An Australian designer is putting Wangaratta on the map in New York City.
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Melbourne-based Tara Whalley showed her new collection inspired by the North East regional city at New York Fashion Week at the iconic Canoe Studios during February.
The Wangaratta Collection features a series of prints Whalley painted while living at Wangaratta in 2022 and 2023.
Among them were a handwritten sign in someone's front yard, rhubarb $3 a bunch; wood ducks and their young in the spring flood waters; iron house numbers; oranges hung on the front fence; closed on Sunday references; and a calf driven through town on the back of a ute.
Whalley said the feedback from the public and industry had been amazing.
"One of Beyoncé's stylists said the Wangaratta print is 'dope' (good), so that's a pretty good tick of approval to me!" she said.
"The collection has been well received; one of the dresses sold as soon as it came off the runway, straight from the model's back.
"It has been amazing to be here in person, help the models and look after the details.
"The creative energy backstage is so exciting and it felt so great sending the models out in the looks; the atmosphere has been amazing!
"New York Fashion Week has blown my mind; I have met a lot of people who I have admired for a long time like Alexa Chung, Jason Wu, Caroline Vazzana and Kristen Bateman."
Whalley said Wangaratta was a special place to her as her family had roots there going back generations.
"During the war my great-grandmother moved from Myrtleford, the family farm on Whalley Lane, to Wangaratta with her children so they could be closer to school," she said.
"My great-grandmother was involved in the community and the CWA (Country Women's Association), and my great-grandfather was the president of the Wangaratta RSL.
"My grandfather and his siblings enjoyed going to the tech school, on the same street where I lived while creating the collection there."
Whalley said life was challenging for the family before they settled at Wangaratta.
"He had to trade a bag of potatoes for lodgings overnight when Wangaratta got flooded!"
The Wangaratta Collection features native wildlife, country cakes, antique treasures and even those bags of potatoes.
"They moved to Wangaratta during the war, so it was so special spending time where they would have been," she said.
"There's so many great memories all wrapped up in one print."
In February she travelled to New York City for her runway show with her mother Anne.
Whalley started her self-titled fashion brand in 2015, after returning to Australia from a year of working with war-affected Mayan weavers.
It was this time in Guatemala that formed Tara's painting practice, translating experience into artwork for fabric print and a clear direction for the basis of her fashion signature style.
Her collections were made in Melbourne with natural fibres, digitally printed to reduce environmental impact and used off-cuts to minimise waste.
The Wangaratta Collection would be available online from March, made to order in Melbourne in sizes XS-10XLovely (size 32).
