PERTH FASHION FESTIVAL GOES FULL THROTTLE

KEE@FSWMAG.COM

IT IS DRAWING TO THAT TIME OF THE YEAR AGAIN WHEN WESTERN AUSTRALIA GEARS ITSELF INTO FASHION AS PERTH FASHION FESTIVAL FINALISES ITS LONG LIST OF THRILLERS.


The stunning must-wear and must-haves from Western Australia's hottest designers!

Scroll below for details of the designers

The official 2012 Perth Fashion Festival Calendar was unveiled on 21 August 2012, highlighting this year’s exciting events and new initiatives.

The 2012 Perth Fashion Festival, fronted by international model Nicole Pollard, features an eclectic mix of 36 fashion forward events, 4 stand-alone designer runway shows, 3 WA Designer Capsule shows and a model search.

An impressive 160 designers will participate in this year’s Festival. Fashion Paramount makes a return to the sophisticated Hackett Hall at the Western Australian Museum featuring stand-alone runway shows by the cream of WA’s fashion design talent including Morrison, Ae’lkemi, and an unconventional showcase by Flannel.

 Joining the Western Australian talent at Fashion Paramount this year will be four national designers, Shona Joy, Limedrop, House of Wilde and Kuwaii.

FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS

One Fell Swoop will launch the Festival at the much anticipated VIP Opening Night at the Perth Town Hall on Wednesday 19 September 2012. VIP guests will experience an archive of trans-seasonal garments, presenting light and movement through feminine tailoring, layering and draping, whilst enjoying sumptuous canapés and premium Australian wines.

The MYER Fashion Luncheon will display MYER’s premium Australian designers in a runway showcase containing the latest Spring Summer 2013 collections and racing trends from Aurelio Costarella, Arthur Gallan AG, ELLERY, Jayson Brunsdon, Morrison and many more.

Fashionably Loud is a new, not to be missed extravaganza blending fashion and music and styled by Zara Bryson. Designers including Ellery, Story by Tang, Kitty Grace, Belle Bijoux and many more will show their hottest pieces of the season to the tunes of eight time WAMI award winners San Cisco at this free event. Head to Brookfield Place at 5pm on Friday 21 September.

An Evening with Flannel will see their Spring Summer collection, Neronis, styled by former Vogue fashion editor Meg Gray, in the historic Hackett Hall, where guests will enjoy a three course dinner accompanied by French champagne and delicious cocktails in a 1920’s themed fashion showcase. The dinner will be held on Monday 24 September at 7pm.

This year’s closing event is another exceptional new initiative; Perth Fashion Festival is delighted to be working with Ready to Work, a charity that supports disadvantaged women. Held in the beautiful Government House Ballroom, on Tuesday 25 September, at 7pm, VIP Closing Night: Giving Back is the New Black will be a unique and intimate evening showcasing an exceptional line-up of WA Designers and their take on the classic black dress.

“PFF is now in its fourteenth year and still managing to deliver a highly unique program of events; breaking new ground with An Evening with Flannel, which will see PFF host guests at a three course dinner whilst experiencing a salon style presentation from Flannel.

Giving Back is the New Black is also a fantastic new initiative we’ve introduced to support Ready to Work, and Restyle is bringing fashion to the masses, proving fashion can be fabulous at any price!” said Mariella Harvey-Hanrahan, Director, Perth Fashion Festival.

“This year we are breaking with tradition, taking on new formats and events to spice it up. After 14 years PFF is still fresh, exciting and innovative.”

Perth Fashion Festival is supported by the State Government through Eventscorp, the Department of Culture and the Arts and the City of Perth.

Further information on PFF 2012 program of events will be unveiled in coming weeks.

Perth Fashion Festival 19-25 September 2012.

Follow us on Facebook at Perth Fashion Festival and on Twitter at perthfashfest

www.perthfashionfestival.com.au

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Perth Fashion Festival 2012

DESIGNERS' PROFILES

Label: Ae’lkemi

Designer: Alvin Fernandez

Sunday 23 September, 9.00pm

Ae’lkemi is renowned for its signature hand-finished prints, feminine organic textiles and raw edge elegance. Ae’lkemi focusses on developing and maintaining the design integrity of each piece whilst extending the flexibility of the collection to appeal to a wider audience.

