From the West to the East coast, Carly Hunter has traversed the country to lay new roots in Australia’s fashion capital, Melbourne. A relative new comer to the fashion scene, ‘XI’ is Hunter’s first collection as a permanent Melbournite, and it’s evident that her sea change has only bolstered her talent which is now spilling over brim-full edges and absconding with the hearts of style afficionados everywhere. Intelligent, urban and organic, Hunter’s work is a pastiche of contradictions and hidden beauty, and her passionate craftsmanship is somewhat of a rarity in an increasingly gluttonous market.  

For winter, XI picks up where Hunter’s Spring/Summer collection left off, employing all the signature Carly Hunter elements and combining them with some distinctly new ones. Based on a palette of deep midnight blue, black and grey, XI incorporates soft peach and pristine white to add femininity to Hunter’s sombre base colour scheme. Juxtaposing, as she does, heavy wool with feather light sheers and slinky silks, Hunter explores the hinterland between weight and weightlessness to create a collection that is congruently the former and the latter- a surprising anomaly in a fashion landscape that is seldom more than it appears on its surface.  

Carly Hunter continues in this tradition of contradiction with her silhouettes. Drapery appears as a key element in the designer’s work, but always offset by sharp angles and structural sewing. XI is at once as flowing and malleable as it is tough and unmoving, a testament to the sheer force of the designers chameleon like ability- her work can be romantic, feminine, soft and sexy on moment or hard edged, powerful, solid and purposeful the next.