Presented at the old locomotive hanger bays of inner Sydney’s Redfern, the steel columns elevated Therese Rawsthorne’s ‘The Wanderer’ collection

When designers want to showcase their new collection at an off-site location and from a conventional artificial space, they remain as committed to every decision they have undertaken during the production process of their clothes and to hope that their audiences would also strive to mobilise themselves in attending the venue. Set in the 20th century refurbished train locomotive workshops in Redfern, Sydney that produced carriages and steam engines in Australia’s driving industrial period, Australian designer Therese Rawsthorne not only placed considered attention on her clothes but also the specially printed invitation which attached to it.

Looking swiftly at the printed paper invitation, it was immediately the hallmark of K.W.Doggett, an Australian paper merchant whose quickly arose for their premium quality papers. The rhombus shaped invitation, origami folded that carefully opened beneath its surface revealed another overlapped beige rhombus that centrally detailed her name and descriptions in a subtle white deboss. You couldn’t escape the way the invitation was designed, even if the folded scores travelled diagonally and invisbility into the far distance.

Therese’s own spirit was an intrepid native and the way she took on a visual safari through her American voyage was certainly the continental trigger which felt both tribal and native. There were deep encrusted textures on legged embellishments of meticulous hand-beading and a mixture of relaxed sportswear in blazers that exposed beige bandaged brassieres; fluid ruby red shoulder dresses with sheer crinkling detail; safari shirt blouses worn with high-waist black palazzos and slip-on camisoles adorn with totem patterned embroidery. A metallic silver shoulder dress continues a dynamic continunity whereby the bodice was slashed revealed and the waistline incorporated by Therese with a horizonal skyline. That rampant and melanin pigments scattered across tiered silk ruffles were a crisp cicada and butterfly effects that channelled and swung open the vast expansiveness of how the clothes performed and laced with a cosmic trance. Therese overall collection binded two aspects of which were nonchalant day wear and eveningwear with a non constrictive dresscode – that seemingly is with a bit of sly, coquettishness which for her titled collection, ‘The Wanderer’ has a certain pizzazz to it.