Perth breeds unique vision. There’s something in the water here. Time and again, our young creatives deliver work that is raw, unique, unsettling or just gobsmackingly beautiful.
Jeromy Lim produces menswear that has all of these qualities.
At the recent Perth Fashion Festival (PFF) as part of Student Runway, Lim delivered a six look capsule collection of mens clothing that was bold and directional, brave and adventurous. Ripped suiting, rough edged shirting, fur shorts and capes… it was a delicious vision.
‘It’s post-apocalyptic take on the four riders of the Apocalypse,’ Lim told OUTinPerth.
‘It has a very heavy equestrian theme with a lot of suiting and shirting. It’s all very tough, the fur cape a Napoleonic take on the cape. There are a lot of references to great war legends.’
There’s a heady mix of pirate, dandy, military and gothic. Pirate pants, leather details and incredible jackets distressed and fraying at the hems are just some of the key components to Lim’s vision, his AW12 collection Kings Die Like Other Men.
At the end of 2010, Lim was chosen alongside Celene Bridge and Alissia Gomez as three student designers to appear in The Carton, a PFF initiative. Each student was given the opportunity to create a capsule collection which they showcased this year at the opening of Student Runway.
Lim himself has spent 2011 completing his final year of fashion at Curtin University. His menswear is not, however, part of his graduate collection but rather the beginning of his own label.
‘My graduate collection in November will be a womenswear take on the same concept. So initially, in my mind, what this collection was about were these guys coming down from where it is they are coming and causing havoc.
‘The women are then forced to protect themselves. There will be a distinctness to the womenswear collection, it has elements unique to itself, but you will be able to tell that they come from the same collection.’
As soon as the graduate show happens, Lim will be packing up his life and moving to Sydney to start an internship with Akira Isogawa.
‘I was in Sydney at his store a while back and he was standing there right in front of me and I was like “Oh my God, Oh my God, it’s Akira.’. So I asked him there and then if I could apply for an internship and he told me to submit my portfolio. I did, and yeah, he must’ve liked what he saw.’
Of course, we wouldn’t have Lim’s fashion future to look forward to if it weren’t for his friends.
‘Three years ago, before I started studying fashion, I applied for a double degree in Law and Criminology. But I also decided to apply for fashion. And all my friends said to me that I should be doing fashion and shouldn’t give it up. So there you go: sometimes your friends do know best.’
As a result, Lim is all too aware that his clothes gravitate toward a dark brooding psyche.
‘A lot of my work is influenced by what happens inside the mind. I’ve always had a fascination with the darkness and the beauty the darkness has. An extension of that is studying people’s minds.
‘So when it comes to creating a collection I think of these personalities and the people who would wear my clothes and sometimes they are criminals or sometimes they are these horse riders and I always create a story for them.
‘I think that translates into that fascination I have with people and what they wear and when they’d wear that. I then become aware of how I can shift that thought into something real.’
The Curtin University graduate fashion show takes place on November 16. Jeromy Lim is due out in stores in March for Winter 2012.
Keep up to date by following www.jeromylim.com
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
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