Melbourne Fashion Festival 2017: future stars close festival with a bang
They're the fashion stars of tomorrow and if their technicolour collections are any guide, the future is bright.
From Sarah Schofield's coats and dresses in dazzling fuschia to Tony Lee's electric blue knitwear, the National Graduate Showcase lit up the Royal Exhibition Building on Sunday night, the closing day of the 21st Melbourne Fashion Festival.
The 11 designers who took part in the show were selected as the top students in their class, with many previous participants going on to launch successful labels of their own or gain positions with top fashion houses.
Schofield's love of fashion began on her family's farm at Bannockburn, where, as a teenager, she used to traipse around in work boots and a ball gown.
"Fashion really affects everything," Schofield recently told Fairfax Media. "How you feel, how you move, how you act."
Rochelle Bramich is another graduate designer who had a small-town start, growing up outside of Launceston in Tasmania.
Her designs challenge traditional ideas about street wear by featuring a colour palette of green, grey and pink.
"I have nothing against black or wearing dark colours but it's so easy," she says.
Several of the graduates come from multicultural backgrounds, capping off a festival that consciously celebrated diversity, from the casting of models to the inclusion of dedicated Indonesian and Chinese shows on the schedule.
By Sunday, about 30,000 people had seen a premium runway show at the festival, which has cemented its position as Australia's largest consumer fashion event.
Other highlights included a fake snow storm in Thursday night's show featuring Romance Was Born, and Saturday's indigenous runway.
Over 19 days, more than 200 designers took part in hundreds of events spanning the arts, business and the culture of fashion.
Melissa Singer is Fashion and Lifestyle Editor of The Age and The Sunday Age
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