Wynn Hamlyn returned to Australian Fashion Week with a collection of woven textiles and dresses on a slant. He speaks to Madeleine Crutchley about his approach to the runway show and a curious Australian market.
New Zealand brand Wynn Hamlyn returned to the Australian Fashion Week runway this week,
The label showed their curation in a group presentation called The Frontier at the Carriageworks, alongside labels like Paris Georgia, Amy Lawrance and Courtney Zheng.
Approaching the group show as an alternative to the absorbing solo events, designer Wynn Crawshaw explains, allowed the team to focus more closely on the conceptualising and designing of what they truly wanted to deliver for the season.
“The amount of brainpower that it takes means that it’s still focused primarily on the collection that you want to make, rather than producing a collection for the show, which is a trap that I think probably we have been guilty of.”
This drew the designer back to key principles of Wynn Hamlyn’s design.
“It’s still rooted in the craftsmanship and fundamentals of how the garments are made and constructed.”
Wynn knows what it takes to show at Australian Fashion Week – his brand has become a regular attendee. In 2022, a runway display for a collection named Departure Lounge celebrated travel with playful twists on holiday wear (think travel-day puffers and beaded macrame garments). In 2023, a go-karting track venue steered an in-the-works collection towards high-octane motifs and textiles of motorsport (leather jackets, silver hardware and flame-knit sweaters).
But last year, Wynn took a more subdued approach to Australian Fashion Week. While runway processions walked and street-style candids were captured, the designer was working behind the scenes to meet buyers and connect directly with the wider industry (however, the brand maintained a public presence through attendees organically donning their garments too). Wynn says this behind-the-scenes approach in 2024 delivered a much-needed break.
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Advertise with NZME.“Two years in a row was a stretch, we were definitely in disarray after putting on shows like that. The year off was a huge relief.”
The Resort ‘26 collection sets its focus on woven textures, from a coffee-brown sweater that lattices together at its hem to a sky-blue skirt with bursts of unsnarling textile. It’s an intentional feature that invites people to wonder about the garment’s construction.
“We’ll even display it with pieces of it half unravelled or undone because it needs to be really outlined, exactly what we’re doing.”
A hero piece featured in the collection is a tartan miniskirt, woven from a selection of tube-shaped rouleau loops. It’s a meeting of texture and pattern that excites the designer.
“It looks like a fabrication that you’re used to and it gives you that sense of nostalgia. It’s got this effect to it which makes it look kind of cartoonised and almost like it’s made out of playdough strips ... Almost like it’s from Wallace and Gromit.”
The construction of these pieces looks to build on a practice that has become integral to the brand’s identity in recent releases (previous collections have utilised buttons and beads to create distinct floral prints or featured garments half-spun into macrame).
“What we’ve been doing over the last couple of years has been around really reimagining or re-illustrating traditional motifs or aesthetics or things that you recognise in ways that you don’t expect it.”
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Advertise with NZME.When approaching these high-profile runway shows, Wynn says it’s important to ground those viewing it. There are the woven pieces that impress with their painstaking construction and others that speak to the brand’s identity in simpler, more commercially aware ways.
In this collection, more minimal designs include a skewed snap-button knit dress and a sheer draped dress with an asymmetric neckline.
Reliably, it’s a fantastical showing, with a playfulness that stands out among the group. This is an aesthetic preference that Wynn has fought hard to keep with expansion into Australia.
“We’ve sort of resisted the compulsion to change our aesthetic to be suited to the Australian market because I think our foothold or our niche has probably been built around providing something that they feel they don’t have. Rather than going ‘let’s make it a resort brand’ because that’s what there’s thousands of in Australia, [we’re] just sticking to the brand pillars that we were founded on.
“It’s probably only a small percentage of what the Australian market is, but we find that that’s probably a better idea than just sort of like moulding into the status quo.”
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