Ellery casts a spell with the launch of her mysterious Autumn/Winter collection L'ile Noire.

Ellery has taken a dramatic departure from her purist debut collection and travelled into her own private underworld.

L'ile Noire is a magical landscape where the peace and love of 1970’s are re-interpreted with sexy and structured silhouettes. It’s a time and space Ellery has dared to imagine iconic French photographer Guy Bourdin photographing the be-witching Anita Pallenberg. We glimpse in Ellery’s outifits a private soiree, where rock’s dark muse toys with French elegance and chic.

In turn, her collection invites women to access their own L'ile Noire.

“For this collection I was inspired by strong, powerful women from the 70s. The fabrics and colours are about tapping into our spiritual fantasy and connection to nature… but they are also tom-boyish and confident,” Ellery explains.

Ellery doesn’t just design clothes, she hears and feels them too. Woven into each garment are The Door’s sweet sounds and spiritually rich colours of American Indian colours. Her creative brew includes ‘Hair’ the musical and a woman’s connection to nature.

In fact, the entire collection is about creativity at night… with enough luxury fabrics to help the wearer dream. It’s all part of Ellery’s escape plan from a life less ordinary; to cocoon women in cloaks of wool cashmere, wool felt, patent leather and suede, silk, black and grey denim in black, charcoal and indigo with splashes of paw paw, turquoise, ochre and crème.

Her love of powerful women who rocked the 70s includes her mother Debra Ellery, who she has collaborated with on the fabric for this collection. Debra Ellery is a textile designer based in Perth and has contributed to the range with fabric that will be exclusive to ELLERY. Some exciting hand dying silk with natural resins, a technique that Debra has developed over the years.

Ellery loves drawing on her family’s artistic blood. “I’ve always being surrounded by a legacy of strong womanhood. My mother is a great artist and my childhood was spent surrounded by art, attending gallery openings and the belief in building a craft. I’ve translated this world in my fashion range and ultimately each garment.”

Her modern take on a 70s peace child styled extends to L'ile Noire’s hair and make-up.

ELLERY will show her Autumn/Winter collection at a new underground gallery space owned by Roslyn Oxley. A chic new gallery space that has been provided by Rear Window locations, a boutique locations agency specialising in finding unique venues for film, television and fashion industries. 

Scanlan & Theodore believe fashion exists as much for art as it does for aesthetic.

For this uniquely independent Australian brand the artistic process is truly valued. Its collaborative projects have become a vehicle to fuse and expand Scanlan & Theodore’s very DNA with that of the creative’s own.

Inspired by this love of fine arts, Scanlan & Theodore opened itself up to the most intimate of interpretations yet through commissioning renowned photographer Nan Goldin to capture what creative director Gary Theodore describes as “the brand’s enduring exploration of the feminine artistic spirit.”

“We thought it time to communicate how we were feeling and looking at Nan’s work we felt we had similar values, being uncompromising, extremely considered and sometimes complex yet having ideals of simplicity and honesty,” says Theodore. “When you look at Nan’s work, it’s simplistic at first glance but after a while the more you look the more you see, there’s a lot going on, emotionally."

“Our designs exist to reflect the integrity of a woman and resonate her unique individualism. Collaborating with Nan Goldin charged this ethos to its highest frequency.”

Like a secret date in history, the brand’s enigmatically chic designs collided with supermodel Erin Wasson’s carnal beauty before Goldin’s camera to capture Scanlan & Theodore’s Spring/Summer 2010/11 campaign. Erin Wasson, chosen by Goldin for the project, appears like a Botticelli punk, her unrelenting beauty personifies the brand.

“Nan’s photographs of Erin elicit such tension and intimacy we immediately feel fashion’s transporting powers,” says Trevor Stones, creative director for Scanlan & Theodore special projects. “Nan doesn’t compromise; she approaches all projects with pure integrity. Scanlan & Theodore shares this philosophy.”

Goldin photographed Wasson within the forgotten grandeur of mansion in Yonkers, New York State. Through Goldin’s intimate lens we glimpse Wasson’s instinctual glamour draped in Scanlan & Theodore’s dirty pink blazer and a caramel washed sheath. Wasson is at once sensual without pretence styled in a burnt orange suede tank paired with a Baroque gold pant.

Goldin played on the tension between Wasson’s sexual energy and the ghosts of history. We see a fiercely modern woman surrounded by artificial decadence that speaks volumes of how style endures whilst pretence fades.

She proved Scanlan & Theodore’s perfect muse says Theodore, “Erin resonates unrelenting modernity despite the location’s decayed sumptuousness.”

“I think everything was just a perfect contradiction to be put all those saturated, beautiful colours of the collection up against these grimy, peeling walls, I think in itself told a really cool story,” Erin Wasson says.

You know fashion can be very much, I don’t want to use the word contrived, but a lot of that magicalness sometimes is taken away from a fashion shoot because everybody has a very specific idea in their mind of what they want and with Nan it’s really about like the intimate connection… I found provoking, and it was a whole journey. It didn’t feel disposable it felt, you know really, really special… Nan wants the absolute pure essence of her subject in all aspects.”

Wasson’s essence burns through the fabric into Goldin’s lens, and we discover fashion can be our spirit’s unspoken language.

“I think fashion can be considered as vacuous, real situations are what we strive for so our selection process for example to work with a Nan Goldin is to take the focus away from fashion but somehow keeping in the spotlight, it’s about a subtlety that I think makes our label exist above fashion,” says Theodore.