Gay fashion designers dominated the winners list at this year’s WA Fashion Awards (WAFA’s), the closing gem in Perth Fashion Festival’s (PFF) seven day fashion extravaganza for 2010.
Alvin Fernandez from ae’lkemi, Tane Andrews from Of Cabbages & Kings and jeweller Alister Yiap all won awards alongside stylist Teagan Sewell and Best Dressed Boutique Dilettante and a smattering of models and student designers, including Jeromy Lim.
It was a spectacular evening, featuring an amazing array of fashion, a glorious close to a sparkling week of PFF.
Travel back seven days and PFF kicked off with an industry packed launch at The Fashion Bar, a converted carpark located next door to the Old Gasworks Building which was transformed into the amazing Fashion Paramount, a formidable runway space designed to showcase the runway shows.
The WA Designer Collections are, indisputably, the highlight of the PFF parade calendar. It’s the one place – spread across two shows – where you’ll find 25 designers showcasing an amazing breadth and depth of clothing, presenting a vocabulary of fashion unlike any other night on the PFF calendar.
WA Designer Collection 2 brings together the bright young things of tomorrow.
The bold commercial viability of Poppy Lissiman’s prints were nestled alongside Daniella Caputi’s bristling potentiality, all off-set by Garth Cook’s refined moments of drapery.
Fashion Paramount is built in such a way that the audience has a greater degree of intimacy with the garments, able to appreciate the fine jaw bone prints of The Butcher & The Crow or the mad anarchy of Lonely 8-Bit Heroes with its subtle references to Leigh Bowery inspired fat ladies adorning customised umbrellas.
Leah Tarlo snuck a moment of much needed levity into the night, her accessories oversized and outrageous, from watering can rings to vintage cotton spindle necklaces to crocheted teacups and giant porcelain keys.
Arj Selvam cemented his status as man of the hour, his Black Stump range a reinterpretation of Australiana done with flawless references to Driza-bones reworked in authentic Oilskins for 21st Century bush rangers.
His range – which is stocked at Dilettante and online through For-Tomorrow – explores the juxtaposition of the Wheatbelt’s stark salinity and the bush-fire burnt outback, black and white converging to shade with grey, all done with an engineer’s eye for detailing.
True show stealer, however, was Daniel Romanin and Nikolina Ergic’s One Fell Swoop.
Saturday night saw One Fell Swoop turn a corner with breathtaking creativity, presenting a contradiction of feminine subtly tempered with tailored lines, garments elaborating rolling in on themselves.
With such well executed craftsmanship on display, it was surprising to see this label in the emerging section, particularly since this range – with its sensuality and well placed stoicism – suggests One Fell Swoop are ready to take Australia by storm.
An hour after this onslaught of inspiration saw the arrival of WA Designer Collection 1, a showcase of the stalwarts and shining lights of the WA fashion industry.
Now, consider for a moment this: if you conceive an idea and hold it aloft to be so, the complete opposite must also be acknowledged, and although it may not be true to your original idea, its very existence imbues it with a certain degree of truth, one of its own making.
Heady stuff? Well, consider for a moment two of the designers from Collection 1 who, only the day before, appeared at the same Fashionista Forum as women who lead the fashion pack.
Chrissie Caitling and Liz Davenport are a juxtaposition in motion, stylistically opposite ends of the world, yet both as relevant to WA fashion as the other, one forging her own sublime aesthetic and empowering Perth women in the process, the other having done the same three decades earlier.
Caitling’s S2 – nominated for WA Fashion Award’s Best Dressed Boutique – saw her empower with sharp architectural shapes, a carefree certainty that comes with liberating the mind by creating a freedom for the body, at times stripping away sections to reveal the fragile form beneath, framed with thick braiding.
A sharp contrast to Davenport’s homage to the old world matron’s of society, complete with over-the-top organza ruffs and rainbow sequins. Yes, rainbow sequins.
Yet the two knowingly played off each other, perhaps denoting a passing of the guard from the elaborate to the effortless.
Elsewhere, however, there is a genuine concern for a label like Breathless, who have an amazing designer in the form of Robin Alexander, a girl whose graduate TAFE pieces were highly coveted and worn, even by this journalist.
At Breathless, however, it’s almost like the ghost of former designer Rebecca Patterson is ushered into the room time after time, which is a shame since Alexander is more than capable of taking Breathless to new heights, but each season looks just like the last.
It’s a travesty that potentially awaits other, more established Collection 1 women’s wear designers as they attempt to carve up the same fashion crowd, none of them creating a succinct and individual voice like Caitling, or Davenport before her… besides Megan Salmon’s own poetic discourse of earth tones and brief moments in United Constructions where deconstructed jumpsuits dominated.
