What makes a student designer stand out at Melbourne Fashion Week?
Words by Lara Daly
We asked the stylist bringing the anticipated Student Collection Runway to life.
This year’s Melbourne Fashion Week (M/FW) theme, ‘You’re Invited’, celebrates everything that makes the Naarm fashion scene unique: individuality, diverse community and powerful expression.
As an official media partner again for 2024, we’re excited to help you navigate the stacked line-up of talent across the week from October 21 to 27. As always, there’s something for everyone in the program, from runways to art exhibitions, industry talks and free community workshops.
For more fashion news, shoots, articles and features, head to our Fashion section.
Australian stylist and creative producer, Stuart Walford, is practically a Melbourne Fashion Week veteran. With over a decade in the industry working in global fashion capitals like New York, Tokyo and Paris, the born and raised Melburnian is back this year to bring to life the Student Collections Runway and the Refined Edit Runway, plus he’s curated one of the capsule collections outside Melbourne Town Hall.
A large (and rewarding) part of Stuart’s role at MF/W is getting to mentor the cohort of 40 fashion design students from Box Hill Institute, Holmesglen Institute, LCI Melbourne, RMIT School of Fashion and Textiles and Whitehouse Institute of Design Australia. It’s also a challenging process, involving the difficult task of deciding which students will make the cut and be selected to present their collection on the runway. As the person curating such a vast array of talent into one cohesive, spectacular showcase, we figured Stuart would have a good idea of the ones to watch.
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Hi Stuart! As someone who has worked on the global Fashion Week circuit, what makes Melbourne fashion unique?
I think Melbourne Fashion Week is special because of the connection. And not just the connection between the consumer and the designer, but the connection of the creatives that come together to put on the week. That’s the part that always keeps me coming back, it’s this sort of camaraderie and it’s such a community between all of these artists that collectively come together to platform Melbourne fashion.
I think that’s what makes it special, as well as the incredible talent of course. I mean, I think a lot of Australian born artists sometimes go under the radar, because we are constantly looking at these mega cities, but there’s so much craft here that’s sometimes untapped and underscored. So it’s a good time of the year to really put a spotlight on it.
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You’re styling the Student Collection Runway this year, always a major highlight. What’s the mentoring process like?
Yeah, so the process for the student runway always starts with a panel presentation. So that’s myself, a representative from the production team and some people from the Melbourne Council. We’ll go to all of the institutes and meet with all the students putting forward their collection for consideration, and then once we meet, usually like 70 to 100 students, then we review all of their portfolios, and we whittle it down to the 40 successful students. That’s one of my favourite parts but it’s really hard process trying to cull it all down.
This year’s cohort is really impressive. There’s always so much new innovation that’s coming through with the institutes. It’s really exciting to see what the next sort of generation of fashion designers looks like.
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What makes a student designer stand out?
There’s a few criteria that we’re always looking for. The first one would just be we want to see what’s new. I think the student runway is quite a standout in the calendar for a lot of attendees, and a lot of people return year after year for it. So we really want to see what’s new and what’s cutting edge, what sort of new technologies students are using, just to make that show feel fresh and current every single year.
Then, of course, there’s the quality of craftsmanship. We’re really looking for the 40 designers that have an attention to detail that can contribute to the industry once they graduate – so taking a holistic approach, not just putting on a show but thinking about what happens afterwards. Even though we want the show to be big and conceptual and avant-garde, there’s definitely a commercial sensibility that we’re also looking for.
Can you name a few emerging designers you’re excited about at the moment?
I’m a huge fan of Par Moi, I love what Ashiya’s doing – I’m pretty sure she’s making everything herself. I also love Lucinda Babi, she runs out of a studio in Collingwood and is just doing really amazing things. And I keep my eye on what graduates come out of the student show and go on to forge their own businesses. Jedda Bahloo was in student runway a couple years ago, and they’re starting to produce some small scale garments under the label Pocket Money, stocked at Error 404.
To get you ticket to the Student Collection Runway, head here.
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