Model on the runway at Jojo Ross NZFW 2019. Image by Getty Images.
Jojo Ross kicked off the first runway show for day two of NZ Fashion Week 2019. Her collection is called “Club Silencio” and is inspired by the David Lynch masterpiece film Mulholland Drive. Film critics alike are divided about what the film actually means and in typical Lynch style has a meandering quality that goes from noir-esque and slick to plain terrifying the next. The Club Silencio sequence has an 80’s feel to it that is the the defining narrative winding its way thorough the entire collection.
With 80’s power dressing, and Ross’s signature use of zips, tight tailoring and high necklines, everything has a concise feel to it. There is no “excess” in the silhouettes – pencil skirts, neat A line mini skirts, tapered ankle brushing pants and jackets with tight waists and hip lengths. Even the floaty dresses and skirts in trippy acid yellows with a flared hemlines and shoulder detail are restrained.
The fabrics are what skew the collection and take it off with a surreal twist. Ross calls it a “visual assault and a deep dive into the strange and surreal”. With metallic purple, jade and silver – and a eye popping acid yellow, jade and pink pattern, there is plenty to grab the eye.
Ross’s first love was more of a conceptual approach to fashion, with her being featured in Vogue Italia’s top 100 designers to watch. In 2014 she was selected as one of the world’s top 100 emerging designers by Not Just A Label to show her work in Italy. She has been producing ready to wear collections since 2016 with her collections taking cues from her conceptual work. My favourite piece of her conceptual work was part of “Underground” NZFW 2014 – a shift dress with water running through it (which had incidentally broken earlier that day but in typical fashion Ross had repaired it and was on hand while people walked through the installation looking calm and effortless as always).
Ross seems to always take that feeling of effortless-ness into her collections, but you would be mistaken if you thought the simplicity of what she does is just that, simplicity. “Club Silencio” is clever, slick and concise. With a damned good helping of the surreal for good measure.
Beauty Notes
The makeup look for JoJo Ross was created by Kristin Stewart from Kristin Stewart School Of Makeup. The models wore a fierce face of 80’s inspired makeup comprised of a pigmented purple smoky eye with a blue eyeliner and a bright yellow contour around the eye, finished with a nude lip. The key products were the M.A.C paint stick palette and lots of loose pigments.
The hair was created by Phillippa Hofman from Colleen. The hair look complimented the 80’s inspired vibe with a strong juxtaposition between big, fluffy and bouncy curls at the back and sleeked back and smooth at the front. The inspiration, Phillippa says came from the movie Mulholland drive with a nod to the classic mullet. (Beauty Notes by Nina Franklin).
Images by Getty Images.