A Survey of Australian Archetypes: Dion Lee A/W 2014 |

"Write about what you know" is the main advice aspiring writers receive. Maybe fashion designers should be told the same thing more often: in recent years the search for unique inspirations and the will to prove themselves as knowledgeable in different matters including art, architecture and exotic countries, quite often meant designers came up with incoherent collections. This is certainly not the case with Dion Lee who usually opts to be inspired by what he knows.

Showing for the second season in New York, the Sydney-based designer was inspired in his Autumn/Winter 2014-15 collection by what he defined in a press release as "Australian Archetypes". Leaving behind Bondi Beach culture and Sydney's Opera House, inspirations he tackled in previous collections, Dion Lee moved on to explore a series of wider Australian themes including the landscape, the bush, flora, fauna, and childhood memories.

The opening looks in grey were actually supposed to re-set the collection in the late 18th century and evoke the convicts' work wear at the time when Australia was a penal colony. Squarish jackets with white panels and pin-striped sleeves, asymmetric skirts and geometrical fold-over sleeved coats were included in this first part of the collection that also featured a couple of unconvincing overalls.

Rigidity was briefly left behind with a section comprising angora turtle neck dresses as fluffy as golden wattle flowers matched with pleated skirts. Severe lines and rigid silhouettes soon came back on the runway through Dion Lee's signature body-con dresses that referenced the outback and Australian fauna through crocodile hide – employed in leather jackets or in the panels included in leather dresses – and laminated crocodile dresses/croc prints with red smudges evoking the bright shades of Australian flowers such as the desert pea or the waratah.

The dresses made with narrow strips of snakeskin criss-crossing the body were instead verging more towards the bondage theme than the body-con even though the designer was hinting at pinafores and childhood memories.

Architectural inspirations came back in the evening looks that comprised sheer draped fabrics and tulle over suspended frames in tarnished silver. There were moments of déjà vu in the collection (the crocodile looks were indeed reminiscent of certain designs by Azzedine Alaïa and the opening jacket with white squarish panels looked like a re-edit of a jacket from Ferré's Spring/Summer 1982 collection) while some designs seemed to lack genuine emotions. As a whole, though, Dion Lee coherently developed all the themes and inspirations, something that doesn't happen so often in many other contemporary collections.