It was just a few weeks ago Saint Augustine Academy‘s founder and designer Alvin Manalo announced the indefinite hiatus of his cult Sydney label, enjoyed by sartorially cognisant guys and girls for nine years. With Saint Augustine Academy’s swan song, the Spring/Summer 2012 Love And Haight collection, Manalo is letting go with a shout not a whimper, enlisting the aid of talented friends to create gorgeous visuals to accompany the campaign.
The collection draws inspiration from Thom Wolfe’s hysterical-realist nonfiction work Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968) which is considered the defining tome of San Francisco’s counter-cultural epicentre, the Haight-Ashbury district – which has been widely credited as the birthplace of the Flower Child. The following short film and campaign imagery is a reflection of this time: stoner psychedelia with a hippie-biker crossover, created from a collaboration between Manalo, acclaimed choreographer Jason Winters, producer Max Horn, burgeoning filmmaker Sam Chiplin and photographer Bryce Yates.
The video feature flame-haired model Tiah Eckhardt and pay homage to the ‘free love’ era of the late Sixties. Alvin says: “they are like our swan song celebrating the label and a gift to everyone who supported us.”
