Rio fashion week has that isolated element that makes it so anticipated. Being tucked away in the bottom half of the world foments creativity in labels like Coven.
Liliane Rebehy, the label's designer sees her art as knit alchemy. Look closely at this new collection and you'll see she has combined metallics, marles, pattern and brights in single pieces. No minimal easy pieces here.
She's an architectural designer, not a dressmaker, seeing clothes as housing the body. "A snail has the shell, which is its house and clothes at the same time. Besides, the whole clothes creation process also considers volumetry, space, technology, planning, drawing and construction," she says by way of translator.
The latest collection for the next northern winter has elements of the recent Balmain collection - all dripping metals, shorts skirts and fabric drapes. The gold knits bring back the gold Burberry jumper of a couple of seasons ago with it's embellished shoulders and looping lanyards and cords. Shoulders as a feature, metallics and khaki are just not going away for a while, not that there's any complaints here.
This collection has all the party dresses, hot little skirts (one of those black and gold ones please!), draping and metallic to make it so hot right now. But the amazement is in the elaborate knits. A purple, silver, black and ruby party frock? Yes please! And a four-colour gold camouflage? Hubba hubba. It's a knitwear adventure reminiscent of
Brooke Roberts who's set to show at the coming London fashion week.
Guess what? You can now buy Coven in Australia. Call 03 9416 3599.
Check out
Coven a/w 2009, on TheVine.