Albus Lumen kicks off Australian Fashion Week
The label excels in the art of quiet luxury but designer Marina Afonina is making noise with the latest collection.
Marina Afonina is fresh from a trip to Paris, and brandishing with it a new-found sense of Gallic resolve. The Albus Lumen creative director plans to bring this fierce energy to the opening show of Australian Fashion Week on May 13, anticipation for which is building.
WISH is sitting with Afonina at Albus Lumen Société, the label’s conceptual haven in vibrant Bondi Beach, to talk expansion, exploration and shrugging off creative expectations ahead of the fashion week show.
“People will be surprised,” she warns. “I’m going rebellious, which is not typical for me. Expect loudness, expect a new energy.”
The former stylist launched Albus Lumen in 2015, initially focusing on minimalist linen designs tailored to suit Australia’s warm climate. “Albus Lumen came from linens,” she says. “We started with linens first and now we’re doing lots of different categories like eveningwear, bridal, menswear and accessories.”
The brand’s roots may be quiet and restrained but the designer suggests the label’s upcoming show will diverge from this pared-back aesthetic.
For resort 2025 Afonina envisions “a woman warrior” with a “wild, brave and fast” energy. The pieces draw on her own globetrotting experiences, reflecting a nomadic spirit with diverse textures and layered looks. “She’s like the nomad who has travelled the world, so it’s very lived in. We are doing lots of different techniques with dyeing, deconstructing and many different textures.”
Sustainability lies at the heart of this latest Albus Lumen collection, with Afonina championing upcycling as a means of breathing fresh life into old materials and archival designs. “I’ve done so many collections which I’m proud of, so let’s reinvent using older fabrics and samples, and bring new life to them,” she says. “There will be lots of archive pieces on the runway but in a different form. So, you’ll see a linen suit but deconstructed and we’ll pull it through different washes.”
Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, Albus Lumen experienced a surge of success following its return to the Australian Fashion Week runway last year. The brand secured partnerships with luxury retailers Le Bon Marché, Neiman Marcus and Moda Operandi, further bolstering its presence in the industry. It also continued to expand its bridal capsule. That said, the unexpected placing into administration in March of luxury e-tailer Matches Fashion, whose then buying director Natalie Kingham discovered Albus Lumen back in 2016 during a trip to Sydney, poses a setback.
Afonina, however, remains resolute, displaying a resilience born of navigating the uncertainties of recent years. “Matches Fashion was a big part of our business, given our longstanding relationship. But in this current climate, it came as no surprise that it came to the end … the online retail industry is definitely not what it used to be,” she says of the retailer’s closure.
The pursuit of individuality is key to Afonina’s creative endeavours. As well as fashion week, she is looking forward to the next instalment of Société Gazette, an art-focused broadsheet published by Albus Lumen. She has also taken on the creative direction of Willow, with pieces bearing her influence already hitting stores.
Despite the inevitable pressures and doubts inherent to the creative process, Afonina presents with a clear determination. “Being a creative person, you tend to doubt yourself all the time. Even opening fashion week, it’s amazing, but you get excited for two seconds and then you think, ‘Oh my god’. But then you just keep going. What are we doing next? It just never stops.”
“It’s kind of like a rebirth,” she says of the show. “It’s a bit bonkers, to be honest. It’s very unconventional. People are going to get scared at 10am.”
This story is from the May issue of WISH.
