Somewhere halfway around the globe, where the water goes down the drain backwards, where summer is winter and it’s already tomorrow, a fashion star is being born. Dion Lee, who recently won the 2010 L’Oréal Melbourne Fashion Festival Designer Award and who just showed his fifth collection at Rosemount Australian Fashion Week on May 6, is blazing a path with an aesthetic that is at once wittily streamlined and quirkily minimalist. Quick, name some other Australian fashion stars! OK, sure, there is Collette Dinnigan (airy-fairy confections) and her polar opposite, Sass & Bide (hard-edge, take-no-prisoners denim), but beyond that? Exactly. So there is plenty of room at the top for Lee, whose sure hand and quiet confidence belies his 24 years.
Lee’s new collection may take his audience slightly by surprise. “I’m pushing in a softer direction, still tailored, but what’s new is a draped element. It’s almost like soft sculpture—pleated and built up, classical and modern at the same time. And I’m using some prints too,” he confesses, a departure from his usual black-and-white palette, relieved only by the occasional slashings of bright blue. Though his clothes are currently available in Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, and Dubai, Lee is being careful not to fall into the young designer trap of trying to do too much too soon—he’s building his business slowly and cautiously.
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