Fashion Week: Yvonne Bennetti’s ‘70s Sirens

Hippy chicks, rock stars and military lasses that looked more than happy to crack a whip were the order of the evening at Yvonne Bennetti.

The only problem with raising the bar is that you raise expectations from that day forward. After blowing my mind with the glamour of last year’s show, I found myself wanting even more from this one…

There were plenty of visual treats to go round in this collection – Yvonne did her usual job of producing show-stopping evening dresses and truly fantastic coats. For the coats, military inspiration was a strong theme with red and black coats emblazoned with gold buttons.

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Image by Michael Ng/Air New Zealand Fashion Week.

The coats were elegantly waisted with attached belts cinching at the waist. Of particular note was an absolutely divine pale mint coat with lovely rounded pocket detail. I found it a shame that this delightful colour was just a one-off piece and there were no more mint coloured outfits to follow.

Perhaps Yvonne felt it a little too Spring, but I would have thought it a great path to go down for a unique take on what is often a gloomy winter colour palette. This wasn’t to be the only one off though – a faux fur leopard print bomber jacket (a little Outrageous Fortune, but I still liked it) and a red houndstooth print coat threatened to continue their themes, but never did. Other coats I had my eye on were the super stylish coats with the fur cuff and collar detail.

Colours that were strong throughout the collection were: black, gold, and rich royal purple – as well as the odd bright electric blue, orange (both used in pretty satin dresses) and sunshine yellow (most notably used on a very pretty layered ‘60s style ruffle dress with a beaded trim at each layer giving the dress a certain je ne sais quoi.)

Rock chic was a strong theme, with fabulous but clearly exceedingly uncomfortable fetish shoes (this was the first and hopefully last time I will see a model actually crying in pain on the catwalk!), studded satin or leather pants and lashings of leather. Yvonne has taken pants back to the hipster shape, but don’t think your curves will get off lightly – they were sprayed on slinky, so perfect bottoms only need apply!

Yvonne makes a great statement dress and there were plenty to choose from in this range; one-shouldered Halston-inspired dresses are back on the fashion radar after a long period of retirement and like many other designers at this year’s Fashion Week she made a statement with exposed zips. Clear winners in the dress department were an utterly divine red ruffled silk mini dress, with the ruffles going all the way around the neck and a stunning black mini with ostrich feathers forming the base of the dress. You may not want to sit down in either, but you’d look damn hot striking a pose and I seriously coveted both of these pieces.

You can always rely on Yvonne to bring out the best in her girls and they really looked like they were having a great time strutting their stuff (except for the aforementioned weepy lass that is). Sultry sirens must have been the brief for leading makeup artist Nikki Lovrich as she and her team transformed the girls into serious seductresses with heavily smokey eyes and seriously glossy nude lips. Long hair that cascaded into softly-styled waves down the models’ backs was enough to make me vow to grow my hair again!

As one would expect, the show was glamorous, stylish and very cool.

For more, check out fashionz.co.nz

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