Take cover ... designers such as Camilla Franks and Akira Isogawa have launched a range of modest and stylish beach wear. Photo: Marco Del Grande
The designers Akira Isogawa, Camilla Franks and Pamela Easton and Lydia Pearson have created new "cover-up" collections designed to be thrown on over a swimsuit and take wearers from the beach to the bar.
The ranges of sundresses, kaftans and tunics offer more affordable options to the designers' main lines, and are pitched at customers over the holiday season.
"I discovered that women want to wear my designs to the beach, resort, pool or bar without always looking like the Queen of Sheba," Franks said.
Beach House by Camilla features her signature kaftans, ponchos and dresses in lighter fabrics such as cotton voile, along with oversize T-shirts made from crease-free fabric.
Prices for the diffusion line start at $99 compared with the hundreds of dollars Franks' designer offerings can run to.
"[Customers] still want to look and feel glamorous but for certain occasions more relaxed in clothing that does not break their budget," she said.
Isogawa is also pitching for seaside sales but from a more practical perspective with his new brand, Akira Beach.
"We all need to cover up in Australia because the sun is so strong," he said.
For his loose cotton and viscose dresses and tunics, the designer went back through his archives to past prints, which he reinterpreted in bright colours.
"It's a summer edition of colourful cover-ups," Isogawa said of the collection, which is priced from $150 to $250.
Take Away by Easton Pearson also features bold prints that skew it a little younger than the brand's designer label.
"It's the Easton Pearson girl on holiday ... it's fresher and a little more junior," the general manager of womenswear at David Jones, David Bush, said sales of Beach House and Akira Beach reflected a desire to look stylish during summer holidays.
"If you think back to your past summer holidays, even when you left the beach you were wandering around in a bikini or board shorts and nothing else," he said. "What it's saying now is that people are wanting to dress up a little bit more."
From The Sydney Morning Herald