Ae’lkemi collections have graced the catwalks of Australia, Milan and Berlin Fashion Weeks and featured at G’Day USA.

A graduate of the Western Australian School of Art Design, Alvin Fernandez achieved critical acclaim early in his career. After being named WA Student Designer of the Year in 1998, Alvin went on to twice-win the coveted Perth Fashion Festival Western Australian Designer of the Year Award in 2005 and again in 2010.

Mixing old world opulence with visually seductive and playful surfaces and textures, Ae’lkemi’s Spring Summer 2012/13 collection is an exotic, colourful reflection of 1970’s Morocco.

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Label: Flannel

Designer: Kristy Lawrence

Monday 24 September, 7.00pm

Award winning Australian designer, Kristy Lawrence, has always had a definite design ethos and through her label, Flannel, has found the perfect medium to translate her lifestyle into a signature range of fashion and home wares.

Kristy’s motivation is to create collections consisting of relaxed, luxurious pieces with a playful feeling; effortless with a vintage, graceful style in chalky hues and an edge of a rock-bohemian chic.

Flannel is a consummate label full of covetable everyday pieces for customers who appreciate the finer things in life.

Flannel’s Spring Summer 2012/2013 collection Neronis embodies this notion of elegant, feminine ease and simplicity. Inspired by the upbeat peculiar life of a 1920’s circus girl and her time on and off the stage, Neronis is a collection filled with romance, elegance and a sense of adventure.

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Label: Morrison

Designer: Kylie Radford

Thursday 20 September, 6.30pm

Since launching in 2002, designer Kylie Radford and her husband and business partner, Richard Poulson, have taken their label to new heights nationally with eight stores and 150 wholesale clients, and all garments produced and designed in Australia.

A quintessential Western Australian label, Morrison exudes effortless style and is loved by those who enjoy wearable clothing that promotes a feeling of subtle and discrete luxury.

Morrison’s designs draw strongly from an emphasis on fabrics, garments are easy to wear without looking lazy. Morrison is often described as effortless style and is a firm favourite with those who enjoy subtle and discrete luxury.

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Label: One Fell Swoop

Designer: Nikolina Ergic and Daniel Romanin

Wednesday 19 September, 7.00pm

Winners of the West Australian Designers of the Year Award 2011, One Fell Swoop designers Nikolina Ergic and Daniel Romanin met during their time studying fashion at the Central Institute of Technology in Perth. Their design philosophy is simple; to make clothes that are feminine and desirable, combining tailoring with draping to create a shape that is equally sensitive and feminine as it is modern and minimal.

In their most recent collection, the duo has stripped away all outside influences, focusing purely on the process of design. Their work takes inspiration from faraway places and the decadent eras of art history, namely the beginning of modernism.

One Fell Swoop’s collections contain pieces that combine structured tailoring with free form and abstract draping, producing silhouettes that are feminine, bold and distinctive.

One Fell Swoop’s Spring Summer 2012/13 collection, An Illusive Tribe, is inspired by the need for self-belief and self-inspection; the notions of kinship, the strength and structure of men contrasted by the sensuality of women.

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Designer Capsule #1 – Thursday 20 September, 9.00pm

Label: Daniella Caputi

Designer: Daniella Caputi

After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (Fashion and Textiles) in 2009, the self-titled label Daniella Caputi was born. Since then Daniella Caputi has presented at L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Week, been awarded Styleaid Absolut Creative Designer, showcased at WA Designer Collections as part of the Perth Fashion Festival, showcased at Rosemount Australian Fashion Week in Sydney 2011, and presented at The Wearers Right Showroom Collective 2012.

Constructed using high quality fabric the label looks at contrast in design; simple versus detailed; opaque versus sheer; and heavy versus light.

