The gritty countercultural designers taking on the Australian fashion industry
When the future of Australian Fashion Week was thrown into limbo late last year, Alvi Chung, the Sydney-based designer behind Speed, made a decision.
As IMG abandoned the event and the Australian Fashion Council took over, Chung and her partner, cultural strategist Daniel Neeson, came up with the idea for WINGS.
Billed as 'Australia's Inaugural Fashion Festival', WINGS is a direct response to fashion week's slimmed down schedule – a guerrilla, countercultural romp of a show that has set its sights beyond the traditional catwalk.
'With IMG leaving Fashion Week and the AFC taking over, they have expressed that they've gone more wholesale, and we did see a cut in a few conceptual designers that took more risks,' says Chung, who presented her designs at AFW in 2023 and 2024.
'It's a very pointed message to send someone ... that the industry doesn't support you. So we wanted to create a space emerging designers can look forward to,' says Neeson.
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Five designers – Catholic Guilt, Speed, Joteo, Amiss and Jody Just – will present their collections this week at Sydney's Plaza Hotel, in an immersive environment including live music, large-scale installations and performance art across three levels.
Designer Gail Sorronda has been left off the AFW schedule, while TAFE Fashion Design Studio will not show for the first time in 25 years.
Neeson, who spent two decades working in London's music industry, sees the hybrid event as a way to revitalise Sydney's nightlife scene.
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