50 events featuring more than 160 labels, 100 models and over 100 WA designers, big and small.
If you have never experienced PFF before, this is the year to do so, especially with PFF once again transforming the old Gasworks Building into a state of the art runway venue, Fashion Paramount.
Hot trend for 2010 are new technologies, both literally and of the mind, as PFF brings fashion blogging and conceptual art to West Coast audiences.
Fifteen Minutes: Rise of The Fashion Blog, held at Fashion Paramount, gathers together the best of Perth’s fashion bloggers and street snappers in a showcase of individual style.
‘The night is going to start off with a celebration of Perth blogs and they’re making a little documentary about them,’ said Emma Bergmeier who brought fashion blogging to the Perth mainstream with the launch of Dropstitch back in 2007.
‘Then we’re going to have a runway show that features looks inspired by street fashion.
‘So instead of your run of the mill runway show, every look is going to be styled completely differently as if each model that walks down the runway would be cool enough for a street fashion photographer to want to take a snap off.’
Contemporary Australian labels from Billie & Rose, Zara Bryson, Pigeonhole, Planet and Merge Clothing will appear throughout the night, with Perth’s fashion bloggers front row, tweeting and blogging live.
In the last year a massive shift has seen fashion bloggers take out front row at every Fashion Week around the world, rubbing shoulders with the editors and stylists who shape the hard economics of style.
‘A lot of bloggers may not think they are doing that but by contributing to the opinions on fashion I think they’re adding a new element to the fashion industry that wasn’t there before,’ Bergmeier added.
‘It’s almost like the voice of the people.’
The Western Australian Museum will also have something for everyone when it plays host to Beyond Garment, an exhibition of that investigates fashion in the form of accessories.
But it’s not just costume jewellery and pretty hats: Beyond Garment looks at body adornment beyond the dress and how fashion can reinvent the edges of the body into art.
Beyond Garment’s curator Anne Farren, director of Curtain University’s School of Design and Art, will bring together the likes of respected jeweller Sophie Kyron, next gen vanguard Alister Yiap and the fragile sculptural work of Elizabeth Delfs, among others.
‘It’s almost like a journey from commercial to conceptual, and everything in between, the extreme being beyond wearable’ explained Farren.
Many of the pieces have been specifically created for this exhibition, such as Yiap’s Geometry, a mass of black squares which ‘billows’ out from the wearer with line and angle.
‘It’s extending it beyond the runway into a broader cultural program, endorsing the development of the Festival beyond the catwalk shows.’ Farren said of PFF’s addition of Beyond Garment.
It mirrors, in part, L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival’s broader cultural program, suggesting that PFF is focussing on developing events that have been known to resonate with audiences elsewhere.
And of course, Fashion Paramount is still the place to be to witness the WA Designer Collections, solo shows from Ruth Tarvydas and Wheels & DollBaby plus the highly anticipated Student Runway.
Beyond Garment opens Friday September 3 until November 28 at The WA Maritime Museum with Fifteen Mintues: Rise of The Fashion Blog happening Tuesday September 14 at Fashion Paramount. PFF runs September 9 to 15. www.perthfashionfestival.com.au
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
