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By the time guests climbed the stairs to Elizabeth Bay House on Thursday evening, Nicol & Ford had already transformed one of Sydney’s most austere colonial homes into something brimming with an intimate glamour. For their fifth consecutive Australian Fashion Week runway show, the designers took Australian artist Adrian Feint as their starting point, building on a long-held admiration for his vibrant florals, and creating a beautifully coded love letter to fantasy, performance and queer survival.
“Feint’s colour and form brought a kind of openness and joy,” founders Katie-Louise and Lilian Nicol-Ford told GRAZIA before the show, and you could feel that exuberance ripple through the rooms. Making their way down an ornate staircase, models drifted through the historic house in sculptural pannier gowns, draped chiffon and hand-painted silks, weaving between floral installations by Date Night Studio while the scent of Tsu Lange Yor’s orchid-and-galbanum fragrance, designed especially for the show, lingered in the air.
The clothes themselves masterfully balanced grandeur with eccentricity, bringing together the designers’ passion for art history and forgotten figures of resistance. Natasha Walsh’s extraordinary oil-painted gowns, which were developed through research into Feint’s handwritten patron ledgers at the State Library of NSW, were an especially compelling element. “Bringing [Walsh] into the process introduced a material language that felt entirely new to us,” noted Nicol-Ford. “We learned a great deal through that collaboration, even as it pushed and challenged how we usually work.”
Within Feint, florals not only nodded to Feint’s surrealist botanical fantasies but also took symbols once used to mark persecution in queer history and transformed them into expressions of defiance. With each look circulating the salon, a character of epic poise offered guests a close-up of what could only have been achieved with painstaking artistry and a host of talented collaborators.
Gloriously styled by Miguel Urbina Tan, Murano-glass bags, Julian Dimase’s surreal prosthetics, Phoebe Hyles’ millinery and Tobias Sangkuhl’s metalwork pushed the collection into deliciously theatrical territory. And, as expected, the beauty proved as much a highlight as the clothes, with hair creations by John Pulitano for Original & Mineral, nails by Libby May, and Pinky (Nicole Thompson) for MAC.
In their trusted hands, beauty and camp became something more tender, made palpable by a cast that truly reflected the community Nicol & Ford has nurtured.
“It feels like a lighter chapter for us,” the designers explained, “one that makes space for humour, beauty and resilience alongside the histories that continue to shape the work.”
