Fashion Designer Wynn Crawshaw Wants You To Wear Cardigans With Crochet Rosettes And Enveloping Scarves

In an exclusive shoot by leading New Zealand photographer Derek Henderson, Wynn Crawshaw of Wynn Hamlyn’s latest pre-fall collection captures the designer’s irreverent sensibility.

We’ve charted the career trajectory of local fashion designer Wynn Crawshaw of Wynn Hamlyn for the past nine years.

From the brand’s debut collection in 2015 — a hard pivot for the designer after months working as a land surveyor in the coal mines or rural Australia, through to his debut runway show at New Zealand Fashion Week a year later. There was the navigating of business during the pandemic in lockdown through to his Commercial Bay store opening in 2020. But if there was one new piece of information about the designer you probably didn’t know, it’s that he can’t dance.

“I have a strange thing where I just copy other people dancing. I do it with accents too.”

Dance, in all its glorious artistry, has inspired his latest pre-fall 2024 collection which is quintessentially Wynn: contemporary, charming and slightly skew-whiff in both design and personality.

For loyal customers, the designer has covered all bases. They are Sydney “it girls” with their uniform of relaxed blazers and cocoon-shaped denim jeans. They are art groupies who love the brand’s whimsical approach to knitted jumpers. They are girls about town in their wardrobe of body-skimming party dresses.

On an ephemeral level, they are clothes that “intertwine delicate movements, fluid lines and graceful forms, narrating a tale of delicate impermanence” as per the collection notes.

“Every collection lets us explore new ideas of craftsmanship, innovation, and curiosity and I’m particularly interested in how I can explore these ideas from different perspectives,” says the 34-year-old Tāmaki Makaurau-based designer. “This season, I was inspired by fluid lines and movement, which naturally led me to dance.” Featuring a supporting campaign lensed by Josh Bentley and styled by Vogue Australia’s Emma Kalfus.

One stand-out piece is a cardigan festooned with hand-crocheted roses. “The flowers especially are a nostalgic memory from my days at the ballet (circa 1995 as a 5-year-old). My mum would spend late nights working on my and my sister’s costumes. Everything had a sense of homemade-ness to it. The flowers are hand crocheted. They feel like something you might find now at an op shop from someone’s past ballet show.”

It’s one of this season’s more memorable designs, and in a time when designers are playing it safe and delivering clothes they know they can bank on, a conceptual garment like this is what customers of the brand have come to rely upon and love. Another key knitwear item is a sky-blue hand-knit zipper scarf with sleeves that skims the ground or can wrap and envelop the body for a statement-making look.

“I think our customers are after investment pieces — something unique they can’t get anywhere else. They still want items that have that sense of ‘everydayness’, but with that special touch that makes them stand out as wardrobe staples.”

So how are Wynn’s customers dressing in recessionary times?

“We have adapted to the challenges by offering smaller capsule launches, more often,” he says. “We are still working to the traditional wholesale fashion framework, but we’ve had a lot of fun adding injections and smaller pieces around this. It’s been really exciting actually, and it’s allowed us to speak to different segments of our customers and play to our strengths.”

More recently this year the brand, although not on the official Australian Fashion Week schedule, still managed to have a presence, with several show attendees and industry professionals seen wearing Wynn Hamlyn during the week. When it comes to how New Zealand brands can find success in the Australian market, Wynn is one example of a local designer who has managed to navigate the transtasman connection easily with designs that speak to both markets and representation by one of Sydney’s leading sales and PR firms The Known Agency, which also represents New Zealand brands Maggie Marilyn, Meadowlark, Baina, Emma Lewisham and Rory William Docherty in the market.

“Australia’s been a great market for us,” says Wynn. “We’ve been growing our presence here over the past few years, and it feels like our second home now. The Australian customer really gets what Wynn Hamlyn is all about, and I think we bring something unique that’s hard to find elsewhere. We’ve built a fantastic network of stockists and a growing, loyal customer base that has been with us through our journey. We’re always looking for new opportunities over there.”

To document key pieces from the collection, leading New Zealand photographer and Viva contributor Derek Henderson shares these exclusive images of Wynn’s pre-fall collection, photographed by the Waikato River, and modelled by New Zealand model and avid knitter, Bernadette van den Anker, styled by Mikey Ayoubi.

The collection is available to shop and pre-order now from Wynnhamlyn.com.

Dan Ahwa is Viva’s fashion and creative director and a senior premium lifestyle journalist for the New Zealand Herald, specialising in fashion, luxury, arts and culture. He is also an award-winning stylist with more than 17 years of experience, and is a co-author and co-curator of The New Zealand Fashion Museum’s Moana Currents: Dressing Aotearoa Now.

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