Catwalks trade on clothing with sex appeal not for sale

Source :  Melbourne Age    
Date     : 21 Jul 2001

Australia, At her most recent fashion show, models for Melbourne designer Bettina Liano hit the catwalk with breasts and buttocks bouncing, in sheer mesh tops and micro-shorts not much bigger than two sheets of A4.

Liano is renowned for her sexy, high-voltage fashion shows and sexy, high-voltage fashion. But, look for those mesh tops and micro shorts on the racks at her South Yarra shop and you won't find them.

"They're not there," says Liano. "After the show, I'll send something like that to the magazines, and they'll shoot them on some gorgeous girls, but that's about it. You wouldn't want to pay the rent from stuff like that."

See-through tops and frocks and overtly sexy fashions are a regular feature of catwalk shows lately, but they don't sell at retail level. Mark Burnett, of local label Princess Highway, says: "They aren't what I'd call reality pieces. Audiences might look at them and say `hey, beautiful', but they're not going to wear them."

But, maybe it doesn't matter. Karen Webster, head of RMIT's fashion department, says sex is part of the catwalk's new purpose and that's not always about sales any more.

"Traditionally, the catwalk was there to sell product to a customer. But it's more aspirational than informative now; it's saying; `If you buy this, you'll get your man.' It's promoting a concept more than a product, and it has to compete using shock tactics and sex."

Less than five years ago, a see-through top could make a fashion show audience gasp. Now, they're commonplace and not an eyelid bats when they appear.

The audiences have also changed from mostly girls and women previewing product for a fashion shopping spree, to often rowdy, mixed crowds, out to be entertained as much as informed about what's in for spring. Retail-based events like the Melbourne Fashion Festival, Spring Fashion Week and the Wella Australian Designer Collections trade on this new role of fashion.

"It's like another sexual revolution and it's being youth lead," says events director for the Wella Australian Designer Collections, Valentina Jovanoska. She sees fashion shows' overt sexuality as evidence that Australia is growing up. "We're coming to terms with sexual behavior, or at least, younger people are. It's becoming more like Europe."

Liano has a simpler theory. "The whole (fashion) industry is part of show biz," she says. "And, if I tend toward sexy shows, it's because that's what I'm known for and that's what people find more entertaining and exciting."

Liano is also convinced of a direct link between sex and the appeal of fashion shows to a mixed audience. "Men wouldn't even be interested unless there was that element. In fact, I don't think women would be either. We all want it."

Gwendolynne Burkin, of the Gwendolynne fashion label, says she first noticed how sex works on an audience at a fashion show by local menswear designer Arthur Galan, of AG: "I went with a girlfriend and, we were so surprised! It was very sexy; we were quite titillated. All these beautiful young guys - my heart rate just kept going up."

Burkin maintains that sexuality and sensuality on the catwalk are two very different qualities that are regularly confused. At her Australian Fashion Week show, she included a webbed top made from her sponsor Autore's pearls that left the model's breasts otherwise completely bare. Her intention was sensuality. "I chose a model with very white skin and red hair - I didn't put the pearls on a tanned, blonde bombshell - that would have sent a different message. I was making a statement about women's beauty, not sex."

Despite Burkin's and other designers' best intentions, there is no doubt of the intentions of media photographers, whose shutters make a louder din than usual every time bared breasts or bouncing buttocks appear. "There's a fine line between the sensuality I express, and sexuality," Burkin says. "But the men - and photographers at those shows are mostly men - don't really get it."

Does it matter, though? "Oh well, I suppose, it gets them snapping - that can't be bad."