Australian label Romance Was Born are a vibrant force to be reckoned with in the local industry and judging from the press surrounding their S/S'11 collection, the design duo are set to shake up fashion all around the world. Set in the statuesque environs of Sydney University, Romance Was Born unleashed ‘Renaissance Dinosaur’ at Rosemount Australian Fashion Week to a cacophonous wave of applause and excitement. Rich in history and steeped in colour, the show made couture from ready to wear pieces, which, when decontextualised, revealed amazing artistry and creative vision. From crochet mini skirts paired with spangled tops to lithe, silken ensembles digitally printed with the face of a cello stood out, Romance Was Born seemed to cover a spectrum of fashion genres, not one of them liable to blend in with the crowd. Dazed Digital caught up with the brains behind the romance, Luke Sale and Anna Plunkett, to talk Medici Florence, evolution and the volcano dress…

Dazed Digital: So what has Romance Was Born been up to since Dazed last caught up with you?
Romance Was Born: We have been working on our summer collection/show "Renaissance Dinosaur" pretty much every second of every day!

DD: What was your inspiration for the S/S'11 collection?
Romance Was Born: A crystal portal from the dinosaur era to Medici Florence where the dinosaurs were let loose to attack the upper class and set the lower class free!

DD: The show at RAFW was spectacular. How important is the relationship between performance and fashion for RWB?
Romance Was Born: Oh it's not...we don't see the word "performance" in what we do...way too many people throw around words like 'theatrical' and 'dramatic' in regards to us for our liking. Our vision at the end of the day is fashion and that's what we do.  Performance is theatre, we are a fashion brand, and we think it's important to put on a show at the end of the day- that's fashion.

DD: Tell us about your couture pieces like the volcano- what inspires this and what do they mean to the RWB repertoire?
Romance Was Born: We always have done one off pieces, its how we started.  The volcano came about a while ago... we actually wanted to build a volcano for the set, so I guess the dress was the compromise!  The one offs are just as important to our brands vision as our Ready To Wear collection, that's what inspires the RTW.

DD: Do you feel a lot of pressure to always outdo yourselves at RAFW?
Romance Was Born: We don't think about it like that.  We just want to grow our brand and become a really strong business.  The show is the most exciting part for us each year, where everything comes together.  Each year it is an evolution from the last year, a different story altogether, so it’s hard to compare it to the last.  We do hope that in our own worlds that we have progressed and done something that we can be even more proud of.

DD: Where to from here?
Romance Was Born: We need to organise our studio- it’s a bomb site!  We're looking forward to getting our orders in and hopefully some new exciting accounts...we are planning a presentation for the summer collection in Europe...we're hoping.... and we feel like we've deserved a small break....but we also want to keep going on the creative stuff, sort of like when you're on a roll it just is easiest to keep going, we'll see