Ben Pollitt, designer of Friedrich Gray, secured his specialty spot at a neo urban gothicist show last night, that featured plenty of grease and a star model's return.

Emma Balfour closed the moody, slick and slashed collection in a floor-length digitally printed jersey dress.

In the nineties, Balfour graced the covers of iD, Mademoiselle and featured in ad campaigns for Gap and DKNY. In her younger days she was the pouty be-fringed ingenue. Now she has a sexy seriousness that only comes with age.

Balfour's closing dress was part of a collection that makes the most of modern stretch leather, gossamer fine crepe, bias cut jersey, silk layers and slashing. While the audience was expecting and attuned to the dark morbidity, Pollitt shocked them out of their comfort zone with bright orange and aqua pieces, and wild digital prints.

Friedrich Gray started Rosemount Australian Fashion Week without recourse to retrogression. If the collections continue in this vein, come next spring and summer, Australian fashion fans may well be out of the comfortable haze of nostalgia we tend to slip into.