Her $400 dress has a cult following. Meet the Melbourne designer doing things her way

Designers fret about the smallest things: buttonholes, hemlines, fabric and the correct shade of red, so you would think that Effie Kats would be panicking about staging her first runway show in Melbourne, in the middle of Milan Fashion Week, where Fendi, Prada and Versace dominate.

As far as Kats is concerned, the only people who matter to her rapidly growing business were sitting in the front-row in the Long Room of the Immigration Museum on Thursday morning. Dedicated customers, local buyers and friends of the brand, including Rebecca Harding and Toni Maticevski, were more important than having Anna Wintour in the audience.

And Kats already knew that her dresses were in the right shade of red.

“This is about connecting with our customer,” Kats said. “In a social media world more and more brands are reaching out through their Instagram posts. I’m taking it back to the roots of what fashion is really about. The touch, the feel… it’s immersive.”

In Milan this week, Gucci designer Demna rejected a runway show, instead presenting a film for his debut as creative director, but making movies was never Kats’ dream.

“I used to read my dad’s [tailor Bill Katsaounis] copies of Vogue and I was a part of the runway shows for his label Classic Formal when I was growing up. It’s something that has always been in my life.”

Kats launched her namesake brand in 2018, following the demise of her first fashion business Zachary. Until this big budget show she had been cautious with money, waiting until this year to launch in David Jones and The Iconic. The success of those launches helped pay the bills for the flotilla of models, make-up artists and metres of white carpet for the runway show.

“We launched Effie Kats into six stores, and after only six months of trading it’s now in 12 stores,” said Abbey Mudie, David Jones womenswear buyer. “Our customers love the signature crepe fabric for event dressing. The Verona dress is our bestseller and its under $400 price tag helps.”

In Melbourne, the Verona dress sells strongly in black – “shock horror,” says Kats – while in Sydney, it’s popular in red.

Another difference Kats has noticed is that Melbourne designers rarely stage runway shows.

“It’s more of a Sydney thing during Australian Fashion Week, but I’m happy to be doing this in my city. I couldn’t do it in Melbourne Fashion Festival or Melbourne Fashion Week because they are group shows, where everything is decided by a stylist. I’m too much of a control freak.”

Kats’ show was a slick presentation of the designer’s socialite silhouettes, where classic shapes are given a subtle contemporary twist and enough stretch in the fabric to survive a long Saturday night.

Now Kats can celebrate by sitting back and watching the sales figures.

“Runway moments spark conversation,” said Arabella McNamee, senior buyer at The Iconic. “We’ve seen first hand how that buzz translates into strong sell-through.”

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