Qantas teams up with Australian designer Rebecca Vallance
The airline launches its new Sydney to New York route via Auckland with the help of Australian style setter Rebecca Vallance.
Fifty-five. It’s the number of Sydney-New York return flights Rebecca Vallance estimates she’s taken since launching her fashion label in 2011. “I’ve got wonderful friends there; New York is like a second home for me,” she says. “There’s nothing that you can’t get there, or experience.”
The flight route is now so firmly ingrained in the designer’s annual schedule that she’s mastered the long-haul commute – via Los Angeles – down to the finest details.
From the moment she steps through the door at Sydney’s Kingsford Smith International Airport, Vallance’s pre-flight regimen begins. First up? “A La Prairie facial,” the fashion designer says. “I’m in the trenches at the moment. There are so many things going on.”
The airport beauty treatment is a new addition to her routine, which, thanks to the growing footprint of her label, Rebecca Vallance, in the US, the mum of two has completed three times this year already.
“I’m quite a routine person,” she admits. Her takeoff beverage is champagne, and she only ever gets changed into her pyjamas after the first in-flight meal.
“Then I do all my emails and reading on stuff I need to do, get organised – and sleep – because by the time I land in New York … I have to be really ready to go.”
As organised as she is, the Sydney-based businesswoman is all too aware that international travel doesn’t always run smoothly, especially when you throw acts of God into the mix.
“We had the team in Sicily this week,” she says. “It’s the first campaign shoot I’ve missed in 13 years, and there was a volcanic eruption from Mount Etna and they all got trapped there.” Vallance sighs, then smiles. “It’s been a week.” She’s pragmatic about it, though; a mindset carved from juggling two young children and a business for the best part of a decade.
Her carefully curated flight plan will undergo a major shift next month, when she skips the LAX stopover in favour of Qantas’s new Sydney-New York flights via Auckland, New Zealand.
The new route is a prelude to its non-stop Sydney-New York flights, expected to begin in 2025 as part of its “Project Sunrise”, which will also introduce direct flights from Australia’s east coast to major international cities including New York and London.
To celebrate, the airline is rolling out limited edition “sleeper suits” and amenity kits, while chef Neil Perry – creative director of Qantas’s food and beverage service – has created a bespoke menu inspired by the US city for passengers travelling the new route, which begins on June 14.
Since launching its Peter Morrissey-designed pyjamas in the late ’90s for its first-class passengers, Qantas has made few updates to the now iconic grey design, save for minor tweaks such as waistband adjustments and logo changes to celebrate occasions such as the Olympics and Sydney’s Gay & Lesbian Mardis Gras. The airline later extended sleeper suits to business class passengers, and is one of the world’s only airlines to offer complimentary pyjamas to both classes.
In 2016 Paris-based Martin Grant was recruited to create a unique set for Qantas’s first-class passengers, and now Vallance is the latest Aussie designer to lend her talents to the airline’s sleeper suits.
The limited-edition designs will be offered to business-class passengers flying to New York via the new route on the airline’s Boeing 787 Dreamliners.
Passengers will also receive a matching RV x Qantas amenities kit and eye mask.
With such a strong affinity to the Big Apple and the marathon journey to get there, few designers were better placed to outfit Qantas’s New York-bound business-class passengers, according to Phil Capps, Qantas executive manager of product and service.
New York might be one of the world’s major fashion capitals, but when it comes to the art of long-haul comfort dressing, Aussies have the upper hand.
“Australian designers are so well travelled so when we partner with them, they actually know what’s fundamentally important, from the structure of the suits, how to do hems, how to do necklines, whether or not to do tags,” Capps explains. “They know exactly what we’re trying to do in terms of the customer offering.”
Vallance’s bold approach to business was a factor in the airline’s decision to approach her for the task.
“There’s a huge amount of competition anywhere offshore, so for someone to have the guts to set up such great design credibility offshore it really works well in terms of a brand partnership with Qantas,” Capps said.
From a creative perspective, the collaboration couldn’t have been better timed, according to Vallance.
“We were working on the collection called Avenue Astoria, which was inspired by the Waldorf-Astoria in the 1970s,” she explains, referring to the famed New York City hotel, currently undergoing a billion-dollar renovation.
“Diana Ross, Elizabeth Taylor and all the female icons of the time who would go there were glamorous and fabulous and just extra, and if you look at the colours in the collection, they matched the hotel’s interiors at the time.
