Native Australian flora hung suspended in water along the walls, light moving through the glass onto thirteenth-century stone. Aje walked its Summer 27 collection through that room on 6 October, the last day of Paris Fashion Week.
Adrian Norris and Edwina Forest founded Aje in Sydney. This was their second show on the Paris calendar, a year after the label's debut in the city. They called the collection Unfurled, after the moment a flower first opens.
The venue was the College des Bernardins, a former Cistercian monastery built in the thirteenth century. The artist Vicki Lee filled it with banksia, bottlebrush, grevillea and milk thistle, held in water and lit from within. The composer Ted O'Donnell scored the room. Plant, surface and sound moved together.
The clothes
Forty-three looks crossed the floor. Black and ivory tailoring opened the collection. Lace, leather, satin and knitwear followed, then embellished separates, then a run of gowns in the colours of the flora itself.
Lee's plants came back in the fabric. Banksia and grevillea turned into hyperreal prints and sculptural embellishment, pressed flat into cloth or built back out into three dimensions. The surfaces carried the irregularity of real growth rather than a tidy repeat.
The tension ran between hard and soft. Rugged leather jackets sat over soft lace bloomers. Padded, sharp-shouldered blazers covered sheer slip skirts that moved like water. Structure on one side, transparency on the other, often inside a single look.
A garden is mostly patience. Aje put that patience on a runway and let the clothes take their time opening.
The Splendid EditShow to shelf
Aje tied the runway to its shop. Every look links to named products online, and customers can register interest in the pieces they want. The label then decides which styles enter production and offers early access before general release.
That turns a Paris show into a reading of demand. The art holds, the monastery and the installation and the collaboration all stay intact, and the commercial question runs underneath. The brand learns which silhouettes and colours people reach for before it commits the budget.
Australia in Paris
Aje was not alone this season. Christopher Esber returned to the official calendar the same day, and the Australian Fashion Council backed a showroom of twelve designers earlier in the week. The country arrived in Paris as a group rather than a single name.
Aje's Summer 27 collection, Unfurled, at the College des Bernardins, Paris, 6 October. Courtesy of Fashion PR Firm
Unfurled worked because it stayed specific. Four plants, one room, one idea about a flower opening. The clothes ranged from quiet black tailoring to full botanical colour, and the garden held them together.