It’s been a dream month for young Australian designers, who are currently getting funding, awards and Vogue Italia attention left, right and center.
Now, Westfield is also showing the love to the next crop of talent. This week at an intimate presentation at Café Sydney, they announced a partnership that will reward three of our most heralded designers: Dion Lee, Romance Was Born and We Are Handsome.
Each brand will get not only funding for their MBFWA show and floor space in two Westfield Sydney installations running concurrently, but the opportunity to break in an entirely new bespoke retail space. ‘InHabit’ will launch at Victoria’s Westfield Doncaster in August, hosting the respective next-level tailoring, trippy prints and halcyon swimwear of the aforementioned brands. The concept aims to get multiple Australian designers prime real estate in a high-traffic mall for a short-term residency.
“We are pleased to be working with three incredible designers and show our support of Australian talent,” Peter Leslie, Westfield’s Director of Leasing, told the crowd on Monday. “The retail space is changing and we want to embrace the evolution of this industry by providing opportunities that will foster established and emerging Australian talent.
“We are working on other ways to fulfill our program of nurturing and offering guidance to Australian designers later in 2014 to build on our current program of activity.”
Westfield: Not just for last-minute presents and sneaky binges in the food court.
Each designer starred in a short film directed by Hugh Stewart as part of the mutual back-scratching. We’re particularly into Romance Was Born’s, which prominently features Anna Plunkett and Luke Sales’ four-legged company supervisor “Moni” Monaro.
MBFWA kicks off April 6, so watch this space! And by “this space,” we mean Carriageworks.
