Annah Stretton's Stark story

Annah Stretton
Winter 2010 at Air New Zealand Fashion Week
22 September 2009

If I am entirely honest, I wasn’t really looking forward to Annah Stretton. After the whole boar head and dead birds thing, I guess I was expecting something big on shock and low on content, and how very wrong I was.

Annah Stretton’s influence this year was Frieda Stark and the female form, and in a move away from her more signature pieces of draped loose layering, her Winter 2010 show saw tailoring and sexiness become the key words for this collection.

Someone sitting next to me called it ‘sexy nana’ – but in all the right ways! It was certainly a collection for strong, sensual women happy to put themselves out there with a lot of the underwear as outerwear… but it really worked as she kept to her layering feel but with pencil skirts, and corsets, and neat cardigans.

There where pinky tweeds and black and white houndstooth patterns, leopard prints silks and linens. There were stretch satins and lace. And even some soft lambskin. My favourites were the tutus in her signature tulle, in both black and in peach.

She also had a lovely reoccurring detail of three folds in the tailoring on the hip and shoulders of dresses, skirts, jackets and blouses. I also loved the black and white houndstooth jackets, both short, but especially the long version. And I might just have to own one of the beautifully draped fitted dresses.

This was an eye opening collection, that certainly changed my perceptions of the label – beautiful grown up and sexy in all the right measures.

The last models out on the catwalk came down in gold body paint (a la Freida Stark) in a gorgeously sassy and feminine way to finish the show. Brava!



Anya Brighouse
Photos Michael Ng