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On day three of Australian Fashion Week, some of the nation’s most visionary designers are leaning into feeling and memory, crafting collections that are not only pleasing to the eye but steeped in personal meaning. From the painterly lyricism of Aje’s Impression to the emotional plunge of Bianca Spender’s Deliquesce, the runway became a stage for catharsis and creativity.
Elsewhere, Alix Higgins followed with a digital-age fever dream: signature texts, acid-washed colour, and bohemian futurism collided in his most grounded yet fantastical offering to date. And in a profound close to AFW Day 3, Denni Francisco’s Ngali returned with The Yawa: Journey Collection, a spiritual meditation on Country, connection and enduring storytelling, rendered in expressive prints and luxurious silhouettes.
For the full show dispatches from on the ground of day three at AFW, read on.
Aje
At the newly opened Pier Pavilion in Barangaroo, where the crisp waterside breeze met the soft light of an Autumn morning, Aje unveiled Impression—a transcendent Resort ’26 collection that fused art, nature, and joy. Inspired by the atmospheric tenderness of the Impressionist movement, creative director Edwina Forest described the show as “a collection that captures not just how something looks, but how it feels.”
With its towering beams and expansive views, the location made for the perfect host. “The architecture and surrounding environment become part of the narrative,” said Forest, reflecting on the synergy between the space and collection.
Beyond the setting, there was a dreamlike quality to the entire presentation. Silhouettes drifted down the runway like brushstrokes on canvas—sculptural yet fluid in a harmonious balance. “There’s something so powerful in the softness of those brushstrokes,” Forest noted. “We wanted to bring that same poetic sensibility into the collection.”
Indeed, Impression read as a reverie in motion. Watercolour pastels, evocative of Monet’s palette, met bursts of magenta and sunshine yellow, inspired by Australia’s natural light and landscapes. Pearlescent and gilded embellishments shimmered like light across water while raw-edged crochet, hammered metal and braided leather grounded the lightness of sheer and ruffled fabrics with an earthiness.
“When we’re designing for the runway, there’s this beautiful opportunity to push the boundaries,” said Adrian Norris, co-founder of Aje. “It’s about refining the artistry without losing the spirit.” This vision played out in undulating hems, lace-layered denim and tailoring softened by sun-faded prints. Ultimately, Resort ’26 was a sensorial journey celebrating fashion’s power to leave a lasting impression.
Alix Higgins
Alix Higgins returned to AFW with The Needle, a collection that fused the handcrafted with the designer’s hyper-digital vision, reframing bohemia with a redefined aesthetic. “The initial starting point, and challenge, was to do something folk,” Higgins explains to GRAZIA. “Something bohemian, raw, handcrafted—all things I am not immediately drawn to… and then to bring that into my future-facing lens.”
The result? A collection that revels in contradiction. Acidic, pixel-pushed colours meet soft, flowing silhouettes; folkloric inspiration collides with digital distortion. The set—a digitally scanned and recoloured heirloom carpet emblazoned with poetry and glowing text—served as both literal and figurative foundation, anchoring the collection in memory and mutation. “This piece is set to frame the collection’s muse—a free spirit, a sense of the bohemian, a collector,” he adds.
Inspired by artists like Florence Welch and the dreamlike tableaux of Baron de Meyer, the show reinterpreted nostalgia with a refined appreciation. Face-painting motifs, children’s dress-up, and theatrical silhouettes evoked a world of play, while the collection remained very much of this world. “It’s the beauty of fashion for me—how to create a fantasy grounded in people, in reality,” Higgins said.
While ethereal showpieces caught the eye, much of the collection was surprisingly wearable while still rooted in Higgins’ signature whimsy, evincing a clarity of vision and purpose far beyond the designer’s years. “I designed every garment in this collection with a clear relationship to my friends, muses, and creative community,” he noted before the show reveal.
Navigating a delicate tension between fantasy and function, memory and innovation, is a tricky balance, but one that Higgins has mastered with The Needle, which proved a resonant evolution in Higgins’ unfolding career.
Ngali
Returning to the runway at AFW 2025, Ngali delivered The Yawa: Journey Collection—a continuation of founder Denni Francisco’s quietly powerful vision. A proud Wiradjuri woman and one of Australia’s most influential Indigenous designers, Francisco presented a deeply personal narrative grounded in First Nations storytelling, artistry and the rhythms of Country.
“With The Yawa: Journey Collection, we continue our mission to celebrate the strength and beauty of Indigenous storytelling through wearable art,” said Francisco. “It’s about walking in unity, being seen, and sharing stories that transcend time through fabric and form.”
True to Ngali’s signature, the collection offered an effortless sophistication—luxurious silhouettes defined by fluidity, expressive prints, and a slow-fashion sensibility. The palette was drawn from the land itself: ochre earth, rust-touched skies, shadowy water. Every hue honoured place; every garment felt like a breath of Country.
Overseeing the journey was Bunjil—the wedge-tailed eagle and creator—whose watchful presence carried spiritual weight. Photographic works by Francisco herself were interwoven with translated First Nations artworks, forming a cohesive vision that charted individual and collective paths across landscape and time.
“This collection… speaks to the paths we walk… and the spirit of guidance we receive from our ancestors and the land,” she shared. As ever, Ngali defied trends in favour of timelessness and an unwavering ethos. The Yawa: Journey Collection was not only fashion, but memory, ceremony, and connection—worn with meaning, and made to last.
Bianca Spender
At AFW 2025, Bianca Spender offered a deeply personal meditation on release. Titled Deliquesce, the collection revealed itself like a plunge into deep water—an invitation to let go, to surrender to the current. “As we moved into 2025, I was thinking a lot about the idea of letting go… For me, I associate this sense of abandon with the feeling of plunging into water feet first,” said Spender.
The silhouettes spoke in soft, sculptural drapes and asymmetric lines, echoing the ebb and flow of the tide’s whim. “The Deliquesce collection explores this [moment] before the release… how your clothes would fill and billow and how the rush of the current would grasp and let go,” she explained. The result was a magnetic presence of iridescent chiffon and silk flickering as models walked; raw, crinkled textures and voluminous shapes and ethereal draping.
Held off-site for the first time at St Barnabas’ majestically designed church, the runway dissolved boundaries, curving around guests in a fluid, immersive arrangement. “We wanted to erase the edges, echoing the sense of rolling fluidity in an underwater world,” Spender shared. The soundtrack—a swelling tide curated by Gary Sinclair—pulled the audience into this world.
A debut swimwear line also marked a new chapter, styled alone and with Spender’s tailoring. The palette shifted from black and blush to earthy fawn and olive, ending in a glimmer of liquid champagne and delicate polka dots.
Deliquesce was a quiet catharsis—sculptural, emotional, and ineffably weightless.
