Bad Apples Runway - Melbourne Fashion Festival 2026

Bad Apples Runway at PayPal Melbourne Fashion Festival, celebrating self-taught designers, dropouts and career-switchers redefining fashion

Bad Apples Runway Celebrates Dropouts, Career-Switchers, and Self-Taught Makers in a Bold Festival Debut

Melbourne is about to witness a runway that breaks every rule. Bad Apples Runway arrives at PayPal Melbourne Fashion Festival Independant Programme as a showcase for designers who built their craft outside the classroom. The event features self-taught makers, university dropouts, and career-switchers who built their skills outside the fashion school system.

The designers step away from the usual systems to present original runway garments created specifically for this event, not pre-made stock. Each look is produced with intention and built for the moment, giving the audience something genuinely new to see.

The show also rethinks casting by featuring models of all sizes, backgrounds, and levels of experience. The aim is to show that runway presence is not defined by measurements or industry conventions but by energy, story, and individuality.

The runway is staged inside Waxy Apples, a vintage store located in a former bank. The show winds through the fixed racks and transforms a functioning retail floor into an immersive fashion environment. It is the first time a working store has been used as a live runway during the Festival, giving the event an atmosphere that feels raw, intimate, and unmistakably Melbourne.

Bad Apples Runway offers a fresh alternative to traditional showcases and opens space for voices that are rarely spotlighted. It presents a version of fashion that is inclusive, unpredictable and grounded in real creativity.