Daniella Caputi’s Spring Summer 2012/13 collection features strong architectural elements, particularly Gothic brick architecture. The focus is on structures within architecture, which translates onto the surface of a garment, through prints, sheers and pleating.

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Label: Lisa Marjanovich

Designer: Lisa Marjanovich

After studying Contemporary Fashion at Edith Cowan University, Lisa continued her studies at the Central Institute of Technology, completing an Advanced Diploma of Fashion and Textile design.

Lisa’s design aesthetic is to create pieces that feel strong and confident on the body yet have a feminine presence.

Creating beautiful, unique textures of fabric and layering weights of colours and textures is a constant key feature behind the Lisa Marjanovich label.

Lisa Marjanovich’s Spring Summer 2012/13 collection will focus on casual cool statement pieces that reveal a subtle feminine elegance with unique surfaces of leathers, digital prints and soft block colouring incorporated into each piece. The silhouettes will be modern, clean and display touches of fullness and volume in certain areas with the colour palette inspired around the digital feather print made up of oranges, black, nude and whites.

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Label: The Butcher + The Crow

Designer: Elisha Quintal

After a completing a year of Post Graduate Honours Studies with a first class honours at Curtin University in 2011, designer Elisha Quintal is back designing to continue the development of her hand dyed techniques and the craft of the hand made.

The Butcher + The Crow embraces the resurgence of an appreciation for the hand made and its processes.

 The Butcher + The Crow collections are quietly beautiful; fabrics and dying techniques are what inspire the softly seductive drape and fall of the garments.

Each garment is made and manufactured in Western Australia. The pieces are individually dyed using a traditional technique known as shibori. For The Butcher + The Crow takes a thoughtful approach to the making of things; a philosophy that is most plainly explained as being bound by an integrity of product; that which values artesian skills and traditional methods of making.

Inspired by the book, Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Butcher + the Crow’s Spring Summer 2012/13 collection The Wanderers follows the endless ambled wanderings of lost souls through the site Hanging Rock. From dark tannic blacks of rain stained hardened earth to bursting hues of a rusted sun, the collection draws on the pallet of the landscape at hanging rock and finds form in their wandering sorrows.

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Label: ZSADAR

Designer: Shane Newton

With a background in graphic arts and communications, designer Shane Newton launched menswear label ZSADAR in 2011. Balancing a modern approach to collections, Shane uses unconventional pattern-making techniques and textiles not commonly associated with menswear.

Working with a theme for each collection, Shane is deeply inspired by nature and subversion, translating these into modern menswear pieces.

For ZSADAR Spring Summer 2012/13, designer Shane Newton explores the idea of mutated beauty through his Mysteries of the Organism collection. The 30-piece range reveals a softer side to ZSADAR, with a palette including flesh and earth tones of buttermilk, smoke, nude, porcini and oyster.

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Label: Garth Cook

Designer: Garth Cook

Leading Garth Cook to graduate at the top of his class from the West Australian School of Art and Design in Fashion and Textiles in 2006 was a keen interest in design and architecture forged at a young age.

Fascinated with the construction of Parisian haute couture garments and the intricate details of skilled patternmaking, Garth took a leap of faith by moving to London in order to intern and work under the helm of designers Marios Schwab and Husam el Odeh.

During his three year stay in the fashion capital, the young designer immersed himself in the European fashion industry by not only training with such skilled creators, but also taking up the opportunity to assist at London Fashion Week, study at the London College of Fashion and attend the Premier Vision Textile Fair in Paris.

Always designing with an iconic figure in mind, the designer puts himself in the shoes of the Garth Cook woman in order to create fresh and unique pieces that are modern and wearable for both day and night.

Garth looks to the design, layout and feel of his favourite cities, New York, Paris, Sydney, London and Perth, to draw endless inspiration for seasons to come.

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Label: Kim Barton

Designer: Kim Barton

Kim Barton launched her eponymous label with understated luxury in mind. Her debut collection for Autumn Winter 2012 showcases the Perth-based label’s signature look of clean tailoring, modern silhouettes and exceptional craftsmanship. 

Thoughtful construction and detailing underpins the sophisticated cool yet casual aesthetic at the core of Kim’s design ethos.

