Australian Fashion Festival closes with Romance Was Born show

Designers Luke Sales and Anna Plunkett with models of their new range that has an Australiana theme. Photo: Arsineh Houspian

The grand surrounds of the National Gallery of Victoria, the elegant contortions of Australian Ballet dancers, the inspiration of the bush and the utterly romantic garments of fashion label, Romance Was Born, were a fitting end to the successful Virgin Australia Fashion Festival – the largest of its kind in the country.

Sydney designers Anna Plunkett and Luke Sales met while studying and their design partnership began simply from a mutual admiration of ideas and blossomed into production with the official launch of the label in 2005, translating their vision of womenswear into quirky pieces full of fun and elegance.

Organisers of VAMFF unanimously chose the brand to showcase their designs in a solo show, as the grand finale of the nine-day festival but it was Sales who had his eyes focussed early and firmly on the granite surrounds of the NGV.

Romance Was Born at the 2015 Melbourne Fashion Festival. Photo: Josh Robenstone

As part of the festival's extensive cultural program – 80 satellite events celebrating the fashion industry – Express yourself: Romance Was Born for Kids, was created as an "NGVforKIDS project", a summer festival for children who are given opportunities to draw and create artworks in rooms at the NGV, which in turn, inspired the designers' new collection.

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The Grand Finale was originally planned to coincide with the closure of the exhibition but the kids-focussed art installation has proved so successful, gallery organisers have extended its run until April 12. 

"The NGV is such a beautiful space and we had the exhibition running as part of VAMFF," he said. "The Bush Magic room [ in which children are encouraged to draw their favourite Australian animal] was the starting point for this collection. It was such an honour to be chosen to close the festival and we felt this was the way to do it."

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A for-profit event with a strong consumer focus, this year's festival saw more than 3000 people a night descend on Central Pier each to witness high production runway events, or take part in myriad parallel events, each of which was geared to support the struggling Australian fashion industry – beset by falling profits and challenges from online international retailers. 

Meanwhile, earlier on Sunday, Australian soul songstress Jessica Mauboy strutted her stuff and belted out two of her hits, Can I get a moment? and Fill me up, accompanied down the runway by former Olympian  Giaan Rooney and Danni Minogue, as part of the Target runway.

Rooney and Minogue both showed collections for Target – the former, unsurprisingly, sportswear, and the latter, a petites range. 

Festival CEO hailed the event as a fitting end to "a fabulous event which celebrates fashion in all its forms. We did it right."