SRT: the fashion label you need to know
Inspired by the mountains of Peru, a West Ryde designer is making her mark on the fashion world.
High in the Andes of Peru, a mountain striped with a rainbow of colours became the inspiration for a knitwear collection created tens of thousands of kilometres away in West Ryde.
Fashion designer Susan Tovar trekked the colourful Rainbow Mountain in Peru last year and the unique landform became the road map for her first collection.
The 23-year-old founder of label SRT debuted the collection at Vancouver Fashion Week last year and it will also hit the runway at Face Fashion in Melbourne on June 26 and 27.
On the arduous six-hour trek in hot, snowy and windy conditions to the top of Rainbow Mountain, named for the colours formed by its mineral composition, Tovar took photos “of anything that struck inspiration”.
“I’ve never been so exhausted in my life,” she said.
“I wanted to see everything while I went up, so while trekking up I was taking a lot of photos of my surroundings.”
On her return to her West Ryde studio, armed with yarns from Peru, Tovar set to work.
The result was a collection of colourful, asymmetric garments made from mainly alpaca wool, with off the body elements, draping, and movement.
As well as forming the inspiration for her first collection, Peru also was the catalyst for Tovar’s label.
It was on a trip to Peru, where her extended family live, that Tovar spent some time working with her fashion designer aunty and found her dream career.
“After working with her for one day I was hooked on fashion,” she said.
Tovar, who graduated from a fashion design and textiles degree at UTS last year, will soon begin working on her next collection and has big plans for her label’s future.
“For now I’m doing womenswear and I’m showing a bit of menswear, so I definitely want to develop in terms of menswear,” she said.
She hopes to one day join the major fashion shows in Milan, New York, Paris and London and change “the perception of knitwear”.
“I really want to mix around with all the colours, the textures,” she said.
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