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Inspired by the freedom and blind abandonment of the ‘70s and ‘80s, COMMON HOURS was the talk of the city on Thursday night when the fashion house staged its first-ever runway show in Sydney’d Potts Point.
Opting to showcase five days before Australian Fashion Week is officially set to kick off in the city, COMMON HOURS continued its rebellious, nonconformist direction by inviting the industry down a dimly lit alleyway and into a former two-storey former hotel staged with white lining the floors and hand-drawn graffiti-look artwork printed on the walls.
Guests were ushered into rooms, both upstairs and down, before the click of a heel began reverberating throughout the house and the lights dimmed — then became ultra bright — to signal the beginning of the show.
Taking place one day after Chanel’s Californian-themed collection debuted amid palm trees in Los Angeles, COMMON HOURS couldn’t have been more of a hot pink palette cleanser, sending models — the likes of Charlee Fraser and Mana Mackay — down the runway in an A-line dress covered by Tamara de Lempicka’s ‘Portrait of a Man’ artwork and a see-through, skin-tight lace catsuit, respectively.
The skin-baring trend continued throughout with bias-cut dresses and sheer minis before oversized blazers and exaggerated vests created short dresses, reminiscent of stretched versions of Patti Smith’s go-to attire.
Seen on a turtleneck maxi dress was a custom print, developed for the collection by plastering, ripping and layering together a series of vintage 1971 newspapers, to create a word mosaic that nodded to the the trivia and impending doom of the era.
The collection, named AlleyCat, is based on COMMON HOURS’s founder Amber Symond’s memories of the namesake bar owned and operated by her parents during the ’70s and ’80s, similarly found at the time down a back lane with no street lighting in a dingy former hotel. There, the seats were upturned padded garbage bins, the drinks were served up in old chilli jars, and Symonds and her sister watched on as the city’s coolest young people partied the night away.
In ode to the original AlleyCat, following the show, a DJ began playing post-punk, punk and new-wave music as a house party ensued.
Don Julio tequila on ice was served to attendees, followed by margaritas, palomas and tacos, as models from the show, some back in their own clothes and others opting to swap into another’s runway look to wear for the rest of the evening, slowly filtered down the stairs.
