In fashion, an anniversary is worth celebrating

For Albus Lumen, Lee Mathews and Carla Zampatti, hitting a milestone is cause for reflection on the past – and plans for the future. | WATCH VIDEO

Fashion designer Marina Afonina with model Gemma Hamilton wearing black velvet dress with silk pants, UGG art express collaboration with pearls, and freshwater pearl necklace, from her forthcoming show at Australian Fashion Week. Britta Campion / The Australian

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Making it in fashion is no small feat. You need only to see the litany of brands – big and small – that have faltered to know this.

For Marina Afonina, founder of Australian label Albus Lumen, marking 10 years in the industry was a moment she wanted to acknowledge.

This year Afonina – who opened Australian Fashion Week last year – is holding a small-scale, off-schedule and black-tie fashion show, “Amor”, to do just this.

The moment is intended, she says, “to embrace and celebrate the brand”, and also to take it in a slightly new direction.

“It’s more elevated and probably the best of the 10 years. The intention is of more elevated evening wear, we’re doing new details” Afonina tells The Australian ahead of the show. “We collaborated with the hat maker, Jonathan Howard, who has been around for a long time … I just wanted to add special pieces to the collection to take it to another world. It’s going to be a bit of an old world, but in a new way of Albus Lumen.

“Think dolce vita slash Pretty Woman slash Albus Lumen. It’s definitely a massive escape from last year’s show, which had denim and all dishevelled … this year she’s grown up. She’s very sophisticated and I think it’s just a reflection of where I am as well. I turned 45 and I just really wanted to celebrate the brand in a way how I feel.”

Another brand celebrating an anniversary this year is Carla Zampatti. The brand clocks 60 years in the business – four years after the sudden passing of its eponymous founder. Picture: Lucas Dawson for AFC Australian Fashion Week.

Toni Maticevski's tribute to Carla Zampatti during the brand's opening show at AFW.

For Afonina – who says she is getting increased demand for her evening wear and more requests from brides – being willing to change direction, while staying true to her brand, is one way she’s stayed relevant in a fast-changing industry. 

“We always have the signature pieces, but we are always changing because I love to change and give people the sense of surprise,” she says. “You’ll always see signature Albus but in a different interpretation. This year it has more of a couture vibe. Lots of hand-embroidered pieces and just a bit ‘more is more’. It’s more drama this year, more evening, in a more sophisticated way.”

Afonina has noticed that in uncertain times, when people are more judicious in how they spend any discretionary money, they want something special. Her pearl- and crystal-embellished pieces have been a particular success for the brand.

“I feel like people are definitely buying things as an investment and also for special occasions, you see it more and more … I feel like the market is so saturated. (There are) amazing brands that are doing simple tailoring and simple kind of minimalism stuff, which we also have. But I feel like the way we will represent this year will be more a special occasion. That’s why the dress code will be black tie and it’s all part of the set, it all kind of goes well together.”

Staying true to her brand, and herself, is something designer Lee Mathews feels strongly about too. This year marks Mathews’s 25th year in the fashion industry. She started making her recognisably lovely, wearable clothes with a twist around her kitchen table and stringing them on the clothes line following stints as an illustrator and art director at Vogue Australia. The brand has lasted the distance, in part, she says, because she’s always done her own thing.

“I take risks and stay in my own lane. It’s healthy, more people should do it. Stick to what you do, refine it, and let that be your signature. I also think it’s important to stay independent, to write your own rules and shape your brand on your own terms. It gives you the freedom to grow with integrity and keep control over how things evolve,” she says.

Mathews’s show paid tribute to the history of the brand, and the people who have shaped it – from the artists to the makers – with pieces pulled from the archive to look at where it started, and where it’s going.

Fashion Week remains important to Mathews and she’s enthusiastic about the next generation of Australian designers. “A lot of the brands we started out with are gone, but creativity is alive and well in Australia, the new generation of designers are exciting, and they’re pushing the limits,” she says.

Another brand celebrating an anniversary this year is Carla Zampatti. The brand clocks 60 years in the business – four years after the sudden passing of its eponymous founder. For Carla Zampatti chief executive Alex Schuman – Zampatti’s son and eldest child – it was important to celebrate his mother’s influence on the fashion industry as a whole. To open Fashion Week on Monday night Schuman enlisted 14 Australian labels to create a look inspired by Zampatti’s legacy.

A model walks the runway during the Lee Mathews show at Australian Fashion Week. Picture: Getty Images

Designers chosen included Toni Maticevski, Jordan Gogos, of Iordanes Spyridon Gogos, and Anna Plunkett and Luke Sales, of Romance Was Born, who this year celebrate their 20th anniversary.

“Our show recognises that this moment ­belongs to more than just this ­design house,” Schuman says. “It belongs to the extraordinary women we have the privilege to dress, and the amazing designers and creatives that we are honoured to work with.”

As for what happens beyond a milestone, Mathews remains hopeful.

“I look forward to more stability and support for small brands. We need more support, especially in a time of such global uncertainty. But I’m hopeful for our growth, and I’ll continue to stay curious and creative,” she says.

There’s also the real truism, as Afonina notes, that fashion is an industry you work in for the love of it, too. Her show on Thursday will see some of her friends and collaborators participating in the show as an acknowledgment of the happiness fashion has brought her.

“Fashion’s a really tough industry and it’s always hard, but obviously we do it for a reason, that we love it. We love what we are doing and I love what I do and it makes me so excited,” she says.

“Working on this show was particularly liberating. That’s why we called the show ‘love’ – just give yourself some love and give the love to people that have supported and loved the brand and just being apart of it.

“I’m excited this year, I’m excited to celebrate … 10 is such a big mark for me, mentally … We’ve done it, we’ve survived.”