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Scene-stealer

A quick break from LMFF to admire our racks, freshly stocked. There's Limedrop and Strange & Strange, there's Romance Was Born and Lui Hon... There's High Tea, there's Hua... And there's Ra, the black fuzz, streaking through the final photo.

21.03.2010

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Limedrop for In Visible Ink

The first impression is always a strong one during buying appointments at the Limedrop studio. Their seasonal collections are colourfully cohesive, and communicate playful narratives.

Clea and Nathan develop patterns and motifs to enliven their themes. Typically, they will screenprint their own bold and graphic designs. Recently, Limedrop have begun to explore digital technology as a means to produce a ‘photo-real’ style of print, most notably the beautiful cloud print developed in 2009.

While becoming more common, digital printing remains an expensive option and when used with luxurious fabrics such as pure silks and wools, every thread is precious.

The two neckpieces submitted for In Visible Ink are handmade using saved scraps of Limedrop’s cloud print (in merino wool) and their new ‘ocean spray’ print in silk. The lightness and whimsy of the fabrics inspire these light and whimsical forms.

20.03.2010

Alexi Freeman for In Visible Ink

Before becoming a fashion designer, Alexi Freeman trained and exhibited as a fine artist - primarily a printmaker.

The suite of silk blouses collected for In Visible Ink represent his transition, or the overlap; it was not an abandonment of one skill for the other but a step towards merging interests.

Alexi has since produced five seasonal collections, with his latest (for A/W 10) currently in the final stages of production. The application of striking prints, alternatively bold and delicate, continues to be a distinctive feature of his work.

Often Alexi begins with a single motif, which he then skilfully manipulates – exploring repetition, layering and juxtaposition, variations in scale and variations in colour. His ability to take apart these elements, or build upon them exponentially, results in a set of garments that are cleverly related but nicely varied.

Alexi’s printing methods are diverse, and still include hands-on, immediate techniques such as foil printing and dry point etching. The blouses (on display at Milly Sleeping) are an example of the latter, whereby the organic designs were hand-drawn directly into the printing plate.

19.03.2010

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Urgent agenda

The problem with week-long festivals is that they start, and then they end. Like that.

You might decide to post a report on LMFF Cultural Program events to attend, and you might just spend 1/45th of the festival writing it. And then you might delete it accidentally and spend 5/8ths of the festival trying to find a moment to write it again.

Here is, with 14/45ths of the festival to go, a completely biased, Milly-centric report of things you can still do and see during the next few days:

See an exhibition:

In Visible Ink at Milly Sleeping

On display until March 28.

157 Elgin Street, Carlton

Please join us for a ‘casual closing’ party on Saturday March 27 between 4 and 6pm.