This look from our Spring 20 Collection was about taking a vintage men’s surf shirt look, and adapting it into something that felt fresh and feminine.

One of the key elements of the look is how print is placed in specific areas on the garment. Doing a placement print on a garment is quite a painstaking process that takes many man hours and lots of attention to detail – you need to get the pattern and fit of the silhouette perfect first, and only then can you place the artwork on it. So the sequencing is important otherwise you make alterations to the garment and the print is somewhere on the body that you don’t want it to be! And then you end up having to start again with both elements.

We talked a lot about the placement of specific motifs from our artwork and how they would flow in different parts of the garment. We started creating an all-over print and then took that artwork and pulled it apart, taking out different elements and placing them along the shirt or skirt to create really beautiful shapes and colours that contours parts of the body. We used the print to define edging of the garment – on cuffs and collars and the like. It gives a more elevated feeling of detail and the garment to me has a bit more depth and soul to it. Maybe a bit more considered and more special – it worked well here as we wanted to have quite a bit of negative space and fresh white base to let the colour breath.

What about the colour combinations? The burnt oranges, golds and chocolate were played around with a lot to get them feeling right. They are tonally similar, but we wanted it to have an overall golden glow, a sunkissed vibe, a burst of colour from our artwork that pings off the silk twill fabric.

The model in this look is Jordan Daniels – she’s a New Zealander and she’s super cool. The look was styled with our jewellery layered up, almost a bit over the top – it’s a sort mash up of surf (think sharks tooth, beads) and hip hop (all heavy gold chains).

View the Runway  or shop the Spring 2020 Collection online.