"Dressing Up For South East Asia" (Sydney Morning Herald, March 20, 1978)

 Sometimes blog fodder just falls into your lap—in this case literally, when I opened a book and a news clipping someone had cut out over 42 years ago fluttered out.  It's a little snapshot of late seventies fashion at its best.  These fabulous designs seem to be a far cry from the polyester and disco fashions of popular memory!

The team that will fly off soon to dazzle the East with our Couture fashion: left to right, producer Brian Hawes, model Zorica, co-ordinator Julie Bolton, models Di Parkinson, Petrina Devlin, Alan Lewis, Denise Austin; front row, models Rakanne, Steve Trgo and Dianna Gray.

By Mary Wilkinson
Fashion Editor

ONE of the most ambitious attempts to put Australian fashion on the South-East Asian map takes place in a few weeks.

For the first time, audiences in Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta will have a chance to see couture-level clothes by designers such as Mel Clifford, Hall Ludlow and Indonesian-born Goet Poespa, now living in Sydney.

Couture furs by Berhard Hammerman and special designs by Carla Zampattia and George Gross will also be show.

Emphasis will be on elegance and there won't be a bikini in sight (though Speedo have provided some stylish one-piece swimsuits).

"I am not taking a skin show," said co-ordinator Julie Bolton, who has been working on the project for many months.  "It is a haute couture fashion show."

A jungle riot of blue, green and red birds on swirling cream georgette in this John Kaldor fabric, styled by Mel Clifford into a full floating cape over handkerchief-point top and long skirt.

It will be a "welcome back" for Mel Clifford, who recently returned to designing under his own label after working for a Double Bay boutique.

He has certainly come a long way from the young boy in Echuca, 250km from Melbourne, who left his job in a bank after seeing his first ballet from a touring company.

Mel trained as a dancer in Adelaide and won a scholarship for further study in England, where he joined the London Festival Ballet.

He was with the company for nine years, and after his return home in 1966 he started designing opera and ballet costumes for the Elizabethan Trust.

However, there is little trace of a theatrical background in his couture work; all is simple, subtle and restrained.

One of the Mel Clifford Designs to be shown in Asia; pure white double georgette, bare backed, superbly cut in a John Kaldor fabric.

Sydneysiders will have a chance to see the collection before it wings off on April 9.

A gala preview will be held at the Hilton Hotel on Monday and proceeds will aid the Australian Opera Auditions Committee (NSW).