Kim’s Spring Summer 2012/13 collection, Kaleidoscope Dream reflects Kim’s individual style, the collection embraces Miami block colours and vivid multicolour statement prints that compliment her minimalistic design elements of clean, linear silhouettes and subtle tailoring.

Kaleidoscope Dream can be likened to iconic retro trends of the 70’s and 90’s. The focus is definitely on colour. She breaks all the rules by splicing flamingo pinks with bright corals and fierce reds. There is certainly nothing boring about the range!

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Label: Steph Audino

Designer: Steph Audino

In 2010, designer Steph Audino graduated from Challenger Institute of Technology and completed a mini collection for her graduation show where she won the Construction Award for her fine sewing and attention to detail.

Steph was nominated and a finalist in the Small Business Awards 2011, showcased her designs in the Garden Soirée Melbourne Cup parade alongside Perth’s finest designers such as Aurelio Costarella and Ae’lkemi.

Steph Audino’s Spring Summer 2012/13 collection, Seaside Sanctuary, is inspired by the captivating nature found in and around the ocean.

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Label: Empire Rose

Designer: Kathryn Cizeika

Established in 1998, Western Australian cult label Empire Rose has attracted a strong following in Australia and New Zealand. Designer Kathryn Cizeika draws upon her Eastern European heritage as the inspiration for her beautiful capsule collections with her designs merging antiquity and the modern world. 

Theatrical billowing shapes with a touch of the whimsical are testimony to the dramatic inspiration behind the Empire Rose label.

With a focus on volume, texture and playful, romantic detailing, Empire Rose offers high drama for the avant-garde.

The Spring Summer 2012/13 collection brings an explosion of colours - cobalt blue, coral, teal and violet take centre stage amongst a flurry of feathers and sequins, striking digital prints, soft hand dyed ombre silks and French Chantilly lace. This collection is sure to entice the senses with its luxuriant fabrics and striking digital prints.

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Label: Nikki Loueza

Designer: Nikki Hardie

Nikki Loueza is an Australian directional fashion label defined by contemporary designs with an innovative energy that embodies the personal style and spirit of creative directors Nicole Hardie and Isobel Macaulay.

Established in 2010 after recognising a need in the market for a unique and versatile aesthetic with depth and character, Nikki Loueza encourages individual style with wearable clothing that can be layered and interpreted in many different ways, whilst still appealing to women of all ages.

The Summer 2012/13 collection, Black White, is the first collaborative collection from both designers.

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Label: Breathless

Designer: Robin Alexander

Breathless has been in existence for over 11 years, and dynamic duo Helen Rimpas and Robin Alexander are now putting Breathless on the international fashion map reinventing the label to reinvigorate the design presence and focus on quality.

Born and educated in Western Australia, Robin Alexander has been injecting her design talents into the Breathless collections for more than a decade.

 She studied Fashion and Textile Design at Perth’s Central TAFE and, among a number of awards, was selected for the Y2K Collections show at Australian Fashion Week in 1999.

Robin fuses her high-end retail experience with her design knowledge and creativity to design pieces people want to wear, and involves the clever design team and Claremont store retail team in a collaborative process to ensure Breathless always meets the expectations of their dedicated customers.

With the combination of Helen and Robin's individual styles, along with their classic creative minds, Breathless was always going to be a label that radiates class, elegance and sophistication mixed with edginess and individuality.

Based in Perth, Western Australia, the Breathless team designs, manufactures and wholesales its elegant-but-edgy designs across two labels for its Claremont store and retailers throughout Australia and New Zealand.

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ALL ABOUT PERTH FASHION FESTIVAL!
Perth Fashion Festival (PFF) is Western Australia’s largest annual fashion event, showcasing the best of the State’s fashion and creative industry.

Perth Fashion Festival is now in its 14th year having been co-founded in 1999 by Mariella Harvey-Hanrahan, whose unwavering vision has seen Perth Fashion Festival continue to grow each year in size, stature and scope.

