Breath of fresh air as NT designer shows off couture gowns in CBD

A local designer is showing off her one off couture designs in Darwin’s Smith Street Mall

Fashion designer and Owner of Albertini Adriana Dent makes her dresses from Indigenous prints. She recently opened a pop up store in Darwin CBD. Picture: Keri Megelus

A FASHION designer is showing her one-off couture designs in Darwin’s Smith Street Mall.

Ms Dent is the seamstress behind Albertini, which specialises in garments made from indigenous prints.

She is holding a pop-up store in the CBD this week.

“It has a lot of attention from passers-by, from people who didn’t know about me. I’ve got a decent following from people that I’ve worked with in the past but this was for me to engage with people that didn’t know that I existed,” she said.

Ms Dent has rented the shopfront for a week and said other businesses might follow suit if empty shopfronts weren’t covered in lease signs.

“If we can co-operate in the sense that empty stores can be used by us it will help us grown and hopefully in return will become large enough that we can remain in town,” she said.

“I think the door needs to be opened for little businesses to ... try different things without the ongoing rental expenses.”

Ms Dent has rented the space to coincide with the arrival of the cruise ships.

She’s hoping that by doing so she will engaged with people from outside of Darwin. Her one-off designs can take a week or more to put together.

“There’s an appreciation of the way that I’m displaying the artwork and the detail. They see the detail in it and refer to it as pieces of art,” she said.

Albertini will be in the Mall beside Di Croco until Thursday, 10am to 5.30pm.