On day two of Australian Fashion Week, Aje took over The Lands by Capella, washed every surface in soft pink, and showed Resort 27 'Siren' — one of the most talked-about runway moments of the week. Hair was directed by Mary Alamine, Royals co-owner and O&M CØR.creator.
The look was undone, salt-kissed texture with natural movement. The Journal called it a "salt-kissed softness" that felt "both raw and elevated".
Salt-kissed softness that felt both raw and elevated.
The Journal, AFW 2026 Day Two Highlights
The collection it had to answer to
Hair direction is never a free brief. It is a response to a collection, and 'Siren' had a specific argument to make. Aje describes the collection as drawing on "the elemental language of Australia, expressed through materiality, movement and motif" — rusted earth tones, sheer organza, salt-washed neutrals, a palette sitting somewhere between the coastline and the outback.
Designers Adrian Norris and Edwina Forest build the collection on a tension they name explicitly: "the tension between structure and ease", with "tailored lines softened through technique and fluid forms anchored by cut". Softness that is never passive; structure that is never rigid.
Read that brief as a hairdresser and the direction almost writes itself. Set, architectural hair would have fought the organza. Genuinely undone hair would have collapsed against the tailoring. The look had to sit in the same tension the clothes were sitting in.
Why "undone" is the hardest thing to do on a runway
Here is the part worth saying plainly, because it is the part that gets lost: texture that looks accidental is significantly harder to deliver than texture that looks deliberate.
A sleek, polished runway look is repeatable. It has a right answer. You can put six people on a bench and get twenty-five identical heads out the other side, because "correct" is visible and any deviation reads as a mistake to be fixed.
Undone has no such anchor. Every head has to look like it dried in the wind — but the same wind, on the same beach, on the same afternoon. Too little and it reads as unstyled and cheap under runway lighting. Too much and it reads as a beach-wave tutorial. And it has to survive fittings, a walk under hot lights, and the fifteen minutes between the last touch-up and the first step out.
Polished hair is judged against a standard. Undone hair is judged against whether you believe it. Belief is much harder to manufacture twenty times in a row.
What was actually on the bench
Strikingly little. The look was built on a short product list rather than a long one:
- O&M Surf Bomb — the hero product, carrying the salt-kissed texture that gives the look its name.
- Curl Curl Spray and Curl Curl Cream — working the textured hair through the show.
A three-product bench for a major runway is a statement of confidence. It means the texture is coming from technique and from hair prep, not from being propped up by product layering that would go stiff or dull under lights. It is also, not incidentally, the version of a look that a client can actually reproduce at home.
The two shows either side of it
O&M partnered three runway presentations that day, and the trio reads as a coherent point of view rather than three unrelated bookings.
- Bianca Spender Resort 27, led by John Pulitano of Headcase Hair — a restrained direction, sleek and soft and deliberately imperfect, worn with the flyaways left in rather than smoothed away.
- Courtney Zheng Resort 27, led by Sheridan Rose Shaw — a quiet edge drawn from Berlin nightlife, soft texture and lived-in movement with what was described as an intentionally anti-polished finish.
Three shows, three designers, and one shared refusal: nobody was making hair look finished. Flyaways left in. Anti-polished on purpose. Salt-kissed rather than set. That is a season-level position, not a coincidence of scheduling.
What this actually means for your appointment
Runway coverage is usually useless to the person sitting in the chair, because the look does not survive contact with a real week. This one is an exception, and here is the honest translation:
It is a cut decision before it is a styling decision
Texture like this lives or dies on how the ends are cut. Too blunt and it will not separate; too thinned and it goes wispy. If you want hair that behaves this way, the conversation starts at the cut, not at the product shelf.
It rewards second-day hair
This is the rare runway look that is genuinely better with a day of wear in it. If you have ever been told your hair "does nothing" freshly washed, this is the direction that works with that rather than against it.
The short product list is the point
Three products on a runway bench means it is reproducible. Ask your stylist to show you the Surf Bomb application on your own hair, wet, before you leave — it is a two-minute demonstration that determines whether the look survives at home.
Common questions
Will this work on fine hair?
Yes, and arguably better than on thick hair — salt-based texture adds grip and apparent volume. The risk on fine hair is over-application making it feel dry, so less product and more scrunching.
Does it work on curly hair?
The Curl Curl products in the runway kit are there for exactly that. The look is a texture direction, not a curl pattern.
Can I ask for this by name?
Ask for the Aje Resort 27 texture, or simply show this article. Mary directed it, and her team works across our salons.
The best compliment a look like this can get is that nobody can see the work. That is also the reason it takes twenty years to be able to do it.