You always go to emerging designer collection shows with your heart in your mouth: will it feel like the art school graduation show, too clever for its own good? Wearable arts and crafts?
Fortunately Miromoda has figured that this is not what Fashion Week is about and so runs a scrupulous judge-and-jury process to select the designers who show. So today's show of six capsule collections was tight and interesting.
Adrienne Whitewood, this year's winner (and second place getter last year), has nailed a collection which is both intellectual and wearable. Called Te Aho Tapu (the sacred thread), her linen, leather and plaid pieces dug into her Rongowhakaata (East Coast) people's story.
The sweeping maxi skirt, twisted and draped linen pants and wrapped coats echo how early Maori and colonial settlers adapted each others' clothes and styles.
Sharp leather t-shirts are Whitewood's take on the dog-skins, linen and merino mix local flax with introduced wool. She is selling from a website only, but smart retailers should be beating a path to her door to order up large.