And then of course there’s 2010 WA Fashion Award Outstanding WA Collection winner ae’lkemi, whose menswear is flawlessly sophisticated and whose evening wear peaks with black sequin gowns that waft romantically down the catwalk. Sublime.
But the collection that made everyone gasp was WA Fashion Award Designer For Tomorrow winner Of Cabbages & Kings, engulfed in millinery by Reny Kestel.
This label has risen to recognition in a short time, and with just cause too – their work consistently steps up from the last season, a testament to the powerhouse coupling of designers Tane Andrews and London based Kira Goodey.
How they will top this collection is anticipated with baited breath.
Other highlights included Avante-Garde, a semi-off program showcase held at Winthrop Hall featuring Dilettante, Zekka and Head Studio with live organ musical accompaniment.
Set in-the-round, Dilettante kicked off the night with clothes from Peachoo and Krejberg, Y’s, Gareth Pugh, Preen and Vivienne Westwood for the women with Boris Bidjan Saberi, The Viridi-anne and BLAAK for the men.
Their choreography was reminiscent of Spanish horse riding shows, a potentiality of collision sound tracked to a crescendo of high heels clippity clopping. Magic.
Arj Selvam combined with Head Studio for a moment of restraint while Zekka spellbound with clothes from Damir Doma, new personal fave Julius, Ann Demeulemeester, M.A+, Haider Ackermann, Marc Le Bihan, Ohne Titel and Golem. Put simply? Decadence.
Popsicle was a success, situated in sea containers in the Cultural Centre, while Touch of Wool III offered a moment of ingenious originality, Jocelyn Tan’s leather work a standout, reminiscent of the Garthim from The Dark Crystal but so covetable. The girl’s a genius.
Jamie Lee stole the show at UP with her pink body suited aliens, although the spectacle was just that, while over at Student Runway, the superbly dark Ellie Meyer, Jane Kelsey and brilliantly talented Andrea Wolf all showed off their debut collections, created after a residency at PFF’s new incubator of fashion, The Carton.
A tad dark, suggesting The Carton might’ve been too, but all achingly well-executed, with this year’s Student Runway winners Celene Bridge, Alissia Gomez and the incredibly talented Jeromy Lim all set to the be the next generation of Carton Kids in 2011.
Emma Bergmeier’s 15 Minutes was effortlessly styled with clothes from Zara Bryson, Pigeonhole, Planet and Billie & Rose, plus featured a conceptual catwalk collection from New Zealand student Roxanna Zamani.
Zamani had won the FTV Online Designer Award to appear at PFF. She’s no stranger to such prizes – she’s won numerous in Milan where she has returned to take up a couturier internship.
Highlight – other than her bold structures, pleats and splashes of leather – was the fact her mother flew in that afternoon from New Zealand to give Zamani a touching standing ovation at the end of her show, bringing a tear to the eye of those who noticed.
Which ultimately is what PFF is all about – moments of spontaneous support because you’re simply blown away by the breadth of talent that Perth has on offer.
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
PFF HOT GOSS’
– Zekka (WMN) has opened at 214A Nicholson Road, Shenton Park. Collections represented are: Haider Ackermann, Ohne Titel, M.A+, Golem, Damir Doma (and organic basics collection SILENT), Marc Le Bihan, Rick Owens, Lost & Found, Forme d’expression.
– Zara Bryson v 2.0? You better believe it. She’s opening another store very soon somewhere beginning with… C. An empire in the making? Apparently not… but give her time.
– Milliner Edwina Noll, surprise hit of the Unwrapped Markets, will be holding a pop-up shop in the city this October. Check www.enm.com.au for details.
– Model Ben Taylor, seen rushing around the WAFA’s with festival face and WAFA winner Sarah Pauley, will be kicking out a small intimate men’s line, WhereArtThou? Exclusively at Wasteland early 2011.
– Arj Selvam at Paris Fashion Week? You better believe it. He was already sporting accessories from the next season (covet covet) which continues his love affair with the Australian outback.
– Which fashion writer went to compliment a young lady on the beautiful Daniella Caputi design she was wearing… only to discover she was Daniella Caputi? Whoops.
– Rad Hourani and diffusion line RAD in Perth?! Yup. Save up the bucks, boys and girls, because Dilettante just got stock!
– Storming your brain sometime soon is Lonely 8-Bit Heroes designer Zoe Trotman, whose next range will be dedicated to the people she loves, admires and respects. If you get the call from Perth’s craziest girl in fashion, you’ll know you’ll be immortalised in the most outrageous style possible.
