The good, the bad and the brave: Aje and Christopher Esber in Paris

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Giorgio Armani and Gianni Versace; Naomi Campbell and Tyra Banks. For every good boy or girl in fashion there’s a reputedly bad designer or model, scowling at the end of another runway, preparing to start a fashion feud. For a moment, it looked like that might be the case with Australian designers on the last day of Paris Fashion Week.

Christopher Esber is at the top of the class when it comes to local talent, having been accepted on the official schedule of Paris Fashion Week two years ago. However hours before his show, Aje designers Edwina Forest and Adrian Norris gatecrashed the calendar with their appropriately named off-schedule show Rebel Rebel.

Rather than a schoolyard brawl, the result was a win for Australian fashion.

Designer Christopher Esber with a model wearing his new Specsavers glasses.

The reserved Esber, looking more brooding and bookish than usual with stylish spectacles, courtesy of a deal with Specsavers that sees his name join those of Alex Perry, Collette Dinnigan and Vivienne Westwood on a range of eyewear, delivered a sophisticated collection bristling with barely repressed sexiness.

“There’s a rawness, a lot of kind of disarray in the fabric developments, and things are a bit more messed up,” Esber said following the show.

Christopher Esber at Paris Fashion Week.

It’s difficult to imagine the always immaculately dressed Esber in a Speedo or board shorts, but he says that the starting point for this collection was the beach.

“It’s how a woman would tuck a T-shirt or a towel into her bikini or into her briefs, and the play of clothing and undergarments.”

We’re guessing the tops that looked like twisted wind-chimes drew inspiration from a beach near Byron Bay, but Esber has always marched to the beat of his own bongo drum.

For his Specsavers range, featured on the runway and arriving in stores next week, Esber took a break from watching waves to look at his core collection.

“I was with the team in Milan doing sourcing, the acetates and the lenses, and it is quite similar to picking fabrics, buttons and trims and finding a way to make them work together.”

More importantly, the collection allows Esber to connect with customers intimidated by coats with soaring thigh slits and barely there mustard briefs.

“Being with Specsavers is cool in the sense like that they’re iconic and can reach customers that might not even know about my brand, or afford to buy into other pieces of the brand,” Esber says. “It’s pretty cool to be part of that stable and that legacy of the brands still working with them.”

Not surprisingly, the sunny beach credentials of Queenslanders Edwina Forest and Adrian Norris were more obvious. There was very little rebellion in the pretty pink flower dresses with sheer skirts, on-trend double denim and pastel lace trim party dresses.

A leather jacket on top of a maxi-dress was less a raised middle finger to conservatism and more a come hither gesture to the cash registers.

Among the potent mix of denim, lace and exaggerated silhouettes, there were nods to the well-honed design language of Zimmermann, who showed yesterday.

Zimmermann has walked so Australian labels can run their own race on the Paris catwalk.

The sequin floral dresses that closed the show were 100 per cent Aje. Paris has pushed the partnership of Norris and Forest even further than their standout show at Australian Fashion Week in May.

“I think that Eddie and I pushed ourselves with the craftsmanship and the designs and the details to make sure that we could stand next to everyone else over here at Paris Fashion Week,” Norris said. “I hope that we do it justice.”

“We feel like we’ve been working on techniques over the past 20 years and the team and the experience we have got us to a place where I feel very, very proud of what we showed. It felt natural and evolved,” says Forest.

With a sprawling retail empire in Australia, Aje has its eyes on developing international markets. Expect Aje to enter the official schedule and drop any pretense of rebellion.

“We have definitely cracked the Australian market and our next target is international and showing up in the same way that we show up in Australia, internationally and especially in Europe,” Norris says. “That’s why Paris was our focus.

“It’s always been part of the journey. I’ve met with the Federation de la Haute Couture et de la Mode many times and we just had the president, Pascal Morand, at the parade come backstage to congratulate us on such a beautiful collection. That’s the way it works over here in Paris. You take small steps towards proving yourself.”

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