Voxfrock Rookie Anastasia McInerney gets up-close-and-personal with rulebreaker label Coreprêt at Melbourne Fashion Week. Photos: Lucas Dawson
Anastasia, 22, is an RMIT Journalism grad who covets fashion magazines with biblical devotion. She’s interested in breaking the notion of fashion as mere frivolity, but admits being “simultaneously distracted by anything pink and fluffy.”
Anastasia McInerney
Coreprêt, the brainchild of sustainably and ethically minded RMIT fashion graduates Nessie Croft and Gabrielle Leavesley, saw its runway debut at Melbourne Fashion Week’s Underground show series in Degraves Street Underpass.
The Melbourne and Perth-based label has revolutionised the personal uniform, providing a cheat sheet for Monday to Friday dressing. Unlike the “prêt” in the label name however, pieces are manufactured to order. What’s more, they’re made, not in virgin fabrics but designer dead stock, upcycled textiles and organic and ethical fabrics.
Seeing red (and navy in a v-neck cable knit over a white shirt, adorned with statement earrings and burnished boots).
If Coreprêt’s previous collections Office Appropriate and Lunchbox are anything to go by, this After Work outing breaks textbook rules, offering unexpected Saturday looks for men and women and toying with ideals of professionalism for office wear. “Fashion does not act independently from the social milieu,” explains designer Gabrielle Leavesley.
Satin, puff-sleeve ball gown, vivid as the Australian Outback.
For a little pre-show delight, Coreprêt’s installation, Signed, Sealed and Delivered, also in the Degraves Street underpass, distorted the classic white shirt with wax and Australian newspaper cuttings of caricatures of political leaders.
Then the runway show spoke to Australian and Scottish influence and workwear of a long distant past, revisioned for the future. Aussie outback met Scottish highlands with Akubras topping houndstooth overcoats, emerald pleated skirts lined with crimson and frilly bibbed shirts adorned with Australian natives (saffron and turmeric-toned eucalyptus and waratah flowers).
A neon orange coat to curb your neutral tendencies- and spark conversation at the water cooler.
Looks were also tricked with cowboy boots from Yesteryear Vintage, sourced by stylist Ella Murphy and adding yet another layer of cross-continental influence from America’s wild west.
While Coreprêt’s designs cleverly played on themes of the past, they also spoke to current political, social and economic climates, all signed, sealed and express-delivered in an environmentally friendly, biodegradable bag, no less!
