EXCLUSIVE IMAGES: Romance Was Born's Berserkergang

As its name suggests, Romance Was Born is a label shrouded in theatrical notions of creative expression. Designers Anna Plunkett and Luke Sales met as peers and rivals while studying fashion in Sydney, going on to together found one of the most luminous and eclectic labels to have emerged from Australia in recent years. Known for their spectacular runways, the duo have a more-is-more motto that acts as a hype-machine for every collection.

For antipodean S/S12 (our A/W12), Sales and Plunkett partnered with Marvel to breathe new life into the comic world's archives. The pair took to the project with flourish, producing a collection that cleverly balanced the personalities of their heroes with their own. Plunkett and Sales spoke to Dazed Digital about their superhero aspirations and explained what the heck 'Berserkergang' means.

DD: How did Berserkergang come about?
Anna Plunkett: We have always wanted to do a comic book themed collection. Marvel was the ideal partner for it; we had full access to their archives including the very earliest work. Berserkergang is a Norwegian word that means a warrior state of madness. It really resonated with how we saw the collection.

DD: The range has its obvious comic themes but everything still feels so you. How did you achieve this?
Luke Sales: We really wanted to make the prints hold their own and not rely too heavily on predictable comic themes that have been done before. There was so much influence in the collection from the worlds within the comics so reining it in was our biggest challenge.

DD: What keeps bringing you back to colour, print and general pizzazziness?
Anna Plunkett: Wow I love the word pizzazziness! Well I guess that’s just what Romance Was born is. We have always done colour and print in a really unconscious way, to us it feels normal. When we first started the label, prints weren’t something everyone was doing; now it feels quite saturated, so each collection we try and give it a new angle.

Luke Sales: Like with this collection, we really wanted to focus on the power of colour and not so much textured one off pieces.

DD: If you could be any comic book character, who would you be and why?
Luke Sales: The Silver Surfer. He can teleport, warp speed and light and can and handle extreme temperatures.