Two group shows during Australian Fashion Week are dedicated to showcasing new and emerging talent: the New Gen show, established in 1996 and set for later this week, and the newcomer Frontier show, which featured both new designers and established brands “curated to reflect the breadth of local talent,” in its own words. The show included eight labels: contemporary fashion from Esse, Paris Georgia, and Matin; eveningwear from Common Hours; and the resort 2026 collections of Courtney Zheng, Wynn Hamlyn, and Amy Lawrance. Though each has different levels of experience and expertise, as well as points of view, they are proof of the vastness of Australia’s fashion scene.
Courtney Zheng
Courtney Zheng’s label is only two years old, but the designer’s generational knowledge has quickly positioned her as one of Australia’s new favorites. “My parents own a small atelier in Guanzhou,” she said after her show. “I’ve inherited that team, and it’s just amazing to work with a team who’s worked for my grandparents, then my parents, and now me.” Access to manufacturing is, of course, a wonderful thing for a young designer, but Zheng also has a very strong vision, evident in her opening look: a leather bomber jacket worn with a mermaid denim skirt made from shredded bias-cut panels. Also on offer were sheer mermaid gowns and lots of cool denim separates in a perfect worn-away shade of cement gray. “My previous collection was steeped in Georgian and Victorian references, and this season I just wanted to push myself creatively and strip everything back to its core,” she said. “I wanted to really focus on the structural integrity of the garments, the construction, the fabrication.” Quiet luxury? Absolutely not. She calls it “Brutalist stealth.”
Wynn Hamlyn
Before Wynn Crawshaw founded Wynn Hamlyn in 2015, he was an engineer—a land surveyor, to be exact—so it’s not surprising that he has an experimental approach to fashion based around craft and materiality. “A lot of our work recently has been in hand-looming fabrics,” he said the day before the Frontier show took place. “And in the last few seasons, we’ve been working on reimagining nostalgic prints or things from memories in different formats.” A men’s “BBQ shirt,” as he called it, was made from the fabric usually used in ties (and was worn with a matching tie on the runway), while another was woven in a basket-weave pattern in a kind of plasticky-feel material, leaving some of the edges frayed to highlight the fabric’s artisanal construction. That same kind of undoneness appeared in a men’s cable-knit sweater—he reintroduced menswear this season after taking a break—and on plaid tweed separates. Unfortunately, many of his coolest, most inventive pieces—like a shift dress with a floating waistline or another that was a beaded version of the plaid tweed fabric—did not end up in the tight edit of eight looks that make up each designer’s showcase at the Frontier show; a visit to his showroom is essential in understanding his full offering. It was certainly one of the more inventive collections in Sydney this season.
Amy Lawrance
Last year Melbourne’s Amy Lawrance made her Australian Fashion Week debut as part of the New Gen group show, captivating the audience with hand-sewn dresses that were delicately severe. Lawrence didn’t veer too far from her established aesthetic, but the techniques she experimented with were certainly different this time around. “I was specifically looking at dressmaking ephemera in the first half of the 20th century, so instruction manuals and paper patterns, trying to emulate their materiality,” she said at her showroom. She dunks all the fabric into a pot of boiling water with starch and then hangs it out on the line to dry to achieve her papery textures. Some were folded, evoking Hussein Chalayan’s famous envelope dress. “He’s one of the greats,” Lawrence noted. “It must’ve been in the back of my mind.”
On a couple of dresses, the wrinkled silhouette appeared at first glance to be a kind of floral jacquard—an illusion that felt in tune with her ethos. Other dresses were decorated with folded ruffles and embellishments reminiscent of the kind of absent-minded shapes one creates when noodling around with a random paper scrap. Lawrence still makes all her dresses herself—each can take anywhere from 20 to 30 hours—although she’s also experimenting with different ways to produce more accessible versions. In March of this year, she won Australia’s prestigious National Designer Award, which comes with a $20,000 cash prize and commercial support from David Jones, the country’s iconic luxury department store.
