RAFW Innovators: Meet The Next Crop Of Australian Fashion

There’s no better way for a designer to kick off their career than at Rosemount Australian Fashion Week. For burgeoning Aussie labels the most common entry point is the innovators showcase, a fashion week mainstay which boasts unique designs from graduates of TAFE NSW’s Fashion Design Studio. First conceived in 1997 by Fashion Design Studio director Nicholas Huxley, the initiative has since catapulted alumni such as Dion Lee and Akira Isogowa into the Australian fashion mainstream.

This year, the four graduates handpicked by Huxley himself are Charlotte O’Carrigan, Leah Hibbert, Anna Westcott and Emma Mulholland. We’ve featured Mulholland’s wonderfully kitsch collection before but like any good fashion student, each collections is distinctive, ambitious and fresh.

O’Carrigan’s collection follows the imaginative journey of a child and reflects their range of emotions they experience from wild and tempestuous to calm and peaceful. This sense of nostalgia permeates throughout as she uses remnants from the past as well as unique fabrics to conjure collective childhood memories. Inspired by the natural elements of water, ice and smoke, Hibbert’s designs embrace raw beauty through the use of organic construction methods, a natural colour palette and use of raw fibres like silk and wool.

Inspired by the 90s surf culture which ruled her childhood, Mulholland opts for sand and nostalgia in her collection ‘Cruel Summer’. Incongruous though it seems we’ve never seen digital prints, tribal motifs and anthropomorphic accessories look so cohesive. Definitely one to watch. Westcott’s collection is derived from surrealism and plays with the concepts of scale, colour and contrast.

Other Fashion Design Studio alumni include Alex Perry, Lisa Ho, Nicky Zimmermann and Romance Was Born duo Luke Sales and Anna Plunkett.

Words By Carla Efstratiou

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