The Show That’s Poised to Define Australian Fashion Week
The Frontier unfolds
By Kiri Johnston | 7th May 2025There’s a certain energy around this one.
Showing next week at Australian Fashion Week, The Frontier brings together a considered lineup of designers from Australia and New Zealand: Amy Lawrance, Courtney Zheng, Common Hours, Esse Studios, Matin, Paris Georgia, and Wynn Hamlyn in what’s set to be one of the week’s defining moments.
Less spectacle, more substance. These are designers with something to say. Communicating through cut, texture, and restraint. A showcase rooted in precision, process, and presence. It’s thoughtful. Exacting. The kind of fashion that stays with you.
Amy Lawrence
Amy Lawrance opens the presentation with a meditative study in form. Her pieces, crafted in raw silk and sculpted through geometric folding, draw from vintage dressmaking ephemera as both reference and ritual. “It’s been a slow, intentional assembly,” she says. “An ongoing dialogue between history, material, and the discipline of hand-making.” These aren’t garments. They’re heirlooms in motion. There’s something about the way her work holds quiet space that feels particularly resonant right now.
Courtney Zheng
Courtney Zheng takes denim in a new direction. Pared back, sharpened, and deeply personal. “This season is a clean reset,” she explains. “Denim holds personal significance, woven into my family history, so we’ve pushed it further than ever before.” Her version of brutalist stealth feels like an evolution of minimalism with grit. Technical, emotional, and refreshingly unsentimental.
Matin
Matin, marking ten years, returns to its essence. French sensuality meets coastal restraint, filtered through natural fibres and soft tailoring. “Everything is grounded in the ease of Australian living,” says designer Michelle Perrett. It’s relaxed but never careless. Understated elegance with longevity at its core.
Paris Goergia
Paris Georgia, now designing from their London studio, brings a more assertive kind of femininity. “She owns every room,” say founders Paris Mitchell Temple and Georgia Cherrie. “Whether she’s in double denim or a cocktail dress.” There’s strength in the silhouettes but it’s nuanced. Nothing feels forced. It’s bold, refined, and deeply aware of the woman it dresses.
Common Hours
Common Hours leans into quiet rebellion. Distressed mesh, recycled lace, and austere drapery layered with emotional undertones. “There’s tension in every textile,” says creative director Amber Keating. And there is. An elegant friction that pulls you in. These are garments that ask you to pause, to pay attention.
Esse Studios
Esse Studios, under Charlotte Hicks, continues to define a slower and more sculptural kind of minimalism. Edition No.13 is, in her words, a study in quiet strength. Intentional, intelligent, and built to last. In a world that rewards excess, Esse feels like a refusal to play along. And that alone makes it stand out.
Wynn Hamlyn
Wynn Hamlyn marks a decade by folding menswear back into his line-up. Engineered knitwear, sharp tailoring, and graphic tension anchor the collection. “There’s a playful tension in every detail,” says Wynn Crawshaw. It’s the kind of work that’s clever without being cold. Precise, but with pulse.
There’s a shared thread running through The Frontier. Clarity, craftsmanship, and conviction. A collective move away from overproduction and overstatement toward something more deliberate, more refined, more aware of its place in the world.
And as far as I’m concerned, it’s the show most likely to set the tone. Not just for the week ahead, but for what’s next in Australian and New Zealand design. It’s a moment worth paying attention to.
Header: @amychristinalawrance | @esse.studios | @paris__georgia
