Ruffled Feathers

Fashion week is stressful. I thought I could handle it, I thought I was good with managing my time. But look what's happened. The stress has finally hit. I've sprouted feathers.

CUE feather shoulder pads
Thrifted shirt
Sass & Bide jeans
Thrifted brooch
Yves Saint Lauren Boots

My body went into survival mode and as a result I've grown these black feathers around my shoulders. Naturally, my body would think feathers would fix anything but I didn't even get colourful, sparkly, make you shit rainbows kind of feathers. I mean, if I had those, at least they would accurately reflect and enhance how flamboyantly gay I am. But no, I just get plain ole black.

Now, I know how Natalie Portman felt in Black Swan. Barring the whole being chased by your own shadow, having homoerotic dreams having erotic dreams about Mila Kunis, and stabbing my abdomen with a shard of glass, we are basically having the same psychotic episode. Now I'm a bit afraid to do anything resembling a twirl in case I transform into a full fledging bird.

Provocator hooded dress
ASOS gold cuff
Platform wedge boots from eBay

The problem started when Lola and I were lucky enough to be collectively invited to the Sasha-Rose début collection show, Phoenix Keating's tran-seasonal collection DE-SEX show and Fashion Palette's launch night. What wasn't lucky though, was that all events were half an hour apart from each other, on completely different ends of the city. That's where the stress began. We decided to not even attempt to try and make it to Fashion Palette's launch. They had this 'Spring Chic' theme which did not bode well with our outfits - we'd channelled our inner goths and looked more Hunchback of Notre Dame than Spring Fling queens.

The Sasha-Rose collection began first, held in a shabby-chic converted warehouse space in Chippendale. She showed some really lovely, feminine and versatile pieces, the stand out for me being the pale pink blazer stained with ink patterns. The contrast between the structured fitted jacket and the unpredictability of the ink worked well together.

As soon the show wrapped up, we were the first ones to dash out and flag down a cab to Paddington Uniting Church. Sad to say however, we still missed the Phoenix Keating show which I was incredibly disappointed about. Lady Gaga has performed in his clothes the last time she was in Australia, and could you blame her? Their collection is full of latex, leather and ropes, basically a BDSM wet dream but without the awkward wet bed sheet in the morning. We did manage to catch the designer backstage though and had a chat with the lovely Phoenix himself - can you believed how amazing and established he is at merely age 20? Talk about making me feel inadequate. Hopefully I'll get to see his work in the showroom soon, and that'll make up for all the time spent running around the city trying to find the obscure locations they hold fashion shows!

Backstage at DE-SEX

Shoes by Senso

Man of the hour, Phoenix Keating

Stylist Manuel Spiropoulos

Designer Rosanna de Couvreur and Tom Saint-Cyr

Rosanna's rad grandma

Photographs by Lola Li.