Expert Eye: Kate Sylvester

A model wears a creation by Kate Sylvester. Photo / Babiche Martens

Beautiful clothes, a cool backstory and superior styling all add up to the great show that was Kate Sylvester's last night.

Hers was the highlight of Fashion Week so far and it's hard to imagine much bettering this, for the Auckland designer has that rare ability to consistently deliver the whole package.

Some collections pay lip-service to their influences, others lay them on with a trowel, few integrate and advance them as effectively as Sylvester, whose themed shows are always contemporary rather than too literal.

In the past she's been inspired by the Mitfords and the surrealists, this year the jumping off point for her Diamond Dogs show was closer to home - Judith (Black Lips) Baragwanath, a startling feature on the Auckland social scene in the 80s.

This inspiration gave rise to clothing that played with notions of posh to punk, realised in peach-pink petalled georgette dresses and wet-look vinyl macs, in dusky blue silk blouses and cropped khaki military bombers. These were the flip sides of one story.

"As a teenager growing up in Auckland I would scour the Felicity Ferrit gossip column for news of the infamous Black Lips Baragwanath and her café society friends," Sylvester explains.

"I knew she wore black lipstick. I knew she was beautiful. I knew she wore gym slips, trench coats and men's shoes. I knew her posh Remuera friends (the Diamond Dogs) were scandalised by her punk boyfriend. I knew Auckland was scandalised by her full stop. I knew there was no one like her."

The duality of this life, rather than a replica of it, was shown on the runway. Sure the models had black lips and long, mussed-up hair, but the clothes weren't clichéd retreads of another era. They were utterly modern and extremely covetable.

A pale grey coat with lurex thread started the show, it ended with a Chantilly lace bra worn uncovered. In between, the masculine and feminine interplayed, including a silk wrap top worn with skinny stretch pants and jackets and heavy knits thrown across silk tunics.

Military-style khaki suiting for women and narrow-cut menswear were both styled up with delicate lingerie, playing it tough-pretty. Black and pink; zips, chains and gold buttons.

Schoolboy grey shirts for girls and some relaxed grey cotton knit and washed denim.

A long pink silk wrap dress and a fine-knit baby blue V-neck sweater were delicate, while jackets came oversized in charcoal and overcoats had epaulettes.

A key piece was the body-conscious grey dress with black piping sinewing up and around the body and ending in a black-lipped kiss across one breast.

The enthusiastic reception to this show means the story of Baragwanath - who lives on Waiheke, where she's seen in army-style shirts, still with her black lips - is now guaranteed to be part of the folklore of another generation of Auckland's cool, young things.