For their spring ’25 collection, Romance Was Born took over the Museum of Contemporary Art pop-up bar in Sydney and brought it to the ball. Or a wedding reception, like their parents would have had in the 1980s, filled with an abundance of pink taffeta, baby’s breath and balloons. Weddings are a top priority: Luke Sales and Anna Plunkett launched bridal wear in 2021 and have since had a steady trade in bespoke pieces for brides-to-be that are handmade, often using upcycled, heirloom fabrics such as Venetian crochet. The duo found themselves returning to a 1994 film while making it. “We kept making Muriel’s Wedding jokes and quoting lines from the film, and, as with a lot of the things we do, it started as a joke. “
For the uninitiated, PJ Hogan’s Muriel’s wedding is a kitsch, camp, wildly funny cult hit, beloved in Australia. It follows the misfit, flawed Muriel who escapes her small town, and small town mentality, to pursue her dream of marriage. Muriel is harassed by the Queen Bees when she catches the bouquet – who tell her to throw it again because no one will marry her – and goes on a clumsy, sometimes misleading journey to free herself from her roots. “The whole idea of coming of age, there was so much in it that relates to me and also to the company, and it also talks to us who work in fashion and ambitions,” said Sales, who celebrates the 20th anniversary of the label will celebrate. next year.
With the help of the National Sound and Film Archive of Australia, and using their trademark wit and grace, the pair transposed film stills of Muriel, played by Toni Colette, onto opera gowns and ball gowns. Salvaged bridal veils formed a fluttering skirt on a bustier dress with an abundance of pink taffeta ribbons. A faded cotton floral print, used on a heart-shaped dress, was actually upcycled sheets à la Muriel. Meanwhile, the peony of a layered Swiss lace dress was the color of her cassette player. The dress was embroidered with words by their longtime collaborator Meaghan Pelham (who also wrote love poems for the attendees). All this was brought together in a contemporary elegance, despite the explosion of ’80s froth, something the couple has a talent for. “We like to use the word chic, we don’t want it to feel like it’s not fashion.”
And there was more: a column dress covered with white sequins like confetti, a cocktail dress made entirely of heart chains. There was a complete absence of daywear, and Sales makes no apologies about this. “It’s absolutely where we are as a brand and who we are.” The two have revived a number of wholesale accounts as of February and are operating a successful pop-up boutique that they suspect could become permanent. That they have survived the ups and downs of a tough industry and honed their wildly optimistic and unabashedly sentimental aesthetic is their own coming of age. As Sales notes, “It’s in the name.”