Opening Night Runway: Melbourne Fashion Festival 2025

MFF 25 OPENING NIGHT PREMIUM RUNWAY

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Few fashion events in Melbourne come to the scale of Melbourne Fashion Festival. Although the year boasts several prestigious events, it somewhat lacks the remarkable diversity and size of the Melbourne Fashion Festival.

This year in particular had 15 consecutive days of fashion events ranging from student showcases to talks and meeting on the fashion industry of Australia. But today we are going to be discussing the first day of the Premium Runways held at the grandest of venues,The Royal Exhibition Building.

These runways generally hallmark the final week of the festival and will usually create the largest buzz, Building the hype and excitement throughout the final 6 days, towards the closing of the festival on the Saturday.

Being the opening event, the vibe in the main hall of the exhibition building was electric, it really felt like the whole city had turned out for the show. Myself, standing in the photographers pit, I had the unique opportunity and perspective to soak in the whole atmosphere. Nothing compares to the adrenaline rush you get pre-runway, its a feeling like no other and one of the reasons why I will always enjoy covering these events!

GAIL SORRONDA

We started the night with the first designer Gail Sorronda kickstarting the runway. With Signer (Sarah Blasko) performing with the opening collection.

The collection featured pieces such as the Night Garden Cap and fairy bird dress.

A conservative, bold and dynamic collection of outfits that complimented the opening of the event. By this stage you could feel the energy in both the runway models and the onlookers with the first designer pieces gracing the timber floors of the catwalk.

BIANA SPENDERS

Bianca Splender Premium Runway Opening Night Melbourne Fashion Festival 2025

Next, was Bianca Spenders Autumn 25 collection. With whites and blues as the colours of choice for the runway, in harmony with the designs shown.

I will admit the muted green tones from the wool collection were very nice and a nod to a more classic era of design and materials. The wool also caught the light in a different way compared to anything else on the night, something about the thickness of the material and the slight sheen you get from it gave it a beautiful look under the runway light.

NGALI AUSTRALIA

The third designer was a bright and stylish collection by Ngali Australia.

This show was a particular favourite of mine on the night. The use of colours and lighting just married perfectly for some great images. The vintage tones and colour palette made for some striking looks too.

I liked the use of browns, greens, yellows and blues, all tying in together. I do think its great for a designer to embrace bold colours. It’s designs like this that make for a brighter and more colourful, unique world.

AJE.

Fourth onto the runway was Aje. A Melbourne-based label known for its edgy and diverse styling.

The collection showcased a remarkable variety of styles. Everything from fitted one piece dresses to denim. There was even a large floral pattern designed dress! Definitely one of the more broader based showings on the night. Which in a lot of cases is a good thing, especially for attracting people who may not be familiar with your label or designs.

MACGRAW

The Macgraw sisters (Macgraw) with there prep school 2024 collection was next on the wood paneling.

The sleek and stylish designs where quite striking, something that would catch peoples attention if worn in a street style manner. Macgraw’s collection featured an array of shiny, in-house-produced fabrics, adding a sleek and eye-catching element to the designs. The label has been going since 2012 which marks there 13th year. The last outfit (black and crystal dress) looked amazing, flowed really nicely and great to photograph too.

All in all it was shiny, moody, some aspects of gospel inspiration in there as well,

and above all else, very cool. BTW I thought the last dress was just stunning :0

Now for this years Melbourne Fashion Festival. I wanted to try some new ways of capturing the events and runways. One of them was to start doing videos to post alongside my usually fashion photography. It’s been on my mind for a while not to incorporate some videos to my coverage at fashion events. Mainly because I find video to be a important factor in capturing a deeper understanding of a larger runway event, such as the MFF.

VIKTORIA AND WOODS

My first shot was Viktoria and Woods Runway

My favourite outfit from the collection was definitely the deep red trench coat, spectacular colour!

MANNING CARTELL

Manning Cartell was the next. Celebrating 20 years of design with there: Love. Flowers. Dance. collection. The flowing silk and satin evening dresses were the highlight of the collection.

The floral dress had a nice balance of colour, although the pattern not lining up was interesting, whether or not the look was intentional or not I don’t know, but interesting to see a bold look. We also had a Netflix star on the runway. Kylah Day from the streaming tv show: Territory. Making a grand appearance (and doing an excellent job of it, too) on the runway as well.

ROMANCE WAS BORN

Last on the runway was the amazing collection by Romance Was Born.

The colour and beauty of this show was simply breathtaking. As a fashion photographer, having a runway show with big colourful outfits gives so much movement and life to the images.

The large white and heart dress worn by model: . Was stunning. It was a fitting way to end the first runway of the Melbourne Fashion Festival and kickstart the week of premium runways.