Thea's RAFW Fashion Week Diary: Day Three  May 6, 2010

The weather turned abruptly mid-morning finally giving us an opportunity to start wearing all of those winter coats that we packed. Yayyy!

Sara Phillips / Showroom

I'm always so excited to get to the showroom, to actually feel the pieces that I loved on the runway. Today, I got to play with Sara Phillip's collection and it was way too easy to pick out a trillion pieces for the store.

These shots are from her Spring/Summer lookbook which like her runway show, was also style by Ryan Lobo.

Christopher Esber / Showroom

It was lovely to meet Christopher today and a real honour to see his pieces up close and personal.
A lot of the garments have so much detail in the construction including hand pleating, underwire, hand beading, tulle linings and caged petticoats.

Leather is a huge trend for the season (particularly the leather T-shirt thank you Celine). The only question is how can we carry this look off in our summer? - Does anyone wanna hang out at the ice skating rink as I hear it's totally happening?

Arnsdorf / Showroom

Arnsdorf Runway Show invitation

Designers are not often organized enough to show a collection before the runway show, but not the gorgeous Jade Sarita Arnott of Arnsdorf.

Jade recently moved to New York and not only managed the move to the other side of the world, but is obviously feeling very inspired.

Her three dimensional show invitation gave a little away - entiltled Opticks - it also reveals a digital crystal image which is Jade's first ever print. When I walked in to the room, I was instantly blown away by the incredible rich and interesting colour palette.

I had to touch the pieces immediately and more surprises were revealed with amazing sculptured shapes and hidden dimensions within the fabrics. There is a strong sense of tailoring and my fashion week wish has been granted in giving us more longer lengths.

Phos Phoro / Runway Show

Who is Phos Phoro, I hear you asking?

The designer behind the brand is Spencer Webber who is a graduate from Sydney's Fashion Design Studio and who showed in the famous Four Boys collection show at RAFW in 2008 with Dion Lee and Christopher Esber.
Oh, you see now? It's all falling in to place.

These boys all graduated together and it was obviously a very good year when talking about standard.

The Phos Phoro show today presented a very neat array of well finished and slightly left-of-centre wearable pieces. Largely black, white, navy and red, highlights for me were the tartans and checks with a sheer overlay filter and the pieces in large black & white polka dots, checks and also bold stripes.

These held shades of Comme Des Garcons in styling and thought - they are not necessarily for the " fast fashion girl" but someone who likes interesting, well made clothing.

I also liked the little crumpled hats finished with fresh tri-colour carnations.
For some reason, I kept thinking Lisa Stansfield?

It is always refreshing to see someone design with a vision that is not necessarily trend driven but something that they believe in.

Karla Spetic / Runway

I apologize for the one lonely photo from this show, but it is so hard to get clear shots from the shows.

Karla Spetic is another young, fresh faced Australian designer, simply creating pieces that she can see herself and her friends wearing - and easily.

The collection was super light and summery in yet another macaroon colour palette.

Karla showed a unique and very Australian digital photo print in the form of an outback scene complete with rain tank. My favourite shapes were the loose silk jumpsuit, the slashed shoulder blouse, the trench dress,
the epaulette dress and I liked some of her tucked bodice shapes.

This was definitely not pushing any boundaries ( my favourite is still her edgy AW09) but it is a very pretty collection with a fresh Australian flavour.

I ran in to...

Toni Maticevski is a gorgeous, charming and lovely person.
This is just a fact.

I was so thrilled to run into him, while he's also in town. Like I mentioned yesterday, you can be lucky enough to meet some special, talented people on the fashion week journey.

Dinner @ The Commons

We caught up with Geoffrey J Finch from Antipodium for a late dinner at Darlinghurst hot spot The Commons.
This is clearly Geoffrey's appetizer!

Drinks @ Shady Pines

Afterwards, we walked around the corner to the coolest Sydney bar I've seen in a long time.

With comfort and character and a great crowd, Shady Pines harkens back to indie Sydney and I LOVE it.

[Ed: Their website is pretty awesome too.]

Don't forget that you can catch RAFW video snippets from Grazia - http://grazia.ninemsn.com.au/

There's also great daily show coverage coming from our other favourite mags:
http://www.vogue.com.au/
http://harpersbazaar.com.au/

Thea x

For more fashion week news check out Thea's wrap up of RAFW so far:
Fashion Week Diary: Day One
Fashion Week Diary: Day Two

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