Strolling into the Alix Higgins present at Carriageworks, the venue internet hosting many of the exhibits throughout Australian Vogue week, the power felt totally different than prior days: electrical and youthful. A draped purple velvet cape-gown printed with splotches of coloration and the phrase PRETENSION opened the present, adopted by a mannequin in a sheer sleeveless shell high tucked right into a mini skirt made out of a deconstructed polo shirt. Fashions of all genders whizzed by in reconstructed items that appeared like that they had been pieced collectively in an pressing fury, together with striped polos slashed on the edges, a shirt and skirt made out of myriad white t-shirts. It was precisely the impression Higgins was after. “I launched a pre-collection this yr, which got here out in January; so this [resort] assortment occurred very quick,” he stated after the present. “I needed the method to replicate that pace, the power of operating in direction of one thing, not questioning, not refining an excessive amount of.”
Elsewhere, daring prints combined coloration and textual content in Higgins’s signature model. It occurs to be one of many recognizable graphic design kinds of the day—the phrases positioned in a seemingly haphazard method that’s after all something however. It was particularly efficient on a white tank high with black polka dots, the place the dots have been really Higgins’s personal thumbprints, with the phrases “electrical energy” and “generally” sprinkled above them. Additionally cool: a shell high with expressive swathes of yellow and lilac and the phrase “crush” boldly taking on house throughout the shoulders and a poignant black turtleneck sweater with the phrases “tulips, roses” in purple intarsia on the chest. Although lots of the phrases on the garments appeared to be screaming, there was a melancholy about them. “My work is about poetry and emotion,” the designer stated. “This season I needed to have language that was fairly direct and evocative of a picture, textual content that may have possibly a number of meanings.”
Different standouts included woven separates. A midi-length nylon jacket and matching trousers (worn by an older mannequin and accessorized with a scalloped lace scarf in a approach that felt very pure) and an outsized grey plaid blazer paired with shiny navy slender trousers are silhouettes that Higgins ought to proceed to discover in future seasons. A romantic floral print was, in reality, an iPhone picture of the wallpaper in his rented flat.