was: 26-30 April 2006, Sydney

Over one hundred designers from Australia and Asia Pacific showed their Spring Summer 2006/07 Collections on Mercedes Australian Fashion Week’s runways. Running over five days in Sydney, designers presented their collections in either an Individual, Ready to Wear Group or New Generation Group collection show. Here some designers from Individual Collection Group. All the participants on Australian Fashion Week site.

Akira

Caravana

Aurelio Costarella

Kirrily Johnston

1940 � was born in Tunis, Tunisia.
Studied sculpture in Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Tunis.
Was working as dressmaker’s assistant, dressed private clients.
1957 – moved to Paris, lived in a tiny apartment and paying his rent and bills by babysitting.
1957-65 – part-time design assistant � was working with Christian Dior (for 5 days), Guy Laroche (for 2 seasons), Thierry Mugler (until the late 50’s), dress-maker for private clients.
From 1960 � began designing private works.
1980 – introduced ready-to-wear line in Paris.
1982 – show in New York City.
1985 – Best Designer of the year, named by the French Ministry of Culture.
Opened boutiques in Beverly Hills (1983), Paris (1985), New York (1988).

He says ‘The clothes I make must respect the body.’

Real Alaia success begun in the 1980s, fashion press called him the King of Cling that time. His designs displayed the female body – the bodysuit, the stretch mini, Lycra cycling shorts� Stars as Tina Turner, Raquel Welch, Madonna, Brigitte Nielson, Naomi Campbell and Stephanie Seymour were wearing Alaia�s clothes.

Alaia introduced his first ready-to-wear collection of minimalist clothes in 1980 and continued to work privately for individual customers until the mid-1980s. His collections contained such a material as riveted leather, industrial zippers and fabrics – lace, polymers, silk jersey and tweed.

Sometime in the mid-1990s, Alaia vanished from the fashion scene, although in an August 2000 interview in Harper’s Bazaar, Alaia insists he “never went anywhere”. In 2000, he burst back into the limelight with a new collection.

Alaia is a perfectionist about cut, drape, and construction. His clothes are complex in structure – some garments contain up to 40 individual pieces linked together. His technique of sculpting and draping perhaps comes naturally to him, since he studied sculpture at L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Tunis, but also owes much to Madeleine Vionnet, the great designer of the 1920s.

Alaia shows regularly but nevertheless seems above the whims and vagaries of the fashion world, producing timeless garments, rather than designing new looks from season to season.

Material and some expressions from fashionencyclopedia.

1980s, Alaia�s Green Stirrup Pants
1986, Alaia�s Evening Dress
1993, Alaia�s Black Jersey Dress
Alaia�s Leather Blazer
Alaia�s Navy Blue Mini Dress
Alaia�s dress in Victoria&Albert museum, London