Annette
'Annette' is a hand-dyed womenswear collection exploring female liberation.
It is inspired by Australian swimmer, vaudeville actress and author, Annette Kellerman, who, in every aspect of her life, defied expectations of what it meant to be female.
She was the first woman to appear nude in film and to attempt to swim across the English Channel, pioneered synchronised swimming and repeatedly acted (and performed her own stunts) as a mermaid in films, including one of the first film's to gross $1 million, 'Neptune's Daughter' in 1914, gaining the title Australia's million-dollar mermaid'.
Moreover, tired of the restrictive swimming attire and policing of women's bodies, she pioneered the modern-day swimsuit by sewing stockings onto an undergarment and was arrested for wearing it at a beach in Boston in 1917.
Kellerman was the embodiment of what it meant to be a strong and powerful, yet feminine and sexual woman. She sort to free women from both literal and social structures and constructs, notions that are conveyed throughout this collection's fluid and asymmetrical silhouettes and metamorphic qualities.
Salvadore Dali's 1931 painting, 'The Persistence of Memory' [pictured on the right], influenced this collection's colour palette and design, through its metamorphic and surrealist lucid dreamscape.
Inspiration
Process
Models: Maddie Manuel & Lily Conlon | Designer/Maker/Photographer: Hannah Lauren Riley