WINGS Fashion Festival Is Sydney’s Alternative To Fashion Week

THERE’S A NEW kid on the block in the Australian fashion events sphere — and it’s set to break barriers as a much-needed niche for independent designers. In its debut iteration from May 8 to 10, 2025, WINGS Fashion Festival will mark Sydney’s first-ever independent runway show. Alvi Chung, the creative director of renowned local label Speed, and her partner Daniel Neeson formed WINGS last year as a collective dedicated to platforming emerging designers through guerrilla fashion shows. Now, they’ll be breaking new ground with the alternative fashion event. 

The WINGS Fashion Festival stands in radical opposition to Sydney’s traditional fashion calendar, aiming to democratise the fashion space. Chung and Neeson leverage unconventional approaches to fashion to bypass the constraints and exclusivity of Sydney’s fashion scene, offering a space tailor-made for emerging designers.

The WINGS creed focuses on inclusivity, combating financial barriers posed by our country’s premiere fashion event, Australian Fashion Week — which runs from May 12 to 16 this year — with a shift towards more high-octane and concept driven fashion. The grassroots foundation recalls the early glory of London’s Kensington Markets and the Blitz Club where several renowned designers, including Australian-born Leigh Bowery, found their beginnings. WINGS is the knife’s edge slicing through Sydney’s cultural inertia.

“I thought it was a really important time considering our economic climate and the recession,” Chung previously told BAZAAR Australia. “I just felt like there weren’t enough platforms for the creative community or emerging designers.”

The WINGS Fashion Festival will offer an alternative approach to conventional runways by providing a mixed arts experience that rejects commerciality. The event will synergise artist installations, live music, and performance art alongside the runway shows. “It’s a cultural shift,” Neeson and Chung say, referring to the multi-sensory features that forge a newer, more holistic way of engaging with fashion and art. For WINGS, it’s all fire, edginess, and play. 

The lineup for the inaugural WINGS Fashion Festival boasts some of Australia’s most exciting up-and-coming labels. Among them is Melbourne-based Catholic Guilt, founded by designer Ella Jackson, whose visual language is spelled out in loops of chainmail and precious stones. Dressed in a custom Catholic Guilt gown for the 2024 NGV Gala, Julia Fox helped the label gain a cult-like global following late last year.

Related: Meet WINGS, the collective reviving Sydney’s nightlife with guerrilla fashion shows

Amiss, created by sibling duo Vanessa and Joshua Gray, will also be participating. Amiss rarefies the organic, naturally occurring beauty of the Australian landscape with the digital. Their garments are an ode to local flora, intertwined with a reverence for nature anchored by the Grays’ Sri Lankan heritage. The world of Amiss is free-spirited, unrestrained, and the bridge between two worlds. 

Jotéo, founded by Singapore-born Joash Téo draws on the gravitas of Eastern art to create historically-charged couture garments with a Western slant. His designs centre minimal yet romantic silhouettes, and have been featured in Harper’s BAZAAR Serbia. Media personalities including television host Abbie Chatfield and X-Factor winner Dami Im have also worn his designs. 

Finally, Chung’s own Speed will be presenting. Sustainability and contemporary luxury tailoring are at the heart of Speed, exemplified in Chung’s 2024 Australian Fashion Week presentation at Sydney’s SEALIFE Aquarium. Celebrities including Esquire Australia’s recent cover star The Kid Laroi, Brent Faiyaz, Jillian Nguyen, and Zindzi Okenyo have been spotted in her designs. 

If there’s one thing Chung and Neeson want you to know, it is this: WINGS is not an ordinary fashion festival. It’s a clash against everything we expect of the local fashion scene, opening a new line of dialogue on what it means to create art in our current milieu.

WINGS Fashion Festival will run from May 8 to 10 in Sydney. Discover more at their Instagram page.