It’s crystal clear: flounce and freedom fly into fashion

Aje gives its customers what they are going to love, and Bianca Spender takes to the ocean. | WATCH VIDEO

Annie Brown

A model walks the runway during the Aje show. Picture: Getty Images

3 min read

6:49PMMay 14, 2025

Each rock crystal placed atop the seats at the Aje show at Australian Fashion Week, held under the Barangaroo Pier Pavilion in Sydney, had been charged under the full moon ahead of the show. And really, you could tell.

The energy was high, with a collection that paid attention to what the Aje customer wants. Which is, to make a non-exhaustive list, a fair amount of flounce in the form of ruffles, tiered lace dresses, ombre-dipped texture, sheer pleats, a colour palette that ran from rainbow Paddle Pop to floral metallics and denim and leather separates including shorts and oversized denim shirts.

For Aje co-founder and chief executive Adrian Norris and co-founder and creative director Edwina Forrest, the good vibes were intentional. “We were just saying at the end of day there was a narrative, a very strong one, but at the same time we feel more like us than ever. Which is just nice. We just do us,” Forrest says.

“I think it’s nice when you get to that stage in your career when you’re like, ‘You know what? We’re going to do what we do’. People love us, people might not, but I think that in this way of the mixing with the highs and the low, that was very much how we want to see it styled, want to see it worn,” Norris adds.

“Putting it together how a real Australian person would wear it. I think that was our thing.”

A model at the Aje show. Picture: Getty Images

By this, Norris means such things as the way leather pieces were styled with richly textured full skirts and T-shirts on the runway.

There were heavier pieces styled with airier ones, such as jeans with a top that looked like petals pinned together and a fringed yellow maxi skirt with a denim shirt. “We had a lot of the statement pieces, but probably this season we wanted it to feel lighter. Not necessarily ethereal, but a lot of the volume just had a weightlessness to it, which we really loved,” says Forrest.

Returning to fashion week after not showing last year was important to the duo, which now has almost 50 stores. “First and foremost, we really want to support Australian fashion. And I think it’s such an important thing and there are so many businesses and amazing creatives and we just felt it was something that, A, we wanted to do it, and B, it was something that we need to do to support this industry and show the world how good we are,” Norris says. “Australia’s actually got amazing talent, amazing designers.”

This sense of congeniality is shared by Bianca Spender, who showed her collection, Deliquesce – a word from the Latin representing ideas of letting old things that once defined you melt away – on Wednesday. For Spender, who recently let go of the role of general manager at her brand to focus solely on the creative side of the business, it was personal.

She also introduced swim as a category, and was proud to find an Australian maker for it: Spender is one of the few Australian designers to make solely in Australia. “Our swimwear maker was like ‘I’ve never seen swim with so much fabric’, which, I had to laugh, because yes, I had to put some draping into swim to make it me,” Spender says with a laugh.

Shimmering movement at Bianca Spender. Picture: Getty Images

Bianca Spender also introduced swimwear for the first time. Picture: Getty Images

The introduction of swimwear was in part because Spender – an ocean swimmer – wanted to capture the feeling of diving into the water and emerging, renewed.

“I’m a big ocean swimmer. It’s always a source of deep joy and I wanted to, in the clothes, start embodying this feeling of when you plunge into water and there’s this sense of weightlessness and movement and it’s really engulfing. And that was just a beautiful starting point for me, from an emotion and also a starting point from a sense of how things move and feel as they, I suppose, float around you,” she says.

This sense was captured in sheer silk separates and dresses that sort of shimmered and hazed about the body, shirts that billowed as models walked and liquid-like dresses. A colour palette of mostly black and white, with the occasional glisten of soft pink felt like a reset too. The pieces were worn with jewellery from Danish brand Ole Lynggaard, including pieces such as ‘Young Fish claw pendant’ in yellow gold.

Words and meanings at Alix Higgins. Picture: Getty Images

Stripes and patterns at Alix Higgins. Picture: Getty Images

Another highlight of the day was Alix Higgins, who in a few years has created a brand with its own handwriting – quite literally sometimes, with words printed on some of the pieces, and the runway carpet. He also has a loyal fandom, many of them attending the show in his recognisable T-shirts and printed jersey pieces.

AFW continues until Friday with Liandra, Iordanes Spyridon Gogos and Romance Was Born still to show