“It’s quite ’70s-inspired, quite OTT, there’s a lot of trims. It’s not for the faint-hearted, but it’s actually my favourite collection we’ve done.”
A blue Art Deco-inspired print from the brand’s collection was chosen to feature on the Qantas pyjama tops, behind the airline’s flying kangaroo logo. The design is framed by the words “New York City” and “QF3” and “QF4” flight numbers. Rebecca Vallance fans will be quick to agree that blue marle cotton pyjamas couldn’t be more different to the glamorous, high-fashion dresses and separates the brand has become synonymous with.
But even the most stylish of travellers need to feel comfortable, especially during a 17-hour haul over the Pacific, says Vallance, a firm believer in upholding a certain standard of dress when travelling, especially at the pointy end of the plane.
“I do think it’s nice to be well dressed when you’re flying,” she says. Her failsafe travel look usually involves “a blazer or a fabulous trench coat with a nice cashmere pashmina. I’m often either all neutrals or all black; I like a quiet luxury look”.
When you’re juggling motherhood and an international fashion label with 70 staff on the books, organisation skills are essential.
And, while Vallance clearly has “the eye” for design, there’s no doubt the Ballarat-born creative’s background in fashion publicity and business are key factors in her label’s success.
Australia’s fashion history is littered with talented creatives whose limited knowledge of running a business led to their label’s eventual demise, as well as stories of fashion power duos whose complementary strengths in finance and fashion turned them into sartorial tours de force.
Vallance believes you’re either “born with an eye or you’re not”, but she’s also acutely aware that beautiful design alone can’t sustain a business in the competitive and fickle fashion industry.
“I knew from the beginning what I did know and what I didn’t know, and we hired people to teach me whatever it was I didn’t know at the time,” she says.
“You surround yourself with best practice, and it’s a team approach. If I said I was the one who was doing everything in business, it wouldn’t be truthful.”
Her approach is clearly working. Along with its four Australian boutiques, the brand is stocked in David Jones and international department stores including Saks Fifth Avenue, Galeries Lafayette, Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom.
For Bridget Veals, David Jones general manager of womenswear, footwear & accessories, the brand’s appeal lies in its knack for creating the perfect occasion wear; a category that has boomed for the store in the wake of Covid.
Veals said David Jones had “seen an increase in demand for occasion wear” as customers began attending formal events again, and Vallance’s designs gave customers a “sense of confidence”.
“Vallance has mastered the art of occasion dressing with her timeless approach to design,” she says.
The US is now the brand’s largest market, followed by Australia and the UK, and its designs are not only a hit among regular clientele but regularly spotted on of celebrities, both locally and abroad.
This year the label’s Kate Bow mini dress became a viral hit, with the diamante-encrusted short-sleeved cocktail frock appearing on the likes of Paris Hilton, Kate Beckinsale, Meghan Trainor and One Tree Hill actor Sophia Bush.
“I think having consistency is important, making sure every season there is something that excites (the customer) and being able to have whatever they buy for a really long time,” Vallance says. “My goal is to make women feel the best version of themselves every day.”
When the RV x Qantas partnership is officially announced tomorrow at an intimate lunch at the airline’s Mascot headquarters, Vallance will also unveil two dresses featuring the Waldorf-Astoria-inspired print that adorns the pyjamas and amenity kits. Qantas frequent-flyer members who purchase an item through Qantas marketplace will automatically go into the draw to win one of the frocks, which feature hand-beaded bodices, sunray pleats (which reflect the hotel’s grand pillars) and diamante and velvet belts.
Being asked to design the airline’s pyjamas and amenity kits is, for Vallance, “a dream come true”.
“The first meeting we had together I was pretty much silent the whole time, because I was so overwhelmed and thought it was such a dream come true,” she says. “I thought I was going to cry every time I spoke!”
In terms of proud career moments, it’s up there with her other major highlight; showing on schedule at New York Fashion Week – twice.
It was an incredible high, albeit a fleeting one, considering she couldn’t share the moment with all her loved ones back home. “Afterwards you’re kind of left with the feeling of ‘what am I going to do now?’,” she says. “But with Qantas here in Sydney, you’re doing it with all your friends and family around; the whole team is here and a part of it; it’s the best.”
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