SYDNEY, Apr 26, 2006/ FW/ --- Today as autumn temperatures cooled the air outside Sydney based Mercedes Australasian Fashion week opened in style, with spring summer 2006 sizzling on the runway as Akira, Aurelio Costarella and Lisa Ho took the spotlight and new comers Cybele and Gail Sorronda begged close attention.

Akira offers singular melancholic charm using pleats and gathers to mould poetic shapes while gathers reminisce times of elegance in a celebration of modernism and an oriental heritage.

Flowing feminine layers of fabric are stripped back leaving gentle visions of delicacy and suggestions of blue skies and bright yellow bursts are sewn into a kimono worn over cotton pants, or silk organza garden birds that dance on a long linen dress.

Volume is added and taken at will in what seems easy and natural in silk chiffon puff jackets, origami skirts and cotton jersey. Beauty and simplicity make Akira one of Australia’s special exports.

Aurelio Costarella was born in another time and surely has many past lives as each of his designs take on a singular life and is bathed in sheer beauty.

Chandeliers and daydreams make magic believable as he tailors unironed fabrics and layers vintage net. Costarella’s attention to detail is outstanding as ruffles on skirts and tops add volume and silver slithers and beads decorate a colour palette of cream and lightness while he reserves black only for evenings.

His caplets and lace are must haves for pure elegance worn over belted waist looks and dragon tail fairy tale hemlines on skirts. The Mirror Mirror spring summer 2006 collection is intricate with vintage loveliness.

Lisa Ho is the Australian queen of the printed summer dress and just as her invitation suggested, a plastic half butterfly wing contained in a little black box, summer is long and hot but begs freedom and lightness, just like her dresses.

Seductive and mysterious, 70’s long hemlines touch the floor and 80’s glances transform the Ho spring summer 2006 collection made of lean and long gowns into a celebration of feminine modernity.

The upper body is structured in a bodice or beaded into a halter, waists are belted high breaking away from the boxy up and down but rather add shape and womanly form.

Metallic gold and silver sparkle on light airy georgette and silk crepe while butterfly wings flutter in panels to match the long necklaces of keepsakes and romance that hang to the knee.

New Zealand designer Cybčle Wiren who showed in the Ready to Wear 1 group show should be followed carefully. Contemplating movement and flight she combines futuristic hybrids with feminine lines.

Intergalactic beams of light offer new pop art prints on precise geometrical cuts in a simple but accurate colour palette that glows as it is offset by pure black offering hope met by science.

Gail Sorronda in Ready to Wear 2 was decisive and distinctive. In a palette of pure black and pure white there is no room for shades of grey.

Gathers, ruffles and empire lines make up a wardrobe of mysterious urban wear that is defined by delicate feminine flow and aggressive precision cutting that crops and plays with varied volume, anticipating Sorronda as a young designer who is destined to go places.