The Mauritian-Australian Melbourne-based designer’s first solo show at Afterpay Australian Fashion Week was a joyous, noisy, exhilarating ode to everything he stands for – inclusivity, fashionart, free expression – and played out like a triumphant arrival despite his brand’s long and solid history. (Scoll for a teensy sample of the bumper socialmedia harvest after its last light winked out.) Janice Breen Burns writes on the designer behind one of AFW’s most talked about shows. (This story was first published in Creative Victoria Fashionews, your regular drop of local fashion yarns, best events, grants news, business info and lots more. Subscribe here for free.)
“Emerging” is such a deliciously loaded word in fashion right now. “It makes you think, “exciting”,” says Erik Yvon, “It means there’s mystery: “What’s going to come next from this designer? Something aside, something different…”.
Just a few years back, designers dubbed “emerging” were younger than most, the cleverest recent graduates finding their fashion feet. They worked hard to shuck off the tag and finally “emerge” as full blown brands.
Now it’s the new black. “Emerging” is handy fashion lingo for designers such as Erik Yvon who are often seasoned professionals (he graduated from RMIT in 2014 and teaches design there now) but with a fresh, expressive and original aesthetic.
Like Erik, they’re intuitively plugged into the Zeitgeist. They’re experimental and collaborative in their creative practice. Their markets are usually small, niche, but also swelling now consumers – especially Gen Zeds and younger Millennials – are evolving and demanding clothes they can use to reveal and express their individuality.
“It takes so long to be an emerging designer,” Erik laughs, “The first few years after I started my label I was trying to figure out the aesthetic, the vibe, the customer, the silhouette, the fit….”
His brand is infused with that hard-won maturity and confident sense of self. “I’ve grown and changed a lot,” he says, “My aesthetic is developed and true, but I am still called an emerging designer. I like that.”
Erik’s designs are wonderfully witty, beautifully wrought and run the gamut of on-trend silhouettes, from voluminous separates in wild, vividly coloured mixtures of soft/shiny wovens and webby meshes and knits, to skin-skimming bodywear laden with layers of strap-cut or silky fringing to whirr out as the wearer walks.
Erik is also a passionate collaborator; artists, craftspeople, creatives of any discipline that chime aesthetically, politically, spiritually with his own. He says he first caught the collaboration bug during his internship with visionary designers Luke Sales and Anna Plunkett of Romance Was Born. “They were so inspiring, always collaborating, always true to themselves,” Erik says. “I think they’re the best representatives of Australian fashion and without (replicating) what they do, I’ve taken that inspiration on board…”
Erik’s first appearance at Afterpay Australian Fashion Week was in the Next Gen runway last year. His ironically dubbed “Soft Pawn” collection was one of only four selected from a nationwide pool of emerging brands. “We had influencers, industry partners, magazines,” he remembers of the show, “It was streamed live, we got a fantastic opportunity to showcase on Ordre 360 (a business-to-business platform linking brands with retailers). My social media got a lot of traction too…”
That was a mere appetiser. This year, the solo Erik Yvon show was main course, a joyous, noisy parade in the truest sense that filled up fashion week’s formidably long and wide runways and played out like a trigger point in the designer’s career, prompting a standing ovation and a fountain of accolades from fashion press. Social media platforms lit up.
Erik Yvon is a fashion sensation but a circumspect one, with wisdom ready for dishing up back at his side hustle as lecturer in RMIT’s fashion school. “This is what I tell my students,” he says, “That there’s more to just working for the bigger labels. Smaller brands can be more creative. They don’t have to follow the trends and traps of routines. It’s not only about making clothes. It’s about being aware of what’s happening around you, in your community, in the environment, being culturally aware and trying to support and work with other creatives. Take everything on board, and work it all into your brand identity.”
The Erik-Yvon collection can be ordered online, www.erikyvon.com and via Instagram @erik_yvon
