Melbourne Fashion Week‘s best bit was the most offbeat of offbeat runways, FashionXUnderground, a logical assignment for our maverick rookie pair, Sophia Matelli and Emma Sinclair. The VoxFrock Rookie Crew’s newest recruits swirled their original POVs and artistic license into their reportage, capturing the crackle and blurr of MFW’s most Melbourne-esque show from its street-style spectacles to its joyfully chaotic front-on-house “runway” performances. Check back later for the VoxFrockers’ last blasts and final reports from MFW 2024.
Words: Sophia Matelli Photographs: Emma Sinclair&Sophia Matelli
Melbourne’s heritage Town Hall is a new world, an escape in the heart of the bustling city. Stiletto-tall models, sprinkled green makeup, linger in hallways in pockets of shadows.
Small crowds gather on the black-and-white checkered foyer, more models gather, draped in glamorous fabric and contrasting caps. Doors open, the main hall welcomes the crowd.
Green lights, live organ music, a centrepiece model in Wilson Jedd Adams couture on a circular runway. On the side, compiled fabric sculptures.
The spectacle begins: a melancholic balcony ballad from showstopping duo The Huxleys and ethereal solo dancer Blu Jay in Remuse designs. A taste of the show’s energy and artistic flow. A “queer utopia”, reads Jedd Adams’ visuals.
Designers including Posture Studios transform the circular runway into a hazy-lit dystopia with hooded pieces, masculine shapes and plaid patterns.
Others flow seamlessly: Hunter GathererXBrotherhood of St. Laurence appear not once, but three times in animated model performances and eclectic styling colourways, like a dream sequence, jumping from one world to the other.
From Karlaidlaw’s striking, subversive pieces, to House of Darwin’s sunny, sporty prints, the show proves what fashion can and should do: express, represent and utilise.
The crowd is once again transported – figuratively and literally – as the show moves to a different section of the hall. The Cat Who Knits make an entrance with movement artist Maggz and knitwear that transcends the hall width and balconies.
As the queens from Brynn costume and Aysha Buffet and her House of Buffet finish their walks in feathers, flowers and sparkles, The Injury models slink through the crowd and into the harsh spotlight in
lace, leather and spiked hair that could cut.
Club Venus closes the show with House of Diesel, a lot of mesh and stripes, and dancers including Chantal Bala proving this is clothing you can seriously move in.
As Fashion X Underground finishes, the energy stays as the crowd spills bacik onto the city streets. The sky is dark, the show may be over, but it has charged the night with an urge to express, no matter the execution.
Meet the VoxFrockers
Sophia Matelli
Emma Sinclair