The Festival’s continued success has cemented its positioning as WA’s premier fashion event and piqued the interest of additional industry, media and fashion followers through the delivery of engaging and exciting fashion events year in, year out.

Perth Fashion Festival’s mission is to celebrate, nurture and promote all aspects of the WA fashion industry by staging inspirational and innovative fashion events including traditional runway shows as well as an extensive selection of free fashion and fashion-related activities and events held in various locations around Perth.

Perth Fashion Festival has showcased the brilliant, creative and astonishing fashions of many of the State’s internationally recognised designers including Wheels & Dollbaby, Ruth Tarvydas and Morrison. PFF has unearthed some of WA’s most talented designers and exciting fashion labels including Ae’lkemi, Jamie Lee Major, Joveeba, Paper Skye and Breathless.

Models have also become WA’s new found natural resource with PFF being a hunting ground for a number of the world’s most exclusive modelling agencies. Nicole Trunfio, Gemma Ward, Emma Booth, Dempsey Stewart and Jessica Gomes are some of the industry’s most sought after names whose careers were launched at Perth Fashion Festival.

The 2011 Festival attracted an audience of over 47,000 attendees, including national and international celebrities, fashion buyers and media and showcased 166 designers with 120 models hitting the runway. We expect that in 2012 audiences will continue to grow as they have in the past few years.

For the first time in Perth Fashion Festival history, this year three international ambassadors have been appointed. Jean Michel Jarre, French composer, performer and music producer and Marie Choo, a well-known and respected Singaporean fashion and lifestyle writer and socialite will join PFF’s inaugural international ambassador and New York based fashion photographer, Russell James to help put WA designers on the international map.

These international ambassadors are key creative influencers in their domestic market and will support WA’s creative industry and the City of Perth in their home countries.

This year’s Festival will include a diverse range of fashion events that celebrate the best of the Western Australian fashion industry including 30 Days of Restyle, for which PFF has partnered with 10 local bloggers and seven charities to show you how to restyle your wardrobe for less and support
the community at the same time, Fashionably Loud, combining fashion and music with Fremantle based indie-poppers San Cisco performing live at the free event whilst models parade the hottest looks as styled by Zara Bryson, the return of the Designer Capsule shows and the inclusion of an exciting new format for Closing Night which will see the industry’s most respected designers showcasing their interpretation of the classic black dress in a bespoke runway show.

Perth Fashion Festival will take place from 19-25 September 2012.



All Shoes: Betts

All Hats (except red): Reny Kestel Millinery

Red

§  Fenella Peacock: pants

§  Flannel: fringed kimono and fringed dress (worn underneath)

§  One Fell Swoop: dress

§  Sophie Kyron: jewellery

§  Red Hat: The Hat Maker for Michelle Jank

Hot Pink

§  Anna Excell: top, shirt and pants

§  Flannel: feather dress (worn underneath)

§  Sophie Kyron: jewellery

§  Wild Horse: jewellery

Orange

§  Morrison: dress (worn underneath)

§  Garth Cook: sheer dress

Yellow

§  Kim Barton: dress

§  Zhivago: dress (worn underneath)

§  Sewellery: jewellery

§  Martini + Coz: jewellery

Green

§  Morrison: skirt

§  Ange Lang: dress (worn underneath)

§  Sophie Kyron: jewellery

§  Wild Horse: jewellery

Light Blue

§  Poppy Lissiman: top and skirt (both worn underneath)

§  Garth Cook: vest, scarves (worn as skirt)

Aqua Green

§  Ae’lkemi: dress (worn underneath)

§  Fenella Peacock: dress

§  Wild Horses: jacket

§  Sophie Kyron: jewellery

Dark Blue

§  Ae’lkemi: dress

§  Zhivago: jacket

§  Sophie Kyron: jewellery

Lilac

§  Little Gracie: dress

§  Steph Audino: dress (worn underneath)

§  Kitty Grace: Belt

§  Sophie Kyron: jewellery

Dark Purple

§  Butcher and the Crow: dress

§  Sophie Kyron: jewellery

§  Martini + Coz: jewellery