Emerging Artists Collective (EAC) has cemented itself as a key fixture of the Melbourne Fashion Week program since making its first appearance in 2024. Each year, its presence seeks to push the boundaries of the contemporary fashion runway somewhere new and to highlight the homegrown pioneers at the forefront of Melbourne’s distinct, fashion-forward culture.
This year’s show, titled “Double Take,” continues this tradition, and is another proud and beautiful addition to the hopefully endless pantheon of shows and experiences hosted by EAC founder Kat Stevens. Staged between the stone pillars and varnished wooden floors of the Immigration museum, which has occupied the old customs House since 1996, Double Take’s environmental backdrop is perfectly positioned to echo and accentuate the variety of cultural and ethnic backgrounds of the designers on the runway and also reflect the nature of museums as temples and time capsules of art, preserving periods both contemporary and old.
This temporal contrast has a core thematic presence within the show. It is defined by appearances from designers such as Ineska, whose collection concepts derive from exploring notions of photo editing and contemporary digital culture, juxtaposed with designers such as Leesha Shen and my personal favourite, Misato Yukimoto, whose garments evoke and harken back to more traditional notions of high-fashion couture, albeit with a uniquely modern approach to silhouette and texture.
The show’s frequent use of paired models further highlighted these ideas of contrast, duality and marriage between eras and aesthetics, often venturing into the realm of performance art as these aesthetics interacted and played off one another.
What makes this distinctly Melbourne is that none of these opposing tastes felt in competition. Within this macrocosm exists a symphony of branching and diametrically opposed aesthetics, tastes and sources of inspiration from which the designers draw, yet there is a central unity among attendees and staff, found in a shared motivation to promote and find belonging within Melbourne’s fashion culture. EAC pushes the envelope by being a collective in the truest and purest sense, as the lines between participant and observer are so often blurred, if not dismantled entirely, leaving the audience not merely watching the show but becoming part of it.
