Company of Strangers – New Zealand Fashion Week 2013
Billed as “a fashion stalker’s dream”, we headed underground at the Sofitel hotel, Auckland – to their basement car park for probably the best show of New Zealand Fashion Week so far. We lurked in the dark with the fashion set, sipping the latest rosé wine to be launched, and we knew we were waiting for something that would be pretty good.
The Dunedin based label is one of the most effortlessly cool and exciting New Zealand fashion brands to emerge for quite some time, seducing its cult following with quirky yet complementary collections of high fashion clothing, vintage leather bags and jewellery. Today’s show was no exception.
Like any good contemporary artwork, each piece in a Company of Strangers collection invites the viewer to look deeper, make personal interpretations, and fall in love. This season they presented “Libertine”, we saw flowing chiffon and silk dresses, asymmetrically cut worn with leather leggings or fishnet tights and boots (from Chaos & Harmony). A mixture of light with dark. I can’t repeat what the models were told about the look they should portray on the runway but the girls looked fierce, accentuated by their dark smoky eyes, and strong fearsome walk.
White featured heavily in the first looks out onto the car park runway, a stark contrast to our surroundings. Long and short sleeved flowing layered chiffon and silks; high necks and asymmetric cuts.
A lot of the collection is black on black but the print that really took me was an emerald green leopard print in a wispy chiffon, teamed with a leather biker jacket, it was one edgy cool look. Other favourites included the stunning muted rose and rich plum two tone chiffon dresses; styled with black belts and boots to diffuse any idea of girliness. There was a mix of black, magenta, burgundy it was like being in the dregs of the wine bottle…
The show stopper was mustard pants combo and a mustard long flowing silk parachute style dress with thick black straps. It was a boost of colour in harem pants and a loose cropped jacket over a black leather shell top. The dress was styled with a oversized black leather hat and ankle boots that set the look off perfectly. Think Navajo Indians; expect men on horses to sidle up beside the model and drift to a warmer climate made up of heady days. Or is it all a dark dream?
Print has been a mainstay trend this season. Company of strangers have hit it well with a white on black haphazard zig-zagging print, taking inspiration from Austrian Expressionist Egon Schiele. Featured in a long sleeved waterfall short dress that epitomised the directional thinking of dark yet stylish, edgy, cool but not over worked.
For more images from the show check out the facebook album.
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