My first Rosemount Australian Fashion Week experience seems like an absolute age ago. The amount of travelling I've done this year seems to have had the effect of stretching out time – e.g. taking 4 flights in the space of a month seemingly doubles/triples up time rendering 30 days feeling like 90. Sydney is but a distant memory but the designers who showed have not left my mind and it seems like a good time to revisit considering many will have come out with what is known as their autumn/winter 2011 collections in the Southern-Hemisphere, hence for us it's spring summer 2011. Actually seasonality, scheasonality. It's all irrelevant anyway when in one month, you could be experiencing three continent's different temperature and humidity levels and even in your home country, seasons are never predictable. Plus seeing as I've traditionally annoyed my parents with wearing jumpers in the heat of summer and skimpy slip dresses in the winter, I plan on continuing this annoying habit just to prove that I'm not a proper grown-up yet and that I can still go home, be childish and pathetic, and wheedle for a bowl of fresh congee.
I found it pretty extraordinary the effect Dion Lee's last show at the Sydney Opera House had, in terms of how it put Lee's name on the map with Net a Porter now stocking the ink-blot, pleat-filled collection that looked so effervescent in that morning light flooding through the window panes. Following up on that could have been a hard task if Lee was trying desperately to cause another breath-taking stir but given that it's officially an A/W collection which traditionally doesn't get an official show/presentation in Australia, he can afford to continue treading his own familiar ground. This means working on and developing his particular mode of structured tailoring where cut-outs are strategically placed. Lines on a body are drawn through cropped jackets that end as a curve at the midriff or zippers that create triangular reveals on skirts or up the back of a seemingly simple sweater. All of this is fully demonstrated in the lookbook images which purposefully uses three way mirrors to show the ensemble from all angles which satisfies my constant need to look at the back and sides of silhouettes.
This familiar-ground treading for Lee doesn't mean that new elements haven't been introduced though. Corsetry is the physical theme that runs through this collection with ballet and dance acting as subtle background notes that creep into the collection without overrunning it. Fanlacer or basque-like constructions are exposed on shirts, dresses and jackets and corsetry details such as boning and criss-cross lacing arealso worked into pieces without ever over labouring or over stressing the corset motif. Dance and ballet (oh-so-hot-right-now due to Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan but probably an accidental coincidence on Lee's part in this collection…) make baby steps into the collection with hints such as a top constructed out of delicate delicate silk tulle or tulle pleated into panels on a body conscious dress. The references to warm up clothes such as track suit trousers in jersey are also likewise very very discreet. The most recognisably ballet-themed piece is probably the white dress with a tutu skirt that fans out and even then it can be brought under control with Lee's sharply cut jackets. The body flexibility required in ballet is also reinforced with rope twisting its way around a dress as well as a rope print, that refer to trapeze artists, another art form of sculpting shapes with the body.
Without meaning to draw trend structures between films like Black Swan and this collection, I am glad that along with the Ballet Russes exhibition at the V&A (which is apparently contributing to sold out ballet shows in this country), a different side to ballet costuming is being showcased. It's altogether a a more complex facet of ballet costuming that goes beyond a puffball tutu and pieces that are saccharine and loaded with satin and ribbondry. I don't want to pigeonhole the collection into what is a coincidental period of dance/ballet-related cultural events, but I do love it for evoking elements of ballet costuming without over emphasising its influence. Instead, Lee marries up the attainment of bodily perfection in ballet with his own search for body sculpting through his pattern cutting, which makes for a clever nod to the theme at hand.
