MFW has bumped out for another year, the VoxFrockers are heading back to their day-jobs and uni studies and Melbourne’s fashion crowd is already up to their jockeys in Spring Racing reality. Emerging journalist Ru Elliot marked the transition with this note from Closing Runway written in her customary poetic style. Photographers Joy Zhang and VoxFrock Rookie Crew mentor, Theadora Violet captured one of the week’s most evocative runways. Bon appetit. Thank you for supporting fashion’s future journalists and photographers on the VoxFrock Rookie Crew and scroll down one more time to meet Ru, Joy and Theadora.
Words: Ru Elliot Photos: Joy Zhang and Theadora Violet
Guests gushed as they left the first showing of Melbourne Fashion Week‘s Closing Runway: “You’re going to love it…!’. I was intrigued, ticketed for the second.
Inside, Collins 101’s classical columns were lit warm and dim. A harp played. Models ambled, one on towering chopines, in looks by vintage vendor Salon Archive: Westwood, Gaultier, Galliano, resurrected breaths of bygone eras, sleeping beauties awake, and a portent of things to come.
The swelling music of Vivid Strings’ musicians filled the room, as if a grand ball were about to begin.
The show opened with Brotherhood of Saint Lawrence x Hunter Gatherer‘s elegant reinterpretations of classic codes subverted and elevated: woven dresses, spliced vests in up-cycled men’s ties and blazers.
Stuart Walford‘s styling heightened the drama; models with heads wrapped, the middle of the lip painted as if wine stained, shoes that towered.
The models walked slowly. Intoxicating. Especially the work of emerging designer and Whitehouse graduate Baaqiy Ghazali, a sensational series of intricately constructed gowns that seemed to hover and swirl around the models.
Time and again I have seen Baaqiy prove her vision sings. One design in particular, sequinned silver with a cascading peplum of black lace, I felt belonged in an Erté illustration. Another spiralled, dusted with feathers, like a wearable bird nest in the best possible way.
Consignment store Bruce slipped in some luxury vintage looks including from the likes of Rick Owens. Perfect.
Corcorancorin’s pieces sucked the air right out of the room, fashioned from fabrics designer Corin Corcoran had scouted wherever she could get her hands on them.
A chest piece moulded from paperbark was worn with pants fashioned from strips of fabric laced over the gaps, revealing glimpses of leg. Delicious. Another cowl-neck gown cascaded into a kind of distressed fullness.
Most surprising across all the designers’ collections, were their levels of contemporary dishevelment and couture precision in equal measure.
It felt subversive to present archival fashions (so rarely done except in a gallery) surrounded by pieces created with upcycling and slashing of old materials, as if history and the future of design were stalking some sacred space together.
Meet the VoxFrockers
Ru Elliot, journalist
With three years in nightlife and experience in both contemporary and vintage fashion, Ru continues to explore the links between the past and contemporary fashion and the current Zeitgeist. Studying a Bachelor of Design in Fashion and sustainability has brought renewed focus to her personal practice and a reinvigorated eye and mind. Ru’s journalism projects have also featured in publications such as Alice.D magazine and in zines based in Melbourne, London and Paris. She has recently taken up poetry and can be found reading it across Melbourne’s inner north. This is Ru’s third tour on the VoxFrock Rookie Crew.
Theadora Violet, Photographer/Crew mentor
Theadora is a photographer and videographer increasingly in-demand for fashion, commercial event and private client projects. She is a science graduate and studied film animation and photography at Deakin University. Theadora is also a seasoned traveller, equally passionate about photographing fashion as exotic locations and far-off destinations. Her fashion photography is nuanced, narrative-driven and tends to reportage.
Joy Zhang, photographer/journalist
