For their spring ’25 collection Romance Was Born took over the pop-up bar of the Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney and took it to prom. Or a wedding reception, as their parents might have had in the 1980s, complete with abundant pink taffeta, baby’s breath and balloons. Weddings are top of mind: Luke Sales and Anna Plunkett launched Bridal in 2021, and since then they’ve built a steady business of custom pieces for brides-to-be that are made by hand, often in upcycled, heirloom styles like Venice Crochet. Use clothes. The two found themselves returning during the production of a 1994 film. “We just kept making jokes about Muriel’s Wedding and quoting lines from the movie, and, as we do with a lot of things, it started as a joke.”
For beginners, PJ Hogan’s Muriel’s wedding A kitsch, camp, wickedly funny cult hit beloved in Australia. It’s the story of misfit, flawed Muriel escaping her small town and small-town mentality to pursue her dream of marriage. When she catches the bouquet and is harassed by the queen bees – who tell her to throw it away again because no one will marry her – Muriel embarks on a clumsy, sometimes misguided journey to free herself from her roots. But she leaves. “The whole idea of aging, there was a lot of it that related to me and the business, and then it also talks about working in fashion and aspirations,” said Sales, who has been at the helm of the label for 20 years. Will complete. Next year.
With the assistance of the National Sound and Film Archive of Australia, and using their characteristic humor and grace, the pair transposed the film’s photographs of Muriel, played by Toni Collette, in opera coat and ball gown. The salvaged wedding veil created a wavy skirt over a bustier dress with an abundance of pink taffeta bows. A faded cotton flower, used on a heart-shaped dress, was actually from an upcycled bedsheet à la Muriel. Meanwhile, Penny’s one-tier Swiss lace dress was the color of her cassette player. The words were embroidered on the dress by her longtime collaborator Meghan Pelham (who was also writing love poems for attendees). Despite the explosion of 1980s froth all wrapped up in a contemporary elegance, this pair has a knack for balance. “We like to use the word posh – we don’t want it to feel like it’s not fashionable.”
There was more: a column dress scattered with a confetti-like white palette, a cocktail dress made entirely of strings of hearts. There was a complete lack of daytime clothing and Sales made no apologies about this. “It’s definitely where we are as a brand and who we are.” The two have been re-opening some wholesale accounts since February, and operating a successful pop-up boutique, which they hint could become permanent. That they have survived the ups and downs of a tough industry and honed their fiercely optimistic and fearlessly sentimental aesthetic is a coming of age of their own. As Sales notes: “It’s in the name.”
