Ken Done and Romance Was Born collaborate for Australian Fashion Week

Romance Was Born fulfil a long-held wish to work with iconic Australian artist Ken Done with their new couture collection.

Artist Ken Done with Romance Was Born designers Anna Plunkett, wearing a dress featuring a Done design, and Luke Sales. Picture: John Feder/The Australian

From the gallery walls to the catwalk, the colourful work of Ken Done will come to life in the latest show from Sydney label Romance Was Born.

Showing on the opening day of Australian Fashion Week, the Done Zone show is a collaboration many years in the wish-making for designers Anna Plunkett and Luke Sales, who initially approached the artist about collaborating on a selection of ready-to-wear pieces, released during the pandemic.

“We’ve always loved Ken’s work and over the years we’ve always wanted to do something one day, but never known if Ken would be into it,” Sales told The Australian.

“I think we were a bit shy,” adds Plunkett.

For Done, who was already aware of pair’s work, it was a no-brainer. “From the first sentence we knew we were talking the same language, understood the same things, like the same attitude to colour, design, and things that made you feel beautiful,” said Done.

“There was no foreplay as far as I was concerned. I just like the inventiveness of (their work) and how they take it even further.

“I use tin plates to mix my paints on. And they’re quite beautiful because I keep essentially the same colour, so they’re going to turn them into hats. So that’s them, that’s the difference.”

The collection off 20 one-off pieces began with Done’s paintings being translated into fabric via digital printing.

Ken Done’s Night Dive II. His Night Dive paintings inspired the dress worn by Amanda Plunkett to promote the Done Zone show.

From there, Plunkett and Sales make their own brand of magic, creating dramatic silhouettes, and using beading and embellishment to turn the pieces into unique works of art.

“At first were going to concentrate on the reef (paintings), but then other things caught our eye,” said Sales. The flowers are awesome, and there’s a rainbow lorikeet dress that’s really cool.”

“You can’t not have the birds,” adds Plunkett. “I don’t think anyone does colour better than Ken. He’s a man of colour.”

Done has touched on fashion throughout his career, from global licensing agreements for his artworks to be reproduced on fashion items, and with designer wife Judy winning the Fashion Industries of Australia Grand Award in 1993 for a series of designs created in his Butterfly Dreams print.

Among their many talents, Plunkett and Sales have created a unique niche, merging art and fashion and elevating once-kitsch Australiana and Australian themes into high fashion.

The Done collaboration follows others with Jenny Kee and Linda Jackson.

The collection will be shown at the Ken Done Gallery in The Rocks, against a backdrop of the paintings that inspired them. “The interesting thing about fashion is when it goes to extremes, where it’s a piece of theatre,” said Done.

Done says it absolutely allows him to see his own work through fresh eyes. The first finished piece that the artist saw before the show was the dress worn by Plunkett for the shoot for The Australian, based on one of his Night Dive paintings, and he conceded that he was close to tears seeing the finished work. “To see (my work) on the piece that Anna’s got on today, the various layers of it, it’s like seeing the painting on multiple levels but still true to the painting itself.”