VAMFF IS GO

100-odd sleeps until the first Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival catwalk lights snap on and the thrills are already building..

Photographs: Monty Coles, www.theloupe.org and Lucas Dawson, www.lucasdawson.com
Words: Voxfrock editor, Janice Breen Burns.

IT WAS A BIG ASK. Sixty metres of empty runway, 400-odd A-listers topped by the cream of Melbourne’s fashionocracy, and a promise: “You’re going to love this.” Really? The coolest of uber-cool fashionistocrats are renowned for their deadpan front rows and, anywhere else, Melbourne Fashion Festival CEO Graeme Lewsey‘s promise would hold as much weight as a champagne bubble.

VAMFF CEO Graeme Lewsey, waits to introduce his crucial See. Feel. React campaign.
Photo: Monty Coles

BUT IT HAPPENED. They did love it. The unveiling of a “See. Feel. React.” marketing campaign (see main image) and launch of ticket sales for the new Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival, March 17-23, 2014 was a showstopper that had fashionistocrats dusting off superlatives. “Fabulous…” “Amazing…” “Incredible…” “Beautiful…”.

IN MELBOURNE’S CAVERNOUS, BIG-AS-A-VIRGIN-AIRCRAFT-HANGAR STUDIOS, mist and banks of lights had been cleverly manipulated to sculpt the dark around beams and bars and shadowy flights of stairs for one momentous night. That ominous 60 metre-long runway, flanked either side by 120 metres of front-row fashionistocrats, was defined by a track of spotlights swung high overhead. Renowned stylist, Kate Gaskin and L’Oreal Paris‘s hair and makeup crew headed by Elsa Morgan, Brad Ngata and Caterina di Biase, filled up the shadowy space with a fast-moving five minute fashion show of not-your-average winter 2014 ensembles by not-your-average designers.

Class of winter 2014. The key fashion notes from a 60 metre runway show.
Photo: Lucas Dawson

A FLESHY CREAM WOOL CALF-GRAZER SKIRT AND MATCHED SWING COAT by Christina Exie lead off extravagant offerings in women’s and men’s wear by Dion Lee, Willow, Akira, Camilla Franks, Camilla and Marc, Calibre and Michael Lo Sordo. Most will not be typical of the more wearable clothes scheduled for catwalks in the VAMFF 2014, but for the marketing campaign by the festival’s newly appointed creatives George patterson Y&R, featuring a brace of gob-smacked fashionistocrats, they were precisely right.

Photo: Monty Coles

WHEN SPEECHES WERE DONE AND THE FRONT ROW DISTINTEGRATED INTO THE BUSINESS END OF THE NIGHT, caterer Tommy Collins sent out further fleets of fashionably dressed wait staff toting flutes and cocktails and platters of extraordinary canapes including duck-pate in white chocolate bitelets, dessert “burgers”, prawn jelly in Marie Antoinette glasses, and rose-petal parfaits in tiny bulb dishes with a separate waiter appointed to spray rose scent for every guest.

Photo: Monty Coles

IN MARCH 2014, VAMFF ORGANISORS HOPE SOME OF THAT GLAMOUR WILL RUB OFF on the thousands of punters expected at dozens of shows, workshops, exhibitions, parties and seminars still being locked into its final runway, business and cultural schedules. Last year, almost 380,000 attended free and ticketted events at the festival’s main venue, Peninsula on Central Pier, Docklands and in locations scattered around the city and suburbs and as far as Bendigo. Businesses mustered clients and staff for its sell-out series of VIP and Corporate packages, and the event’s Shop The Runway app, offering mobile click-throughs to any frock or trouser a punter fancied on the catwalks, was a runaway success. This year, according to Mr. Lewsey and VAMFF chairman Laura Anderson, those and more initiatives will be amped up. In partnership with Virgin Australia and other sponsors as well as some muscular digital technologies, they say the event is uniquely placed to expand both its physical and virtual presence in local and international markets. “This is an exciting time for the festival,” says Ms. Anderson.