Finale by Dyspnea on the runway at Afterpay Australian Fashion Week 2022. Image by Getty Images.
Afterpay Australian Fashion Week (AAFW) 2022 returned to the runway in Sydney last week with over fifty shows from many of Australia’s leading designers and plenty of emerging talent. The event was a colourful showcase of Resort 2023 collections and featured more diversity on the runway that ever previously seen at AAFW.
Things have come a long way in recent years, with well over half this year’s shows featuring models above the usual runway model size of eight-ten, seeing a size sixteen model or above on the runway would have been pretty much unheard of at a fashion week up until the last few seasons. Seeing clothing on lots of different body shapes and sizes makes it that much more realistic of the general population and representation of different body types is so important for all us.
While we haven’t had a New Zealand Fashion Week (NZFW) since 2019 due to the global pandemic, it will be interesting to see if this size diversity is reflected in the next event as there were just a handful of shows that featured plus size models on the runway at NZFW 2019.
In keeping with increased diversity on the runway, this year’s schedule included the Adaptive Clothing Collective show featuring disabled models which is the first show of it’s kind for the event.
This year’s AAFW also saw more focus on indigenous fashion which the event has been working on addressing over the past few years, the Indigenous Fashion Showcase was a highlight of the week with some incredible fashion taking to the runway showcasing different aspects of Aboriginal culture.
Two New Zealand designers were featured at Afterpay Australian Fashion Week this year, with Wynn Hamlyn making the brand’s AAFW debut in a vibrant show underneath Sydney Central Station. While Yu Mei’s chic handbags were featured in ESSE’s elegant debut show at Sydney Opera House’s Bennelong restaurant.
To share some highlights from the AAFW we’ve picked out three looks from every show for you to enjoy browsing below.
Images by Getty Images.