Forget the Met Gala: The designers making clothes you’ll actually wear
All oxygen left the Museum of Contemporary Art when veteran model Valerija Erokhina walked the runway at Australian Fashion Week in a strapless black dress from Esse Studios, as the crowd took a collective breath.
It took the Bee Gees’ classic More Than A Woman playing on the sound system to prompt a cathartic giggle, followed by rapturous applause.
The restrained and razor-sharp dress by designer Charlotte Hicks closed a perfectly calibrated show where emerald fringe, self stripe black suiting, leather that moved and sheer blouses held your gaze for the right reasons.
That group gasp at the finale came from women who could see themselves on the runway, which was almost everyone dressing for their day-to-day lives, through the filter of luxury, rather than those actively attracting the attention of swarming street style photographers lining Circular Quay.
“I’m always thinking of my woman, my customer,” says Hicks, who founded Esse Studios (as in Esse-ntials) in 2019.
“She’s holding the world on her shoulders. I want to give her a moment to transport herself. That’s what keeps me going.”
Rapid transportation came in pieces designed around noticing the woman in the embellished dress or cream tailoring, rather than the label, when she purposefully walks into a room.
If the strapless ivory column gown had been around in 1996, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy may have reconsidered her Narcisco Rodriguez wedding dress to marry John F. Kennedy Jr.
With this show, the quiet luxury of Esse Studios became a roar that the world is ready to hear.
“Well this woman isn’t just Australian,” says Hicks. “She’s global. The great thing about fashion week is the opportunity to amplify things and talk to that woman everywhere.”
Hicks isn’t interested in making her customer wait, showcasing a selection of see now, buy now items that became available the moment the Bee Gees hit their final high note.
The lives of women away from the red carpet has been at the core of this resort season with Byron Bay activewear staple Nagnata pushing their customer further out of the hot yoga studio with tailored shirts, and colour-blocked vegetable dye denim that fit their focus on sustainability.
“Our customer is very vocal and lets us know what she wants,” says Hannah Gibbs, Nagnata co-founder.
“We even brought back our colour block bralettes – one of our first styles – because of demand,” says co-founder Laura May Gibbs. “I ran an Instagram poll that had 90 per cent support. We did more research before relaunching it, but it’s just one of the ways we listen to the Nagnata woman.”
“Our creative process is communication, gut feeling and mindful production,” says Laura May. “This is a business.”
Two hours after the Esse Studios show Hicks was already back to business. For her, that’s part of being a label in Australia, and a woman.
“I’m working with all of my tabs open on the computer and moving between them all,” Hicks says. Now she has the wardrobe for each tab.
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Damien Woolnough is the fashion editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and The AgeConnect via Facebook.