A new addition to Sydney’s burgeoning fashion scene is Song For The Mute, a directional menswear label that combines Australian relaxed styling with forward thinking design. Only 3 seasons old, Song For The Mute is tipped to be the first menswear label to win the Australian Designer Award for 2011, and will be showcasing in Paris for the first time ever. Born of the creative minds of Melvin Tanaya (who studied at the Billy Blue School of Graphic Arts) and Lyna Ty (who graduated from the Accademia Italiana Di Moda in Florence in 2006), Song For The Mute is an impressive pastiche of practicality, masculinity, blended Australian and European Influences, melody and diaphanous form.

Using unique materials included boiled wool blends (this season the label uses unique blends of Australian wool for the first time) and deer skin, Song For The Mute offer something relatively unknown in Australian menswear; something that goes beyond the traditional ‘Aussie bloke,’ or even the trend driven hipster look of skinny jeans and a t-shirt. With innovation at the heart of Song For The Mute’s design credo, the structural composition of their collections echoes the designers’ propensity to adhere to “narrative and soul as well as the joy of creative culmination.”

Song For The Mute’s AW11 collection, entitled ‘Milieu,’ is an ode to the designers’ grandmothers, an exercise in rawness and natural essence.  From low crotch trousers to perfectly tailored, high-necked trench coats, Song For The Mute is elegant and refined, but powerful in its basic elemental design. With a palette of strong blacks and muted greys, Milieu is powerfully emotional, a collection for those who dare to dream bold, sartorial dreams.