It's not easy being the next big thing. Expectations are raised, the bar
is moved irrevocably, unreachably higher, and suddenly you're facing up
to only your junior outing at Australian fashion week and you can feel
the pressure mounting. So what does Michael Lo Sordo - recently awarded
the QANTAS Spirit of Youth Award and one of the annointed New York 5,
chosen to represent Australian fashion design to the New York
headquarters of the CFDA - choose to do? Show off-site in a hip and
of-the-moment yet extremely tiny restaurant in Potts Point, pare
everything back to the bare minimum, and with relatively little fanfare
and no theatrics whatsoever, show what is, ultimately, his best
collection yet.
And that is what this collection is, with it's
striking colour palette that merges fluidly his trademark neutrals with
rough-hewn, almost-matte metallics of silver and sapphire blue with one
striking moment of pillar box red. It is his best because it shows Lo
Sordo's ability to spin something new out of the tried-and-tested
graphic minimalism that is slowly becoming one of the hallmarks of
Australian design. From wunderkind Dion Lee to this year's favourite,
Christopher Esber (and we can ever lump Josh Goot and Kym Ellery in this
category, let's be honest) there is a strictly structured and uptight
vein to our most successful designers. What Lo Sordo does that makes him
stand out is his ability to match design innovation with
professionalism, poise and just enough commercial viability to get the
buyers ticking those order boxes. His clothes straddle that oft-invoked
borderline between visionary and viable, the place where his many fans
the country over will gladly pair a printed mini dress with a classic
tailored coat (like, perhaps, the leather-sleeved number?) or maybe the
tailored black trousers with a printed stripe running defiantly down the
side of one leg, paired with a plain tee shirt and flat sandals. This
is how real people dress, an exciting bit of design here, a touch of
staple style there, and that is what Michael Lo Sordo does so well.
Every piece in his small but perfectly formed collection embodied
exactly what the contemporary mode of dressing entails.
If you
want to get super technical and grass-roots then we can look at just one
garment which embodies this so well. Those pleated kilt dresses,
dotting the collection like bannermen and available in a stunning array
of leather, silk, chiffon, prints and block colours, could be a metaphor
for Lo Sordo's entire oeuvre. Last year at RAFW they were tightly
wound, knife-edge pleats that were so sharp they could have cut you.
This season they have relaxed a little bit. Whether softly gathered from
a white chiffon skirt or graphically defined swinging from the
netball-skirt of a dress (that red number again, we're telling you, what
an impact it made!) or in the peekaboo folds of a bodice that gave the
photographers in the media pit more than an eyeful, they were more
confident, more sure of themselves and definitely, even distinctly more
self-aware. Winning that award places expectations on Lo Sordo's
shoulders of greatness and, yes, those expectations are hard to meet.
But, it seems to also have given Lo Sordo a sense of his own self-worth
as a designer. There was something quite proud about the collection,
with its regal parade of models in their kilt-inspired tunics like some
kind of elegant Greek warrior. And in those pleats we can see how far Lo
Sordo has come in just one single year, and, like some prophet
descrying truth from the oracles, we can get a tantalising glimpse of
how much further he can go.
The pleats have it, and so does Michael Lo Sordo.
All photographs taken by Hannah and I, words by Hannah-Rose Yee and illustration by me.
