Gatecrashers and glamour: The best, worst and the ick of Fashion Week

Glamour has returned to Australian Fashion Week, taking the VIP lane past attention-seeking street style starlets, worthy art projects and commercial box-ticking to bring sparkle, sexiness and saleability back to the runway.

After a palliative period under the ownership of entertainment giant IMG, AFW can finally go back to calling itself the premier showcase of our industry’s creativity, with the Australian Fashion Council having taken decisive control of the event. Australian fashion has a pulse and it’s moving to a disco beat.

On Thursday night, with a runway crammed with modelling talent, including former Victoria’s Secret strutter Taylor Hill, Shanina Shaik, Gemma Ward and local stars Billie Jean and Montana Cox, the ’70s energy of Halston and Studio 54 at the L’Idee Woman show was bold, beautiful and aspirational.

It was enough to bring radio presenter Jackie O out of hiding, but the scandal magnet couldn’t compete with an onslaught of pleated metallic gowns, body-skimming halter-neck dresses and shimmering bodysuits.

This was just one moment in a working week that briefly competed with the runways of Paris at the Toni Maticevski show but was ultimately as Australian as a swimmer gatecrashing the menswear runway at Tamarama Beach.

Best show: Maticevski

Like Ksubi (then known as Tsubi) unleashing 250 rats at AFW in 2001, the Maticevski show on day one will lodge itself in the memory of the front row for years to come. The people who were there will bore their friends about the absolute artistry and couture finish of Toni Maticevski’s work, and hundreds more will pretend that they made the cut for the intimate presentation.

Sculptural forms, including shoulder lines raised above heads, played with the idea of armour, while blush T-shirts with collars at the back, worn over strip skirts, revealed the softness underneath.

For 20 minutes we could have been near the Gare du Nord in Paris instead of within strolling distance of Sydney’s Central Station.

Best collection: Esse Studios

Australia finally has its version of influential New York label The Row, which has defined luxury dressing since being launched by former child stars Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen in 2006.

Designer Charlotte Hicks has never been on television but women who value sigh-inducing fabrics, restrained silhouettes and considered details must tune in to her latest Esse Studios collection immediately.

This is quiet luxury worth shouting about.

The gatecrasher: Commas’ spontaneous swimmer

Sculptures by the Sea founder David Handley accidentally became the first model at the show by resort wear label Commas, performing his pre-swim stretches as the genetically blessed ignored the morning rain on Tuesday.

The contrast between the determined swimmer and the show’s lithe leading men became an unintentional art project attracting international attention.

Handley apologised to Commas founders Richard and Emma Jarman for interrupting the occasion. Millions of dollars of free press, and the fact the Jarmans had captured footage before the official show, made the apology easy to accept.

The ick: Jordan Gogos

Jordan Gogos is an artist who has built a worthy reputation for runway shows that challenge concepts of wearability with creative craftsmanship.

Through his label Iordanes Spyridon Gogos, the occasional fashion designer explored the function and concept of button placement. Before minds drifted to zippers, which made a guest appearance, artist and Museum of Old and New Art curator Kirsha Kaechele was dragged by a Tarzan-like model on the gallery floor.

This was more alarming than the fire alert that interrupted the show, and should have been extinguished at the concept stage.

The depiction of violence against women is never fashionable.

The colour: swampy greens

Drop your emeralds and accept that green has moved from brat to bilge, with swampy shades dominating the runway at Australian Fashion Week.

The khaki-adjacent shade was the highlight of Aje’s runway return to Australia following last year’s off-schedule show at Paris Fashion Week, in a collection that played in safe, if swampy, waters.

Strangest stunt-casting: Christian Kimber

Melbourne designer Christian Kimber delivered his most assured menswear collection yet in a crowded show that had some unexpected models.

Former Home and Away star turned content creator Tammin Sursok appeared in the middle of the menswear show looking as though she’d lost her way to a Portmans outlet sale.

Sursok had perfected the serious model expression but distracted from petrol-coloured suede bomber jackets, deep indigo shirts and trousers and linen safari jackets that will bring a touch of Paros in Greece to Portsea’s polished gentlemen this summer.

The model: Billie Jean

First Nations model Billie Jean Hamlet effortlessly upstaged US headliner Taylor Hill on the runway at the L’Idee Woman show.

While Hill exuded fresh-faced familiarity, Billie Jean brought energy and attitude to the disco-fuelled show in a skintight sequinned halter-neck dress.

That same commitment to showcasing designers’ work was seen on the runway for First Nations label Van Ermel Scherer, Nagnata and Hansen & Gretel.

Having already appeared in Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Marie Claire and fronting nearly 20 Country Road campaigns, Billie Jean is ready for the “super” prefix.

Size queen: Mariam Seddiq

For her most accomplished collection in 11 years, Sydney designer Mariam Seddiq cast models that exuded strength beyond a sample size.

The tension between softness and sculpture demonstrated Seddiq’s experience as a dressmaker who celebrates the female form, but it was the casting that showcased her versatility.

Like US designer Christian Siriano, Seddiq has the rare skill to make all women look beautiful without relying on walking coathangers to sell an unattainable fantasy.

The graduate: Alix Higgins

Fashion week is full of tribes, with the Byron Baes flocking to Nagnata and board members love-bombing Carla Zampatti, but the crowd at Alix Higgins was the height of cool.

For his fifth AFW show, the front row featuring Heartbreak High cast members Gemma Chua-Tran and Will McDonald sold Higgins’ upcycled basics and millennial fortune cookie slogan prints perfectly.

It was an A-plus on and off the runway.

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