30 Wall Street was a private and dark location to host a fashion show. Dion Lee’s collection was the beam of light. Jersey dresses and knit sweaters formed unique designs, weaving across points of the body that exposed the abdomen and the bridge of the chest, in another look revealing the shoulders. Tailored trousers and sleek blazers neighbored lacy corsets. Sensuality warmed the space.
The Australian designer always keeps this top of mind. Well that, and a curiosity for the relationship between construction and textile. Lee explained, “I often do things in a non-decorative way, I was playing with this criteria: the juxtaposition of things that felt quite undone with things that were more decorative. And playing with decoration in a more structural way.” No surprise here, embellishment and structural design are common vocabularies of the label. This season, focal archetypes of the collection included a t-shirt, shirt, jeans, and jacket, creating a classic foundation for experimentation of material and design on the female body. In a safe space, conclusions were found on the runway. Dion Lee shared how ornate details – lace, latex and frayed knit could become pertinent to the function of a garment. Hope and optimism ran with the spirit of exploration.
The pursuit amplifies in the launch of a collection of handbags debuted on the runway. Lee commented the sub-collection is an “introduction of a new category for us, playing with the construction language of the brand, with interesting closures and again, what we can do in a structural way to own brand signatures and make something that feels like a Dion Lee handbag.”
