Dion Lee deserves to be counted among the major emerging fashion talents. Without a doubt the most interesting designer to come out of Australia, where he is still based, Lee has proven over the past several seasons that he has the imagination and the skill to keep changing his game. Just when you thought he was all about magically suspended dresses and glow-in-the-dark string, he switched things up and rewrote the manual on three-dimensional printing and construction techniques. This season he opened another chapter, innovating a truly original process of felting wool to mesh to create clothes that had not only an ombré visual effect but also texture. It's no wonder Lee found his way onto the short list for this year's International Woolmark Prize.
The felting wasn't the only development here. Taking the Sydney Opera House as inspiration, Lee experimented with construction that echoed its sail-like architecture; one example of that was a series of bonded leather-and-neoprene skirts, which he'd draped from circular pieces of fabric. Then, riffing on the idea of sailing, he contemplated the effect of wind on materials: He gave a bit of unexpected lift to certain silhouettes, and developed a very cool cyclone print. Lee is a rigorous thinker. This collection wasn't as flashy as his last one, and though there was a decent amount of skin on display, it wasn't quite as sexy as his previous efforts, either. That felt like a loss, inasmuch as Lee is one of the very few designers who knows how to apply intellect to sex appeal. But there was still a lot of genuinely new thinking here, especially in the felted pieces. Those looks were so odd, and so good, you had to wish that Lee would give himself at least another season to explore the felting theme before he changes his game again.
