If you’re familiar with the work of Teneille Clerke – the visionary behind Tenfingerz Productions – then you’ll know her work turns the fashion scene on it’s head by breaking conventional boundaries and questioning all facets of the fashion industry.
On Sunday evening a bustling crowd of Melbourne’s trendiest northsiders gathered at the Regal Ballroom in Northcote, ready to endure a visual spectacle of glitter, glam and sensual pelvic thrusts.
Perfect Runway was anything but perfect. The production encouraged spectators to disregard conventions of perfection, and instead celebrate imperfection as perfection. Throughout the night there was a strong emphasis on unity and equality, both amongst humanity and within ourselves, in an attempt to shift humanities preoccupation with perfection.
If you were after a typical runway show you would have come to the wrong place. In it’s third year running, Perfect Runway boasts designs from emerging independent Melbourne based fashion labels – the new kids on the block with cosmic style and radical designs.
Runway 1 was a showcase of eccentric, bold, and sensational, ethically produced designs. Featuring local design labels such as Penny Drop, Gun Shy, Lexis and Ocram Si, Cut Throat on the Street, and Fizzy Fingers, Runway 1 blurred the lines of terrific and terrified, chic and kitsch, grunge and glamorous.
The local designers, motivated by ethical fashion, created their collections through humane, sustainable and environmentally conscious practices. Each collection was novel in design, material and presentation. Every garment came to life with a unique and experimental runway performance – illustrating the diversity of performers, artists and their garments.
Emerging Melbourne designer Sophie Cogs kicked off the show with her label GOO LiFE. The streetwear collection was an exotic array of silky fabrics, bold colours and psychedelic prints illustrated by Sebastian Berto. The collection was visually and functionally versatile – boasting reversible jackets , unisex designs, and a mix and match approach.
MC’s Zackari Watt and Kira Puru kept the audience on their feet with witty banter and seemingly spontaneous ballad outbreaks between each theatrical runway performance.
Runway 2 deviated away from local underground streetwear collections and focused on the talents of emerging designers in a showcase of extravagant wearable art. The experimental and innovative designs pushed the boundaries of conventional art and fashion culture.
Runway 2 featured designs from Rose Chong’s Costumiers, LunaSea Creations, Gemma Falconer, and The Alkira Centre. Their concepts were rich in meaning and in material, each design embraced wholesome creativity. Part two of Perfect Runway was just as frivolous and quirky as the first half of the night, from an Elizabethan style costume supposedly created from the menstrual blood of 30 women world wide, to an enchanting and kooky high couture costume created solely from a decades worth of trinkets and scraps of material found on the LunSea studio floor.
A “Miss Perfect” beauty pageant bound together this second half of the night. Presented between the collections of wearable art, “Miss Perfect” was an outlandish comedic mockery of beauty pageants. The extravagant performance ridiculed all aspects of the classic beauty pageant – the judges, the contestants and the talent acts. To tie up the night, quirky pageant hosts Sha Gaze and Gemma Falconer announced the winner of the pageant – everybody. A simple yet satisfactory ending that celebrates and embraces individual glory and imperfections.
Perfect Runway was presented as part of the Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival Cultural Program’s Project Series 2015.
